An appearance on Top of the Pops probably wasn’t on the minds of Sleep when they recorded their magnum opus Jerusalem.
The 63-and-a-half-minute ode to marijuana comprises a single track of grindingly slow, leaden guitar sludge that makes Black Sabbath sound like The Carpenters. The stoner-rock trio were from California but their heavier-than-everything guitar sound was part created in Huddersfield (Meltham actually, but close enough) by a little company on an unassuming industrial estate.
Sounds a bit niche, you might think? It is, but in the mid-1990s Polygram, a mainstream ‘major’ record label, had big plans for Sleep.
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Sleep, consisting of singer/bassist Al Cisneros, guitarist Matt Pike and then-drummer Chris Hakius, had been touring the UK in 1992 with British doom metal band Cathedral. The American band chanced upon amplifier makers Matamp, founded in Huddersfield by Mat Mathias in 1964.
As well as ridiculous volume, Matamps had ludicrous levels of bass perfect for the down-tuned guitars that give stoner rock and doom metal their characteristic sludgy sound. Major labels of the 1980s wouldn’t have touched Sleep with a six-foot spliff but in the early 90s heavy alternative rock albums on major labels were selling in their millions.
(Image: Matamp)
Perhaps Polygram imprint London Records, whose 1990s roster included acts as edgy as East 17, Glen Medeiros and Danni Minogue, thought they could shape Sleep into something more commercial. Oh, they were wrong.
Reputedly, the band spent all of its £25,000 record label advance on Matamps.
Jeff Lewis, Matamps owner since 1991, remembers a call from the label.
“I got a call from a woman with an American voice in London. She said she had a blank cheque for £25,000 but she didn’t know who it was to or where to send it,” said Jeff.
A couple of years later, Sleep went into the studio to record their album for London. The bands’ Matamps were reputed to be so loud nobody could tolerate staying in the room in which they were being recorded.
But record they did, capturing a guitar sound of unprecedented magnitude and ferocity. The album’s sound, as non-commercial as it was, wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the hour-busting solitary ‘song’ Sleep submitted to their label. You can imagine the label executives gathered around the board room table listening in bemusement and horror.
London deemed the album – also known as Dopesmoker – unmarketable and refused to release it. Years of song writing, months of recording and a guitar sound worth upwards of £25,000 was shelved as the label worked out what could be salvaged.
The label had the album remixed and split into parts but Sleep refused to release the album in edited form. This led to a stalemate between Sleep and London and the band’s eventual breakup.
But there was a demand for Jerusalem. By 2009, four versions of the record had become available: a rare London Records promo, two bootleg versions and a version close to the original but shaved of 11 minutes. Finally in 2012, Southern Lord Records released the full definitive version which became a cult hit.
Sleep have since released another album The Sciences, an EP and two singles.
While Jeff says he enjoys some stoner rock and doom metal he listened to Jerusalem/Dopesmoker ‘reluctantly’.
But Jeff says he liked to support Sleep.
(Image: Matamp)
“We rang up the label and said we’ve made all this equipment. It would be a shame to let it go to waste,” Jeff said.
But he added: “Record labels are a law unto themselves.”
Today Matamp is a million-pound business with a cult international following. It’s in no small part down to a wildly ambitious, THC-addled record that nearly ended up in the bin.
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