Joshua Harmon takes deeper sleeper on the road for his own “tiny little tour”

In May 2026, two weeks after headlining San Luis Obispo’s annual Shabang Music & Arts Festival, performing for thousands of festival-goers in rolling green hills, The Backseat Lovers frontman Joshua Harmon embarked on his own tour, officially taking his solo project deeper sleeper on the road. 

In the bustling hub of downtown Santa Cruz, a secluded garden sits with its overgrown oasis pointing toward a patio with a small stage. On Friday evening, May 22, Harmon concluded the final performance of his “tiny little tour” in the backyard of Subrosa, a community bookstore and DIY venue.

deeper sleeper isn’t just a solo project — to Harmon it represents a pursuit that is entirely his. Over the course of several years, in between tours, Harmon has delved into creating music without the end goal of producing a result, but rather focusing on the process itself. 

“You get to decorate the entire room however you want, it can be really cluttered, there can be cans on the floor or you can have it neat; anything you want. I like to have the opportunity to decorate the space however I choose,” Harmon said.

Although the project was released in 2024, an opportunity arose to perform as deeper sleeper to support Kevin Morby’s after-party concert for Kilby Block Party in Salt Lake City this spring. With just a month’s notice, the opportunity inspired Harmon to spontaneously plan more shows in neighboring states.

For the first time, over the course of a week in late May, deeper sleeper formally debuted on a six-show tour, returning to the DIY, grassroots approach of van touring and crashing on friends’ couches along the journey.

Accompanying Harmon on tour are bandmates Caleb Gomes, Daniel McNally and Taylor Gwynn. 

“The last time we played, we only played one show and it felt like there was this desire to see what would come of it if we got to play together every night for a bit and develop more of a sound as a group like get into a groove. That was the main push. I wanted to see what that would feel like,” Harmon said. 

Harmon announced his creative endeavor in Spring of 2024, with lead singles “riverflies” and “want” launching deeper sleeper into orbit.

“In doing this project on my own, it has given me a space to really just lend that trust to myself, alone,” Harmon said. “That’s been a really enriching process too… giving myself that permission, that’s like ‘I can take up all the space.’”

The pseudonym deeper sleeper was inspired by The Backseat Lovers bandmate KJ Ward, who mentioned the term in a conversation years earlier. Initially used as an expressive term, Harmon ultimately took on a new meaning for it. 

 “I feel like everyone has a very personal relationship with the way they sleep and dream. It’s all just very fascinating to me,” he said. “I’ve always felt like that’s a big part of the well I pull from creatively is that state between right when you’re kind of awake and kind of asleep. I think that little grey area is where a lot of magic happens and a lot of freeness and openness in your mind, and I like being in that state.” 

As a debut and self-titled electro-folk album, “deeper sleeper” is characterized by a cohesive collection of indie-folk tracks juxtaposing robust drum electro-rock sequences. With complete creative control, the mixing, lyrics and production are all a reflection of Harmon’s innermost emotions and individual sound. 

As a playground for experimentation, where his personal artistry intertwines with rich sound and storytelling, the 13-track album follows a journey through uncertainty, while synthesizing raw lyrics that capture vulnerability and hope.

The production process concluded with a year of polishing and puzzling together songs to curate a final tracklist. With the majority of songs finalized, a handful more were developed to round out the album and ensure a cohesive collective of music that has turned into what is now known as deeper sleeper.

“It wasn’t until I made that song ‘the bounty’ a long time ago, probably like four years ago or something — It wasn’t until years later, I kind of had this idea of using the same bass line, same musical structure or cordial palette but doing a different beat over it and that turned into the song ‘maggie’s waltz.’ Once I got that song I realized that kind of opened up, okay this could be another piece in the puzzle that kind of gives more context to that song and other songs as well,” Harmon said. 

With a long-time desired ambition to become a voice actor for cartoons, Harmon has found a piece of his dream within this album. Often in the album, vague messages are intertwined in brief interludes presented as distorted speech, such as in tracks “good morning neighbor!” “spring garden” and “maggie’s waltz.”

“In the process, I take it very seriously but… there’s an element that naturally needs to be fun,” Harmon said. “Naturally while I’m recording, I’ll just be saying complete bulls**t and eventually it kind of makes its way into the song. I think that’ll always be something that’ll come and go from the music just ‘cause it’s kind of a part of me, it’s what I do already.”

Pursuing a solo project outside of The Backseat Lovers was a logical next step for Harmon, as his passion for recording music started on his own. 

“Since I was a teenager I’ve always really loved playing the drums, to be honest I play more drums than any other instrument these days and it’s just kind of an outlet for that side of my creative brain,” Harmon said. “There’s so many things about being in a band that you just cannot get alone and that’s the beauty of being in a band. I really think both have such an important impact on me and are very necessary outlets. I wouldn’t want to trade either.” 

In the development of deeper sleeper, he tackled the transition in creating and collaboration, a shift from what he is used to. 

“In this environment it’s been a lot more like I’m bringing my vision to the table and my friends are helping me execute it and it kind of ends funneling back to whatever I want or don’t want and that’s been the interesting thing… I’ve never made music with other people that way. It’s always been very collaborative.” 

With a love of older musical recordings, gravitating toward vintage analog equipment feels inevitable for the next project to transition into a sonic hybrid-analog soundscape. 

“I do think it will live in that world and have more of an analog palette to it but I also really don’t want it to necessarily sound old, if that makes sense, at least I’m trying to go for still being very fresh. Pulling inspiration from all my favorite recordings from the ‘60s, you know, old Roger Miller records and that kind of tonal palette. That’s the peak to me but it’ll have both of the world, hopefully,” Harmon said. 

As the “tiny little tour” has concluded for deeper sleeper, Harmon will return to spending the summer working on recording an upcoming album with The Backseat Lovers .

With a collection of unrecorded songs that have accumulated, awaiting to be featured on a future deeper sleeper record, Harmon is at no point slowing down with either project anytime soon. Since the debut release, Harmon continues to discover new recording techniques and new sound palettes, a guiding inspiration for the next record’s vision.

“I do think always, the most important thing is the performance of the song. Being the most vulnerable as I can when there’s a microphone around. To be honest, there’s just so much music that I’ve written that has been stuck in a cupboard for years, both this project and in Backseat, I just really feel strongly that I don’t want to let things collect dust anymore as much as I can. I want to take action and share myself with as much as I can.” Harmon said