INTERVIEW: Sloane Spencer Helps You Sleep With Rock Stars

“You deserve a good night’s sleep…or whatever,” Sloane Spencer informs her GenX listeners. Spencer helped introduce the world to what's now called Americana through her Country Fried Rock podcast (absolutely worth going back through the archives there – a lot of the people Sloane interviewed are people you know today.) Spencer has long been a mentor, cheerleader, and trash talker with me, and has even interviewed me for her series Bubble Bottles (about people's favorite sodas) and One Hit History (about people's favorite one-hit wonders.)

Now I get to turn the tables on her. Sleep With Rock Stars is a sleep podcast that features the biographies of Gen X artists. Tomorrow's episode features the Indigo Girls. Below, Spencer explains the method to her madness.

1. What is it about podcasting that's so appealing to you?

Ooh! Great question. I love creating audio-only podcasts because they allow me to feel free to express myself from the comfort of a microphone. Sleep with Rock Stars is my first time just talking to myself in the guest room closet (home studio). All of my previous podcasts have been conversations remotely with others, which I also love. I am a bit awkward in real life, but I am totally comfortable hiding behind the mic, both in the studio and on stage. It’s a weird “extroverted introvert” personality trait that I think a lot of people relate to. I was a guest on a mental health podcast recently, and the host asked me if I had ever tried being a “roving reporter” style attendee at live events, which I had never considered. I would definitely feel more comfortable doing that than having to interact socially in an expected manner. I have not tried that yet.

2. You've had so many quirky ideas for series in the past. What was the inspiration here?

I am The Idea Person. I am terrible at follow-through. The concept for Sleep with Rock Stars has been around since the beginning of my first podcast, Country Fried Rock.  Initially, I wanted to read album liner notes aloud as a sleep podcast. The sleep podcast bubbled up because somebody early on commented that they listened to Country Fried Rock to fall asleep. At first I was mildly offended, then I warmed up to the comment, and have let it brew ever since.  

My day job since soft-retiring from radio has been voice over work, and one of my recurring clients prefers a particular vocal delivery that we jokingly call “audio erotica spa voice.” I think it’s hilarious to do, since I’m overly animated when I talk in real life.  Too many years as a stage kid.

The liner notes concept proved to be a nightmare to get permissions to record, especially for the niche music I personally prefer, as people have passed away, unclear estate situations, labels are defunct, or I literally could not find the rights owners to ask permission.  I let the idea fall away, until I was reading about re-use rights for most Wikipedia pages, and it dawned on me that I could do something similar to my “musician sleep podcast” by reading aloud from Wiki pages.

3. How did you pick the bands you're profiling?

This was intentional and weirdly difficult for me. I am passionate about niche genres and artists, but I recognize that more mainstream music speaks to people, too. I decided to hone in on the Gen X concept because I am elder Gen X, but also, music is and was such a part of our lives, no matter whether you were the hair metal kid, the goth, the punk, the performance artist, or the wannabe.

I decided to start my research with 1984 arbitrarily and without rigidity.  I made a list of the top 100 in US sales, US tours, college radio, and MTV, especially The Cutting Edge. Then, I picked musicians I like without regard to whether other people thought they were “cool” or not.  The main episodes are all household names, but the B-sides (bonus episodes) are music or movies strongly associated with music that I choose. So, we launched with several main episodes in segments of R.E.M., Prince, David Bowie, and the B-52s, and B-sides with Buzzcocks, Spinal Tap, and upcoming the Repo Man soundtrack, and our next featured episode, Indigo Girls.

4. The Indigo Girls are widely celebrated. What do you want more people to understand about them?

Gosh, I love the Indigo Girls. In high school, they used to play this regular show in Little 5 Points in Atlanta across the street from my friend’s house.  They were wildly popular in Atlanta, and friends with a lot of the “older” people from the arty experimental theatre where I was a performance artist. In retrospect, I am still surprised by how normal it was for these 20-somethings to talk about art and expression with teenagers, as if we were real people.  I was never part of their scene, but they never excluded us, either.

Personally, the Indigo Girls were impactful for representation of queer women thriving.  I grew up in a family that weirdly accepted gay men, but often used slurs regarding women.  The women I knew through the theatre and tangentially, the Indigo Girls, helped me not perpetuate homophobia in my circle of peers. I’m a super normie, white cis straight Southern woman of cultural privilege. Normalizing people living their authentic lives and celebrating themselves to my circle was unusual, and I think helpful for others to release some prejudice and perhaps examine their biases.  I know it helped my best friend feel safe and seen to know they did not have to repress themselves around me. They dubbed me “Marilyn Munster.” (We did not understand pronouns then; they/them are their current pronouns.)

The Indigo Girls’ personas were very “this is who we are; join the circle.” They played regularly at arts events, not just clubs, and families would go and spread out on a blanket.  They were one of the few bands I liked that my parents would go see, too.  I honestly think Indigo Girls are the reason my pre-Boomer parents stopped using those slurs because they felt like they knew Saliers and Ray and could not “other” them. It’s not the responsibility of marginalized communities to make themselves “acceptable” to others; to me, their impact was the confluence of time and place and personal connection that happened to have this result.

5. What is your wish list for this podcast? How are you hoping to grow it and what would you do with it if you had an unlimited budget?

What a challenging question! As many of us who are Gen X deal with caretaking for aging parents, I see a lot of us struggling with sleep issues. Maybe it’s just getting older ourselves, but insomnia is a common point of conversation with my friends. I hope that Sleep with Rock Stars gives people an option in the sleep podcast playlist, where even if you do not fall asleep to the quiet voice, you might glean a tidbit about the artist that helps you win trivia at the pub. 

I delved into sleep research from the NIH (fund science!) in crafting the podcasts. Once a month, I share a tiny episode ~5 minutes long that shares a single sleep strategy, called “Singles Going Sleepy,” as a play on the Buzzcocks compilation, Singles Going Steady. There are hundreds of techniques to help people fall asleep, from physical relaxation to mental visualization to habit creation, and sometimes we try the same 3 methods without success, not realizing there are scores of other tips that might help us sleep.  That’s sort of where the tagline developed, “You deserve a good night’s sleep…or whatever.”

I am hoping that listeners find an episode they like and listen to it over and over as their sleep sound.  One of the interesting research recommendations I found was that repetition like this is extremely effective. The content almost does not matter.  Over time, you associate the cadence with sleep.

I do not have a robust marketing plan.  I recently started making YouTube shorts because I noticed that a large chunk of people listen on YouTube.  I detest social media, so I am begrudgingly present on Instagram.  I enjoy Bluesky, where Sleep with Rock Stars posts regularly. The show is on Reddit, generally offering sleep advice based on research to people who ask questions, and chatting in the Gen X music subs about music. I strongly believe in word of mouth.  A personal recommendation or share means more than anything.

We’ve already had a troll in comments, which was unexpected.  I’m having to play the algorithm game there, which I hate.  You really have to drown out the one negative with multiple positive replies and ratings, which just irks me.  As I posted on social, I am not for everyone, and that’s ok, but getting “dinged” in the podcast world means people who want or need the show will not find it if you end up buried in the platforms’ libraries.

If I had an unlimited budget, I would place Sleep with Rock Stars in the visual field with the top 3 sleep podcasts on the major platforms, and have someone else do all the social media. [Editor's note: Amen.]  I honestly just want people to find something that rejuvenates them, helps them feel seen, and adds to the positives in their world. 

Subscribe now to catch tomorrow's episode about The Indigo Girls!

Sleep With Rock Stars – SleepWithRockStars.com, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Bluesky