It might have seemed like a joke, but the Los Angeles funk band are laughing all the way to the bank after a profitable Spotify project.

Having uploaded Sleepify to the music streaming site, Vulfpeck encouraged fans to play the record continuously through the night. Why? The album was nothing but 10 tracks of complete silence.

Spotify allowed the album on their service for about seven weeks between March and April, before asking the band to remove it. The short-lived stunt has paid off though, in a big way; keyboardist Jack Stratton has revealed that the band’s final two-month take from Spotify was $19,655.56 (almost €15,000).

The money was required, the band said, to finance a tour. The band now say they are aiming to hit the road in September, playing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York.

Like many good ideas, it clearly paid to sleep on it...