Louise Wener has revealed she finally married her partner of 30 years earlier this year, describing the ceremony as romantic and lovely.
The Sleeper frontwoman joined Chris Moyles on Radio X this morning to discuss the band’s comeback, new music and an upcoming tour, as well as the milestone in her personal life.
Louise explained that after three decades together, she and her partner decided it was time to make things official: “We had to be grownups, right? You get to the point where you have to sign some forms and behave and be grownups,” she said.
She added that the wedding was a chance to celebrate everything they had experienced together over the years, saying: “It was really romantic and really lovely. After all that time, you kind of, you’re celebrating 30 years of being together and going through a lot.”
The conversation turned to Sleeper, with Louise revealing that the band has plenty of new material on the way, including a new single released today, a new album available to pre-order and a tour planned for April.
Louise told Chris that the new music has a different emotional quality, describing the songs as “big epic sounding, beautiful, bit bruised” and explaining that they could only have been written at this stage of her life.
She also reflected on how her approach to songwriting has changed since Sleeper’s early days, saying she can now be more emotionally direct because of the experiences she has gained through life.
“I think I can be emotionally direct now in a way I couldn’t when I was in my 20s,” she said, adding that her perspective comes from “experience and going through stuff and having lived.”
Chris praised her storytelling ability, and she explained that she now feels able to tell her own stories more directly rather than hiding behind fictional characters.
“I used to hide things behind characters in my early Sleeper days and I’m not doing that anymore,” she said.
Louise believes her greater confidence is partly down to having lived through more experiences, but said the most important thing is reaching a point where the writing feels genuinely honest.
“It’s a bit of both, it’s just all about getting to the point where you can do that in a way that really feels honest,” she said.