Though reliability and a sense of stable control seem like the perpetual goal for many artists and bands—knowing that if should such be seemingly achieved, to cede it would be unthinkable—sometimes purposefully lighting kindling among the same old dry brush leads to uncovering new heights of creative potential.
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Lake Street Dive (Rachael Price, lead vocals, ukulele, guitar; Mike “McDuck” Olson, trumpet, guitar, organ, electric piano, synthesizer, vocals; Bridget Kearney, acoustic/electric bass, piano, vocals; Mike Calabrese, drums, organ, vocals) have relished in this kind of renewed growth following the formal addition of touring player Akie Bermiss (keyboard, vocals) (AH-KEE, BER-MEES), to the long standing four piece band. “We never really set out to add someone else to the band full-time or have someone become a writer, which Akie has become, or even make a new friend out of the deal, which Akie has also become,” drummer Mike Calabrese explains over the phone.
One could think of the personnel expansion as the band’s own controlled burn of sorts —a move made to foster not only an expanded lineup but expand on the group’s approaches to communicating, songwriting, and even as a way to improve on the strength of their live performance.
“We were playing a lot more, to bigger audiences and our music was changing in a way that felt, for lack of a better term, bigger. [O]ur usual formula of just adding more background vocals live, to make [a song] sound big, wasn’t necessarily doing enough of the work or doing the appropriate work and filling out the band,” Calabrese says.
“My feeling at the time was that we also needed to kind of refresh things,” he adds. “I often think about the story behind two points in The Beatles’ career, where things were getting kind of hairy interpersonally or kind of boring musically and, one of those times, they brought Eric Clapton into the studio and he wound up on The White Album. It was just like, [this sentiment of] ‘Let’s bring someone else in, change the dynamic, add a new voice, and maybe it’ll bring some freshness to the band as a whole and some new ideas’—that kind of a situation.”
While Lake Street Dive doesn’t face the exact same kind of creative speed bumps or interpersonal struggles The Beatles did, the band’s approach to improving conditions within their own momentum—whether creative or practical—proved to be great inspiration to move forward and find the band’s missing piece.
“We were like, ‘Yeah let’s find someone, tour with them, and hopefully when we do our next record we can record with them live in the studio, rather than add all these afterthought piano parts—have it sound real. And out of that came thinking about who to bring on and Akie came to mind, among many possibilities,” Calabrese explains.
“We got to give [Bermiss] a trial by fire, he came out on the road [and] he was great.” Calabrese adds. “Musically [he] added a lot to [the band’s performances], learned quickly. He was [also] a great hang, which is really in the end, the most important thing for a band member on the road. And the rest is history. Everything else happened naturally: the writing addition, the kind of folding in of him as a decision making member and so forth. We’re looking forward to see that [relationship] grow.”
When it comes to how Bermiss has fared with his new bandmates in these aforementioned roles, as well as how the overall dynamic has changed for the band, Calabrese makes it quite clear everything about this expansion made all the sense in the world. Given how Lake Street Dive has been operating throughout its journey, and how much the band feels they have to say in the studio through new music, it’s very much a matter of ‘more is better’ in the writing room too.
“We just know there’s a kind of pragmatic side to the larger collaborative process that we’ve developed, which also has to do with the amount of touring that we’ve done.” he says.
“It used to be that everyone would write individually and then bring that to band, to be worked up as a group,” Calabrese adds. “And then we started saying, ‘You know what? Some of us, it takes longer than others to write music.’ Especially me. So out of again, pragmatism, came this general idea like, ‘Let’s just start sharing [ideas with each other].”
The reinvigorated landscape of the band’s dynamics left Lake Street Dive with freshly budding seeds of inspiration to write their new album, Obviously, a record that’s as sonically colorful and expressively open as the record’s beautiful cover art. However, the quintet’s embrace of catalysts for change didn’t stop with bringing Bermiss into the full-time fold. Though Lake Street Dive’s discography has taken on its fair share of different producers over the years, 2018’s Free Yourself Up and its titularly fitting self-produced status, has left the group to its own stylistic devices for just about five years now, since the release of Dave Cobb-produced LP, Side Pony, in February 2016.
Subsequently, while the decision to once again include a separate producer isn’t completely surprising, specifically connecting with Mike Elizondo for the role—a professional who has taken the helm of projects involving a wide swath of genres, instruments, sound design styles, and more—speaks far higher volumes about how musically and mentally flexible Lake Street Dive were daring themselves to be throughout the album making process. “Certainly [Mike Elizondo’s] reputation preceded him,” Calabrese explains.
“When we were making [Obviously] with him, [the thought process] just kept reinforcing itself, like, ‘Oh, this is the nerd that you want,” he adds. “This is the nerd that we all are.’ And we you know we could make records with him all day or we could talk albums. It was kind of like this, not only mutual background with a mutual understanding, and we had mutual respect, and also liked all the same stuff. So that kind of checked all the boxes.”
The thought of building up Obviously from a cornerstone sparked by two major changes, sounds daunting at best and precarious at worst. However, that’s only if the growth-oriented mindset is viewed in a rickety, linear, vertical fashion. Seen from the vantage point of carving out a wider space for more voices, rather than a single lane of narrow and hierarchical direction, the continually diverse personality of Lake Street Dive suddenly bears even more strength to support the weight that comes with venturing even further into the unknown in the recording studio. It’s all about how new skills and creative input from Bermiss and Elizondo came to fit in and were applied, not just the fact that there are suddenly more cooks in the creative kitchen.
“There was [an] instance where [the band was working on] “Feels Like the Last Time,” and for that song, we just did Akie solo. And [the band] was like, ‘Oh, how should we approach this?’ Elizondo was like, ‘I think the best place to start is just with the demo,’” says Calabrese.
“[So,] Akie’s way of making demos for himself [is that] he’ll beatbox the beat, then he’ll sing a bass line, and then he’ll sing the melody, then harmonize with himself, and that’s how he gets [demoes] across,” Calabrese explains. “And it was like, ‘This should basically be the meat of whatever we end up recording. And [Elizondo] was like, ‘Akie, get in the vocal booth and start beatboxing’.”
In the case of newly permanent Bermiss, the most noted shift in the keyboardist’s contributions meant co-writing a number of Obviously’s songs with the other band members, as well as solo writing the track “Anymore.” Elizondo meanwhile, for his part across the album’s stylization, encouraged more than a few notably unfamiliar approaches for the band that, despite some not being necessarily directly evident in the finished product, were nonetheless uncharted territory for what Lake Street Dive was used to—even in the face of their established open-mindedness.
“If you would come to one of us and been like, ‘Yo, let’s start [a] song with beatboxing,’ we’d be like, ‘This is a Lake Street Dive record. Lake Street Dive doesn’t beatbox; who do you think you are? That’s not who we are. We’re never doing that.’ [But] sure enough, we tried it and it was cool. We let it happen. And so after a couple of times of trying stuff out and just going with it, more moments like that that came up [and] wound up being successful,” Calabrese says.
This is just one of a slew of Obviously’s individual artistic aspects, that showcase Lake Street Dive’s impressively smooth transition into an even more collaboration-powered band. The five piece now moves forward with even less concern for any single credence meant to convey what Lake Street Dive sounds like, and where or with whom the group can be found working out its next thrilling set of musical ideas.
“I think it’s a real danger for anyone to expect that they can keep something the same way. I think it’s foolish in fact, because it’s impossible to keep things from changing, especially if it’s calling for [change],” Calabrese says.
“The fact of the matter is,” he continues, “this band, you know, we’ve changed like everyone else—personally and interpersonally. And you need to ride that. I don’t think there’s any comfort that can be gleaned from the idea of holding to principles or holding to one way of doing things. If there’s anything you want to keep consistent, I think it would be the ability to adapt. You strengthen your ability to adapt and you strengthen your resolve to allow change to happen, and then you face that chemistry. I think that word, [chemistry], if there’s going to be any word that sums [this moment] up, I think that’s a good one because, it’s about the importance of relationships and the importance of the freshness of your growth in your ideas and I think that’s really the place you want to stay.”
