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Drawing from their SoCal punk/indie roots while exploring some melodic, emotionally charged new territory, Sleep Pod Two - featuring Todd and Guy from Gameface, along with Wal Rashidi (Jr. Juggernaut, For Closure) and Chris Whyte (Cheswick, One Hundred Words For Snow) - are gearing up for the release of their 3-song digital EP, Rehearse Your Future, which drops August 29 on Mindpower Records. Today, we are excited to share ‘All That We Have,’ a raw, urgent anthem touching on grief, addiction, and ultimately, hope and support through hard times.

The Rehearse Your Future EP - recorded in one weekend in February 2025 at Studio in Redlands, California - is a succinct sampler platter of the band’s breadth and capability via its songwriting and various styles. Opening with “All That We Have (Is Each Other),” Rehearse Your Future strikes with a furious rhythm, feverish tempos, and an urgent vocal melody.

“The power of music connects us in so many ways,” Trout says. “‘All That We Have (Is Each Other)’ blends tragedy from loss to addiction, to a straightforward message of hope and support.  Life can be awesome, but it can also be hard, unfair, and hard to stand when it knocks your legs out from under you. For me, I have been lucky to have people to lean on during those hard times. This song equates that message of support—if you are knocked down, if you are struggling with addiction, mental health, or life in general, there are people who care deeply for you even if you can’t see it at the time.”

The history of Sleep Pod Two inextricably links back to Gameface, a band spawned from the fertile independent Southern California punk rock scene within Orange County in the early 1990s. 

The four members of Sleep Pod Two can trace myriad connections back to Gameface. Todd Trout, Sleep Pod Two’s guitarist, is a founding member of Gameface. Guy Julian, Sleep Pod Two’s bassist/vocalist, joined Gameface in the early 2000s while continuing to perform in his earlier band, The Tank. Sleep Pod Two vocalist/guitarist Chris Whyte (Cheswick, One Hundred Words For Snow) is a longtime Gameface fan, sharing bills with his former bands, and even contributing photographs to Three to Get Ready, its sophomore album. And Sleep Pod Two’s drummer Wal Rashidi (also of Jr. Juggernaut and For Closure) has played many local gigs with Gameface via his former and current bands, starting over 30 years ago. 

So, it came as no surprise that the four musicians of Sleep Pod Two would eventually cross paths and join forces, to develop something entirely new from something indisputably familiar. 

Trout, who had sought an additional musical outlet alongside his mainstay in Gameface, joined forces with Whyte (who had not played in a band in over 20 years) to begin songwriting and assembling a new project. It wasn’t long before Julian and Rashidi were recruited by Trout to complete the ensemble, at the tail end of 2022.

“Talking with Todd, he was the same big-hearted, motivating, empathetic soul that I remembered,” Whyte recalls. “The first song we wrote together—perhaps fittingly—was about dealing with death. We wanted to recruit like-minded bandmates, ones that would make the creative process low pressure, genuine, and fun.”

Within mere weeks, an entire set of songs quickly formulated as all members prolifically contributed to the compositions, and the band was recording its first batch of demos just a few months after in the spring of 2023. A second batch of demos would materialize later that year, and the band’s first show took place in February 2024.

Health issues would place Sleep Pod Two on an extended hiatus throughout much of 2024. But once recovery was afoot, the band regrouped and immediately continued to write new material through 2025. As work progressed, Sleep Pod Two felt the moment was ripe to finally introduce themselves to the music scene via its most recent recordings. Enter its debut release, a three-song EP titled Rehearse Your Future, set to be released in August 2025 via Mindpower Records.