Sleeveheads' Reid Cooper on stage at BASSINTHGRASS
It’s confirmed! Teen band Sleeveheads from Nhulunbuy will support legendary Australian band Mental As Anything!
Julie Cooper – mother of Sleevehead Reid Cooper (pictured above) says, “Sleeveheads will be supporting Mental As Anything on November 6th at Hindle Oval, Nhulunbuy, which will be a FREE music festival, held in the town of Nhulunbuy, presented by Gove FM.”
To raise the funds to get The Mentals to town, Gove FM is raffling two tickets to the Brisbane Bon Jovi concert on Decmeber 14. Julie also says there are still “heaps of raffle tickets… and we would love to get a Darwin crowd for the music festival. Its going to be a huge weekend for Gove!”
Sleeveheads: L-R, Brandon Peckhman, Reid Cooper, Roy Kellaway, Nelson Browne & Wilson Liu. Pic: NT News online.
High school friends Brandon Peckham (drums), Nelson Browne (bass), Wilson Liu (keyboard), Roy Kellaway (guitar/vocals), and Reid Cooper guitar/vocals) are Sleeveheads. The band exploded out of the blue in April this year (well, the very northern-est part of the Northern Territory), when they won the inaugural Battle Of The School Bands competition.
The competition was run by the NT Government across the Top End, to give one local high school band the chance to to play at BASSINTHEGRASS on May 22, the NT’s biggest outdoor music festival event, held in Darwin.
Sleeveheads from Nhulunbuy was that band. They beat 7 other finalists – and 19 bands in total from across the Top End – to become the very first winners of the competition. They shared the BASSINTHEGRASS bill with Silverchair, Jessica Mauboy, Empire Of The Sun and Hilltop Hoods and other top interstate and local acts. Not bad for a band who only got together in February!
According to Sleeveheads’ MySpace, “the name ‘Sleeveheads’ was created when a classmate Sam Buttel put his arm in his shirt and his head through his sleeve and the rest was history. Sam is now the band’s mascot and first original Sleevehead.”
Sleevehead Reid Cooper, on the big screen at BASSINTHEGRASS.
After BASSINTHEGRASS, Sleeveheads “performed at Nhulunbuy’s Little Day Out during Youth Week and have been booked to perform in several local clubs and venues across town. The boys have received a lot of local support.” They also report on Facebook that they are recording new tracks and will be attending the 2010 Darwin iNTune Music Conference in August. Then it’s back to more recording, school, then the mega-Mentals show on November 6 – a big year by anyone’s standards!
Music NT: You got together in February of this year. What prompted you all to form a band?
Sleeveheads: We all go to school together and after jamming only once and hearing about Battle of the School Bands we decided to form a band to enter the competition.
MuNT: How do you know each other?
Back: Wilson Liu, Roy Kellaway, Brandon Peckham. Front: Nelson Browne & Reid Cooper. Pic: Sleeveheads
SH: Roy and Nelson grew up together in Yirrkala. Nelson and Brandon are also friends and Roy met Brandon through Nelson. The three of us formed a band in 2008. When Reid came to our school in Nhulunbuy this year he joined our band and then Wilson jumped aboard to complete the band.
MuNT: How would you describe your music? And are you influenced by the Indigneous bands in and around Nhulunbuy?
SH: Indie rock/pop… We are developing our own style, although there are some good Indigenous bands in Gove.
MuNT: Which other bands and musicians do you count as your influences?
SH: The Wombats, Kings of Leon, The Cure.
MuNT: What kind of music did you want to make, when you started the band?
SH: It just kind of grew organically.
MuNT: Do you have any particular music mentors? (Roy’s Dad Stu Kellaway is in Horse Trank and was in legendary NT band, Yothu Yindi).
SH: Stu is a key mentor for the band and so is Tim Webb, our music teacher.
MuNT: Can you tell us about some of your best gigs you’ve played so far, other than BITG?
SH: A gig we did at the Arnhem Club in Nhulunbuy and a fundraiser at the Town Hall, which had a huge turnout.
Sleeveheads play BASSINTHEGRASS 2010
MuNT: Have you been amazed at your success so far – you’ve only been together a few months and you a) won Battle of the School Bands and then b) played at BASSINTHEGRASS?
SH: Yeah – it’s pretty amazing. It feels great to be playing with a bunch of guys that get on so well.
MuNT: What was the reaction of your mums and dads when they heard you were playing at BITG?
SH: They were very proud of us and thought it was a fantastic opportunity.
MuNT: What was it like playing BITG? Can you give us a bit of a snapshot of the day?
SH: It was so hot. The atmosphere was amazing and it was great to see friends from Gove in the crowd. It was great being backstage with the other bands and we met some really cool people.
MuNT: What does it mean to be a band from Nhulunbuy? ie What’s good about it, ‘challenging’ about it?
SH: We get a huge amount of community support and we all live close to each other. As we are so remote it is hard to get our music out there, that’s why getting an interview like this is so great.
MuNT: What are your ambitions with the band? And do you think you’ll have to leave the NT to ‘make it big’?
SH: The Darwin music scene is really good so we would like more exposure in Darwin. However if we really want to make it big we will probably have to venture out of the Territory.
MuNT: Sleeveheads is a great name – how did it come about?
SH: Our friend does a thing at school where he sticks his head through his shirt, and we thought it was funny. We called him Sleevehead and then thought that would be a good name for a band.
MuNT: And are you planning on doing a photo shoot holding your favorite albums over your heads? (Ed’s Note – Sleeveheads is also a web movement, where people have their photograph taken holding album covers over their heads, that have the face of their favorite rock or pop star on them. See right…)
And if you were to do that shoot, which album would you each hold over your faces?
SH: Maybe…
Reid – Jimi Hendrix (Axis: Bold As Love); Roy – James Brown (Superbad); Others – don’t know
MuNT: Please finish this sentence.. “In five years time Sleeveheads will be…”
SH: “…five years older!”
Check out Sleeveheads music on MySpace, and visit the Sleeveheads photo album on the Music NT Forum.
Read more about Sleeveheads winning Battle Of The School Bands.
And for more information about the Mentals Concert and/or Raffle, contact Cheryl Sheppard, manager of Gove FM, on admin@govefm.com.au.
Wishing you all the best Reid and the band. Brilliant news x