Nullsleep

Nullsleep
Nullsleep - live at The Tank, NYC 2006
Background information
Birth name	Jeremiah Johnson
Born	(1980-10-07) October 7, 1980 (age 36)
Origin	Riverside, California, U.S.
Genres	Electronic music Chiptune Synthpop Indie
Instruments	Game Boy Famicom LSDJ MCK keyboard
Years active	1999–present
Labels	8bitpeoples Intikrec
Website	www.nullsleep.com

Nullsleep (born Jeremiah Johnson October 7, 1980) is an American electronic musician and computer artist currently residing in New York City. In 1999 he co-founded the low-bit art collective 8bitpeoples, and has served as its lead director since its inception. He is best known for his high-energy Game Boy pop songs.

Johnson graduated from the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University in 2003, where he studied computer science and music. He uses Game Boys and NES consoles to create music.

Born on a United States Air Force base, March AFB in Riverside, California, Johnson's family relocated to New York upon his father's honorable discharge from the USAF shortly after his birth. Most of his childhood was spent on suburban Long Island, where he attended Islip High School and lived with his mother and brother until he was 18 years old.

Johnson has cited the film Electric Dreams as an influential force in his early musical pursuits. Inspired by a Giorgio Moroder arrangement of a minuet featured in the film, Johnson took 3 weeks of cello lessons during one summer of his adolescence. This would be the only formal musical training he would have until entering university. However, Moroder's synthesizer-driven Italo disco style would have a more lasting effect.

Throughout his high school years, Johnson spent increasing amounts of time working with computers, coding BASIC programs with his younger brother, following the demoscene, and exploring the web. It was during this time that he met Mike Hanlon in an Internet chatroom – together the two would go on to found 8bitpeoples.