“I’m gonna be frank,” says Rachael Price, “we’re not really happy with the man who’s in charge of the country we come from… We’re really trying to promote as much change as possible and put as many positive messages into our music as we can.”
Living in the nation of Lake Street Dive is nice. There’s good vibes, good friends, good drinks, and good music.
As Price said, the new album is peppered with political protest lyrics, like in “Shame, Shame, Shame,” “Baby Don’t Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts” and “Dude.”
There’s just one catch: this democratic republic of groove only lasts as long as their show. Although, when it’s over, we still have the record.
Self-described as their strongest album yet, Free Yourself Up has the punch of a greatest hits compilation.
“We read more headlines that we do love and self help books, and so that’s more of what came out in this record,” says Michael Calabrese, founding member and drummer of Lake Street Dive.
“We are now different people, we’ve grown up, we’re out of college, we have a full-time career in this business, we own houses now…we’re involved in the economy and the world and what’s going on, it sounds funny but, for the first time in our lives, we’re concerned with more things that just who was the latest person to break our heart, or two-time us — that purely poppy bubbly love song.”
Now, if you’ve seen them play in the U.S. you likely already have the album (CDs were included with show tickets). And if you’ve seen them live, you also know their show is something too magical to capture with recorded sound alone.
If you’ve watched late night TV, you’ve seen a glimpse of their live set.
“Every time we do one of Stephen Colbert’s shows it’s of course perfect, amazing, he’s super nice, his entire staff is really great,” says Calabrese.
Next month, Lake Street Dive will join Stephen on stage again, this time at 92Y, a Jewish Community Centre in New York — and possibly the most poppin’ community centre on the planet.
A quick browse through a typical day in the 92Y schedule offers New Parent Get-Togethers, Tap dancing lessons, Tech Support for Grandparents, a talk by Alan Greenspan, and a screening of House of Cards with the show’s stars in attendance. You know, your typical YMCA kind of stuff.
Although the event doesn’t give many details around what Lake Street Dive and Stephen will discuss, we can safely put our money on U.S. politics, as November brings the season of midterms.
Long before November, Lake Street Dive had been doing their part to get fans engaged with the midterms. For example, the band invited HeadCount to help register voters at their shows.
“There is a new forum these days in the U.S. for levels of negativity to be spread,” says Calabrese.
In response, the band has asked themselves some navel-gazing questions:
“What do we do and what do we love about what we do? We play music. And what we love about playing music is trying to promote that kind of genuine uplifting spirit.”
Music, he says “it’s a salve, it can be motivational, it can be encouraging…”
This fall, Americans choose who controls Congress for the next two years. It’s time to Free Yourself Up.
For voter information, including where to vote, check out vote.org.
P.S.
If anyone finds a good-quality recording of Akie Bermiss’ (Lake Street Drive’s newest member) cover of “Still The One” by Shania Twain, hit us up.