Team Sleep.

SACRAMENTO'S ESOTERIC ROCK GROUP Team Sleep began five years ago as a simple musical exchange on a 4-trackbetween childhood friends--guitarist Todd Wilkinson and Deftones front man Chino Moreno--then rapidly grew into a chaotic group of talented and diverse musicians probing their knowledge and love of prog rock and hip hop.

"When we began writing songs together we never meant for it to be the basis of a record. Only recently has it become a focus and something other than friends making music together in their spare time," explains Wilkinson via cell phone while en route to the group's next show in Phoenix.

The group's long awaited self-titled debut was recorded in six studios with three different producers, and until this summer was only a dream of Deftones fans wanting to hear more of Moreno's melodic, ambient tracks that first surfaced on White Pony. Songs from the first session with producer Terry Date were leaked to the Internet in 2001 and quickly spread to mainstream radio by over-zealous disc jockeys eager to get behind anything from a member of the Grammy-award-winning Deftones. Then came the press. Articles in everything from Rolling Stone to small fanzines boasting the all-star line up of ex-Faith No More and Fantomas' Mike Patton, Hella drummer Zach Hill, Helium frontwoman Mary Timony, Pinback singer Rob Crow, turntablist D3 Crook, and bassist Rick Verrett were feeding the frenzy for a record yet to be recorded.

"At first I was really bummed out that these unfinished songs were leaked, because what started out as being fun with a group of friends now had all of these outside pressures surrounding it," explains Moreno in a separate phone conversation. "Having multiple singers on the record was meant to give me a break from being the focal point. I was tired of being the singer and wanted to freely make music."

When I ask Wilkinson and Moreno if there was ever a point when they had enough of the bullshit and thought of scrapping the entire project, they both reply with a defiant "No!"

"We never gave up on this record. That doesn't mean at times it wasn't frustrating as hell, but whenever there was something keeping us from finishing it, we'd go back and write on our own, and then come back to " the group with even more ideas and music," says Wilkinson.

When Moreno took time off to finish the Deftones 5th record, Wilkinson and Crook were over at Hill's house coming up with new melodies and beats. And when Hill left to tour with the instrumental duo Hella or Wilkinson returned to teaching English, the others were kept writing. The guys agree it was the mutual respect of one another's talents and their friendship that drove the group to complete the album and help them deal with insane schedules.

"I look at every project and ask if I'm learning something from it. Team Sleep is such a weird mix of personalities and musical interests that it makes me look at songwriting and drumming differently. It's a chance to be creative and progressive. I love it," gushes Hill on the phone from his bunk on their tour bus. "And seriously, I never laugh as much as I do then when I'm with this group of dudes."

Wilkinson and Moreno agree that Team Sleep started feeling like a band when Hill joined and began to integrate his precise, calculated, no-breaks-allowed style to Crook's simple, smooth, captivating beats and samples. The relationship between the two drummers is the crux of Team Sleep's uniqueness and provides the needed chaos in contrast to Wilkinson's dense guitar melodies and Moreno's gentle croons.

Hill is a self-described addict, one that is addicted to playing and progressing. In addition to playing in Hella and Team Sleep he's collaborated on projects with Joanna Newsom, Les Claypool, and the more recent Goon Moon with Twiggy Ramirez of Marilyn Manson and Chris Goss from Masters of Reality.

"We're meshing different worlds in an interesting way. We stumbled upon some ideas while recording that are pretty new and if the record had come out when it was supposed to, it would have had a greater impact in terms of innovation. Even though it was not formally released, there was knowledge of what we were doing and I think some groups were influenced by it," explains Hill, carefully choosing his words.

Having seen Team Sleep's first performances back in 2001, I can't help but agree with Hill. The group was leading what would have been the first exciting wave of genre-defying indie electronic music. But because of our culture's tenacious desire to find the next big thing, only to discard or tear it down, we tainted a promising band's debut.

The irony is not lost on Team Sleep. They are releasing 20-some-odd B-sides in Europe, which include the tracks recorded with Patton. When they return home from tour in Europe, Australia, and the US, they'll enter the studio with 15 new songs.

"I don't know how we made this record," says Chino. "Everyone is so incredibly talented I knew it was gonna be good. I knew like I've known about each of the Deftones records. I just had to wait for it to happen."