Los Angeles' Sleep Machine is a little more than your average young rock band. They're actually more like an older rock band modified and brought into the modern age, but in the best possible way.

Sleep Machine combines old-school driving rock and roll with singer Alisha Zalkin's sultry voice to create a bluesy soulful rock sound that would be just as appropriate in the '70s as it is today. It sounds classic and fresh at the same time, and it's all expertly done.

The timeless-sounding group also features some of the best musicianship you'll hear on the local circuit, with highly skilled guitarist Dan Kalisher leading the charge alongside bassist Andrew Perusi and drummer Kiel Feher.

For a relatively new band, Sleep Machine's success speaks for itself. Aside from widespread acclaim for their first EP, Cover Me in Gold, and dates all over the Los Angeles area and beyond, the quartet's music has appeared on television multiple times, and the future seems brighter yet as they gear up for their second big release.

Myspace recently caught up with Zalkin and Kalisher in the midst of yet another string of shows at venues all over LA to discuss how the band came to be, what it's like to have their music (sometimes unknowingly) featured on television and in magazines, and why people shouldn't snooze on sleep machine.

Homebase: Los Angeles, CA 

With such a powerful sound, which bands influenced your music?

It ranges from Led Zeppelin to Heart, Stone Temple Pilots to Kate Bush, from the most extreme rockers to the biggest powerhouse vocalists. 

Can you explain how you decided on the name Sleep Machine?

Our music is fast, it’s heavy, at times it’s dark, and wild. For us, it pushes emotional boundaries allowing barriers to dissolve, so we can be who we really are. Often times, we can only experience that while we’re sleeping, when our imagination can run free. We felt the name Sleep Machine created that sentiment for us.

How did Sleep Machine get its start?

We met through mutual friends, and we were both looking for a new creative outlet. We had completely different influences. Dan came from a rock background, Alisha came from a soul and R&B background. We decided to collaborate to see what would happen, and the result was pretty good, we think! We really wanted to find a happy marriage of hard driving rock with this sexy and soulful voice. It turned into some pretty cool-sounding rock and roll.

What's one of the moments you've had as a band that you'll never forget?

We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of our songs placed in various TV shows and commercials. One of the best ones was having our song ‘Wild For You’ in the opening scene of an episode of ‘Younger’ (TV Land, starring Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff). It led to the song being featured in the TV Jukebox section of Entertainment Weekly. We didn’t even know about it until one of our friends texted us a video of them turning to the page in a copy of the magazine! It led to an amazing amount of exposure and fans. 

If you could share one lesson you've learned recently with your younger self, what would it be?

Less is more. Always sticking to the core of what you’re trying to do and not getting distracted by extraneous details is important.

What's life like for an up-and-coming rock band in LA in 2016?

It’s a strange time for music. These days, you basically have to be your own music industry. It takes a lot of organization, which honestly isn’t most musicians’ strong suits. We have to focus just as much on the business side as we do on the artistic side. We’re basically wearing two hats, which is exciting in some ways but can also be exhausting.

What specific goals does Sleep Machine have in the near future?

Currently, our goals are getting out on the road sometime this year, as well as releasing our second EP. We’d love to break into the festival circuit. It also goes without saying that our main goal is to keep making music that inspires us, as well as others.

Since you clearly have a combination of genres going on in each track, where do you start with the songwriting process?

It usually starts with a riff or a groove combined with a topic idea. From there, we’ll head into the studio and lay down some basic guitar and drums and write it, building it the whole time.