Sleeper are an English rock band formed in London in 1992. The group had eight UK Top 40 hit singles and three UK Top 10 albums during the 1990s. Their music was also featured in the soundtrack of the pop cultural hit movie Trainspotting. The band split up in 1998, but reunited in 2017. History First three albums (1992–1998) Jon Stewart met Louise Wener at Manchester University in 1987 in a political philosophy class. They played in a number of bands at university, including jazz outfit the Lime Street Blues Band, then after graduating in 1988, moved to London to seek gigs. Wener later wrote that "we sounded not unlike the Sundays, but as time went on our music became increasingly influenced by US bands such as Hole, Nirvana and, most especially, the Pixies". They advertised for new band members in Melody Maker ("Bass player and drummer wanted. Influences The Pixies and The Partridge Family") and recruited Diid Osman and Andy Maclure. Wener solicited interest from record label representatives by sending out a fake NME review, a move she called "pure cheek and cut-and-paste fakery." At one point, the band called themselves Surrender Dorothy, after the smoke trail in the sky from the Wizard of Oz movie, but abandoned this idea after discovering that several other bands had done the same thing. They subsequently chose the name "Sleeper" after the Woody Allen film Sleeper, and also because the word has a number of different meanings (a spy, an unexpected hit, etc.). In 1993 Sleeper signed to Indolent Records, a subsidiary of RCA Records, and released three EPs and singles before their breakthrough single release, "Inbetweener", which notably featured UK TV personality Dale Winton in the promo video. Prior to the release of "Inbetweener" Sleeper had been the opening act for Blur on that band's tour to promote the Parklife album, and became closely associated with Britpop as a result. The band's debut album release Smart was certified gold by the BPI for sales of over 100,000 copies. It was followed by the platinum-selling (over 300,000 copies) release The It Girl which yielded four top 20 hit singles "What Do I Do Now?", "Nice Guy Eddie", "Sale of the Century" and "Statuesque". Sleeper recorded a cover of the Blondie song "Atomic", which was used in the film Trainspotting, after Blondie refused to allow the use of the original version. "Statuesque" also