{"id":2474242,"date":"2026-06-24T20:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2474242"},"modified":"2026-06-24T20:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:43:07","slug":"the-new-sound-of-sleeping-at-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-new-sound-of-sleeping-at-last\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Sound of Sleeping At Last"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the pandemic, Ryan O\u2019Neal was watching a TV show with his wife that featured a band playing a live show in a bar \u2014\u00a0the sort of thing he\u2019s spent most of his life doing as Sleeping at Last.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cGuess the percentage of how much I miss touring,\u201d he told his wife.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c25 percent?\u201d she guessed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018Minus a thousand percent,\u2019\u201d he tells me, laughing. \u201cThat is one thing that I don\u2019t miss. Just the terror that I feel every time I play these songs.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s a little sheepish about it and admits that \u201csome of my favorite moments in my career have actually been on tour,\u201d but playing live is not O\u2019Neal\u2019s favorite part of his job. Which is just as well, maybe, since Sleeping at Last feels more like a headphone band anyway. O\u2019Neal\u2019s music can feel too personal, too intimate, maybe even too delicate for the sticky floors and back row chatter of a music venue \u2014 whenever those start being available again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">No, Sleeping at Last\u2019s music is at its best when you\u2019re on your own, trying to make sense of your interior life or the world around you or maybe even the cosmos above you. O\u2019Neal uses music to map the shape of the soul, and draws lines between us, creation and the Creator. Sleeping at Last\u2019s music may be best known for appearances on shows like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Grey\u2019s Anatomy <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Private Practice<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twilight <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">soundtrack, but O\u2019Neal\u2019s fans treat his music with reverence befitting ancient choral music or holy writ. Whether it\u2019s his spiraling <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atlas <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">project \u2014 an ongoing project with a focus that starts with the origin of the universe and zooms in over time to the deepest contours of the human heart \u2014 or his <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Astronomy <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">collection that soundtracks the heavenly bodies \u2014 O\u2019Neal\u2019s approach to music sparks respect, devotion and maybe a little obsession.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Astronomy, Vol. 1\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/5wsaSNJTS4x2XhO30SD3NL?utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">O\u2019Neal treats his own music with reverence too, laboring obsessively over his music with a meticulous perfectionism that he\u2019s honed over the years. Sleeping at Last has come a long way since 2000, when they attracted the attention of Smashing Pumpkins\u2019 Billy Corgan, who helped O\u2019Neal get connected with a major label. These days, he\u2019s barely even interested in the idea of an album, as we normally think of it. His music projects are lengthy, evolving things that unveil like chapters in a book. And if Sleeping at Last\u2019s musical projects are hard to wrap your head around, well, that\u2019s probably because O\u2019Neal himself is still trying to figure it out, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>In the Beginning\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At first, Sleeping at Last was fastidious and fussy, pouring an astonishing amount of time into a trial-by-error method of songwriting in which O\u2019Neal would road test every conceivable avenue for a song before selecting a favorite.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf I didn\u2019t try every single idea, then I have failed the songs,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut the problem with that is that by the end of recording those songs, you end up losing the thread of what you liked about it in the first place. You\u2019ve gone too far down the road.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can hear this in early recordings, a little. Albums like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ghosts <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keep No Score <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">still land, but there\u2019s a meticulousness to the proceedings that speaks to the process of writing them. \u201cI heard this amazing quote from Paul Simon that said the reason that he loves the studio is that there\u2019s nothing that can\u2019t be fixed in the studio.\u201d The sentiment resonates with him, but he says that it\u2019s \u201cas much of a positive as it is a negative, because I\u2019m just sitting there torturing myself until it\u2019s perfect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These days, O\u2019Neal\u2019s methodology has changed a little. He still has a perfectionist bent to him, but he\u2019s learned that streamlining his songwriting process has made for some great music too. He started setting deadlines for himself, vowing to complete three songs a month for a year. He accomplished it, even if he had to forego his usual meticulousness. And what he found surprised him. \u201cThe funny result was that I really, deeply love those songs,\u201d he says. \u201cThey feel closer to the source.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The experience taught him to take a looser approach to songwriting \u2014\u00a0one that gives his music a little more room to breathe. And while he\u2019s gotten much better at figuring out what does and doesn\u2019t work for him when it comes to writing music, he\u2019s got a long ways to go when it comes to the part of the art that has resonated so deeply with fans: the lyrics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>There Was the Words<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I try to sound like I have read books, but I really have only read two,\u201d he laughs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s kidding, mostly. Anyone who\u2019s listened to O\u2019Neal\u2019s music will attest that he\u2019s a well-read guy. He\u2019s come a long ways from the typical songwriting muses \u2014 falling in love, breakups, that sort of thing. These days, he\u2019s writing about concepts. He has noticed that reading is good for his songwriting, but the real trick he\u2019s picked up over the years is limitation \u2014 learning how to narrow his lyrical focus and create obstacles that force him to dig deeper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cPutting these creative restraints on myself have actually been really, really helpful and informative to how I\u2019m approaching the lyrics,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf I\u2019m writing a song called, I don\u2019t know, \u2018Hearing,\u2019 I know that there\u2019s a lot of things that won\u2019t work with that concept of hearing,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt creates a framework for me to kind of play around in. And then when I\u2019m starting to work on the lyrics, that\u2019s when I get really excited about all the research for Human Development and all the different types of things that I\u2019ve had the privilege of writing about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s talking about the most recent chapter of his <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atlas <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">project: <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enneagram. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nine songs written about the nine different types of Enneagram Personalities. It felt like the natural next move for him after his first <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atlas <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">project, which dealt with the created world around us. But it wasn\u2019t until he dug in and started writing that he realized just how thorny of a topic he\u2019d taken on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: Atlas: Enneagram\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/1R3C4VebWmWXFlbTSnnLql?utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe moment I started actually digging into it, I realized that not only do I not know very much about the Enneagram at all, but I also there\u2019s a responsibility to make sure I don\u2019t get that wrong because the Enneagram means a lot to some people,\u201d he says. \u201cI really wanted to honor each type as we went along.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To do that, O\u2019Neal made a few decisions. First, he asked about 100 friends to send him small audio clips, which he then sorted by their individual Enneagram types and then dropped into songs like Easter Eggs. Then he built a different band for each of the nine songs \u2014 each made up exclusively of the Enneagram type for the song they\u2019d be playing on. So, for example, if you listen to \u201cFour\u201d on <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enneagram<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, every instrument is being played by an Enneagram Four.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI felt like, OK, I will never fully understand what it\u2019s like to be a Type Seven or a Type Three, but there was a point in writing those songs where I felt like I could feel the hurt and I could also feel the redemption in each type,\u201d O\u2019Neal explains. \u201cAnd it took a long time to get to that for each of those songs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As it turned out, the hardest one to write was O\u2019Neal\u2019s own Type, the last one on the album: Nine. In fact, he threw the first draft out entirely. \u201cI was almost writing about <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Type Nine,\u201d O\u2019Neal says. \u201cLike, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">other<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> people that I know that are Type Nines. I was completely keeping myself out of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAnd then the song kind of broke me open.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>An Ongoing Creation<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s working on the next chapter of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atlas <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">now. The first installment was about creation, which was the past. The second, which was the Enneagram<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">chapter, was rooted to the present. In his mind, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Atlas III <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">will have an eye towards the future \u2014 less how we got here and who we are than what we choose to do with days allotted to us. He won\u2019t say much just yet, but he\u2019s willing to open up about at least part of what he\u2019s got in mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI will write a song for each of the definitions of love,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have forms of love throughout every part of life, from the moment we\u2019re born through the end.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s thinking of the Greek words for love, like <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">agape <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(charity), <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">eros <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(passion) and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">philia <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(friendship). He calls it \u201cvoluntary human development\u201d \u2014 the parts of our personalities that we can control and even improve. His own therapy has often come through writing, and what he\u2019s learned is that he needs to get better at leaving his ego out of it. O\u2019Neal is at his healthiest when he\u2019s shed all the excess <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">stuff <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of his interior life. He thinks we all are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEvery system of thinking, every philosophy, every theory that exists, if you look at the healthier levels of every step of the way, it\u2019s just a form of letting go,\u201d he says. \u201cIn every teaching that I keep coming across the best version of that, the healthiest version of that is this massive form of letting go. And I think that that can only happen through that internal work.\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So that\u2019s how O\u2019Neal has grown over the years: Letting go of his perfectionist instincts, embracing longform lyrical chaos that has led to startling moments of beauty and evolved into a rarified talent whose creative journey hints at great things yet to come. And who knows? Maybe he\u2019ll even discover a love for live shows. He\u2019s considering it, anyway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019ve joked around with a couple of buddies that used to tour with me,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018We should go on a tour, but forget the shows, just go on a tour, just hang out in a van and have fun.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source relevantmagazine.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the pandemic, Ryan O\u2019Neal was watching a TV show with his wife that featured a band playing a live show in a bar \u2014\u00a0the sort of thing he\u2019s spent most of his life doing as Sleeping at Last.\u00a0 \u201cGuess the percentage of how much I miss touring,\u201d he told his wife.\u00a0 \u201c25 percent?\u201d she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2474243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2474242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/The-New-Sound-of-Sleeping-At-Last.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2474242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2474244,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2474242\/revisions\/2474244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2474243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2474242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2474242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2474242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}