The New Yorker Radio Hour - Lake Street Dive Performs in the Studio

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Lake Street Dive recorded their first album with money that their bassist won in a songwriting contest. They built a following the old-fashioned way, touring small venues for years and building a loyal following of fans—including David Remnick—who thought of them as an under-the-radar secret. Almost twenty years later, the band finds themselves onstage at Madison Square Garden. “My main inspiration for playing M.S.G. is Billy Joel,” the bassist Bridget Kearney said. “It feels like the club when he’s playing there, because he’s so comfortable there. . . . Like, ‘Welcome to my monthly gig, here again at Madison Square Garden.’ It won’t be quite like that for us . . . but I’d love it if we could in some ways make it feel intimate, make it feel like it’s a gigantic dive bar.”They joined David Remnick in the studio at WNYC to perform “Good Together”and “Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros),” from their new album, and “Shame, Shame, Shame,” an older song about a Donald Trump-like “big man” who doesn’t “know how to be a good man.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The band Lake Street Dive recorded their first album with money that their bassist had won in a songwriting contest. There were kids at the time, music students at the prestigious New England Conservatory. But instead of playing classical or jazz, they gravitated over the years more and more to a blend of Americana, pop, country. and rock, and they made it all their own. And like a lot of fans, I stumbled onto the band via YouTube years ago, and I really love their pop covers and their incredibly homey stage presence. For years, Lake Street Dive was a little underground, and they toured from one small venue to the next, losing band members and gaining some along the way.

And now, almost 20 years later, Lake Street Dive finds themselves coming to the stage of Madison Square Garden. And they joined us in the studio at WNYC. That's Good Together, a song on the record of the very same name by Lake Street Dive. That was great. Thank you. I think we should go around the table and everybody introduce themselves. So, Rachel.

This is Rachel Price. I'm the singer and the band. This is Mike Calabrese. I'm the drummer. I'm Bridget Carney. I play the bass. I'm James Cornelso. I play the guitar. I'm Aki Burmese. I play the keyboards. And you sing. And sing sometimes.

Everybody sings. You know, wind provoked. This equality, I don't know how to describe it otherwise. When I, I should confess that I'm watching you on YouTube, it's because I'm working late at night and I want to take a break. And there's a certain happiness to this band. There's a lift that comes from listening, watching you. And one review from AllMusic says that good together, the song you just played as a love song that, and this is a quote, could just as easily work as a love letter penned by the members of Lake Street dive to each other.

Oh. I see blushes all around the table. And tears. Bridget is crying. She's weeped. But Richard, is that accurate? I think we do love each other a lot. I think that comes through.

And, yeah, and then definitely, like, joy and fun has always been, like, a priority, sort of. Like, I think it's what kept us together in the beginning. and it's what has gotten us through some of the just slog of like the early years of being a touring band. And even now there are like parts of the job that are really grueling. And so what's the grueling bit? Oh, just being on the road, just being exhausted. Sometimes like a long tour you play the same songs a lot. So like one example is like we've played the same set list a lot in the last couple months because we're putting on this new record.

So you have to be able to make each other light up on stage. You have to, like, Mike is great at, like, playing a drum fill that's like, it's for the audience, but it's really just for us. It's just for us to, like, turn some heads and be like, oh, yeah, we're playing a show. That's not funny. Wake up. I've been listening to this band for years, and I thought it was my little bit of a secret. And then I get a press release. You're at Madison Square Garden.

How do you fill up Madison Square Garden when you've been playing for years and years in, let's just say, smaller venues? Well, we have, like, grown the show. We've got a horn section, percussionist, and some more involved set design and all that. But also, I think, like, my main inspiration for playing MSG is Billy Joel. And I've seen him there. And, like, he's been there a bit. He plays there a lot. And it feels like the club when he's playing there. Because, like, he's so comfortable there. And he acts that way, too. He kind of plays that up. Like, he's just like, yeah, welcome to my monthly gig, you know, here again. in a Massacre Garden. And, you know, it won't be quite like that for us. We'll definitely be, like, at 12 psyched level. But I'd love it if we could in some ways make it feel intimate, make it feel like it's a gigantic dive bar in college where we met.

We were studying jazz. And so definitely the view of what life would look like was more like playing in, like, small clubs around New York City. Although it's been kind of a slow and steady path towards it, just like basically grassroots, like, knocking on doors like, hi, have you heard of Lake Street Dive? Like, it's been kind of one person at a time and then they tell somebody else. But at the Conservatory, this was a breakaway, this was considered a radical move to break away and play this kind of music as opposed to

learning your Charles Mingus or any good, whatever it is you're learning. Speak on that. Yeah. Not really. Yeah, well, New England Conservatory had a really broad definition of what jazz could mean. And I think, like, focuses on more of the fundamental building blocks. of music and then you figure out what those are and then put them together in your own way in a semi-generalist fashion. So there were all sorts of weird bands floating around NEC when we were there. So how does the band become itself? And what are the first meetings of the band? What kind of music are you playing and for whom? And what did you think it was going to be

all about, Rachel? The first meeting of the band was when Mike Olson, who we've always referred to as McDuck asked us each individually in a very formal way to be in a band. That was me and Bridget and Mike. And it was at the end of our first year at NEC. He was envisioning a band that could play at a dive bar. So it would be like enough for, you know, it would be like the type of music that anyone could walk in and listen to. But we were at jazz school. So I think probably we needed to put like a twist on it that legitimized, you know, our tuition or something. So. And we were just exploring what it was like to just like play, you know, tunes like that. And we sounded really, really weird, but I do think that we sounded like a band.

How would you categorize the music of the band? There's the term Maracana, there's the term this, that, and the other thing. Bridget is a designated. Yeah, we have like, three favorite. Okay, you can go second. I'll just back up. I seconded over Bridges about it. Okay, I have three answers myself.

So there's soundtrack to a romantic comedy. There's roller skating music. And the latest one that we came up with is Shatineuf de Pop, which is in reference to a lyric for a mom. That's right. And a classy one situation. But also a pun, so it really undercuts the classy. Right. Gotcha.

So it's a no answer is what you're telling you. Because roller skating music. It's a little flutier than... Okay, fair enough. I got my come-up and stare. So when you sit down to write a song, it's one at a time, two at a time, everybody joins in.

How does this work and maybe sketch it out with one of the songs on the album? Well, good together is a great example. At least more recently, we, you know, in trying to write in the room together, which is something that, you know, we've never done before, even after, you know, 20 years together or seven years with Aki, we rolled Dungeons and Dragons dice to come up with parameters of a song, tempo, chords,

and time signature. But we took those parameters and jammed on them for a little bit just to get the music together, recorded it a little vamp and whoever... In the same room. In the same room. Yeah, and then whoever had rolled the dice, took that little vamp on their phone and went off for 30 minutes and tried to put an idea down for lyrics and melody on top of it.

Okay, I have to say that sounds insane way to... I agree more. How do you deal with these people? Been with these guys for seven years. It must be very difficult. I have no explanation for this. Yeah, I'm sorry. I may have been the one to introduce dodecahedron dice

to our band life. What Michael doesn't say is, we... So when I first joined the band, people wrote songs as far as I know, and then brought them to the band and the band jammed on the songs. And then the second record I was involved in, which I was like partially writing, partially doing sideman stuff was like two people would write a song together and then present it to the group. This was the first time we all sat down and stared at each other and we're like, what's the record going to be? And so the dice kind of helped break it up. But it did result in a lot of zany tunes. What was the idea behind this record?

You want this record to be what? Well, I think Bridget came with the term joyful rebellion. We were trying to like find a lasting, this is my interpretation of it. And please, don't let me get too cerebral. We are trying to find. This is public radio. Okay, great. I feel good about what I'm about to say.

Good. We were trying to create an emotion that had a very long half-life. And I think there's so much emphasis on sort of like rage, upset, disappointment. And I think those emotions have very, they're very intense, but their half-lives are very short. Like they, you rarely linger on them months and months later, unless you've like, you've got a vengeance quest in a fantasy novel. But joy is something that I think you carry a memory. memory of joy with you, sometimes for your entire life, and just being reminded of it, like, remember the time we did that wonderful thing, can fill you up with that kind of positive

energy. Bridget, was there any model of joyful rebellion in your listening history? Yes. In our recent band history, we got to play at Mavis Staples 80th birthday party at the Apollo, which was amazing. She's still on the road. She's still on the road. She'd just have her 80th birthday.

I know. Yeah, so we for that concert learned the song, the stable singers used to do, called Just Another Soldier in the Army of Love. And so we did it for that event. And then we kept it on our set list. And it just opened up a whole new door of sort of feelings on the stage. And then I think in the audience, too, like we have a bunch of songs that are relatable in the sort of romantic realm. love songs, heartbreak songs, everybody's been there. But then there's this other universe of things we all share in terms of bigger picture

struggles and bigger picture victories. And so this felt like, you know, we were all going through some things that are in that world of what Aki was talking about, emotions with shorter half-life. So we would kind of put those at the beginning of the song and then at the back half of the song, put more of the hopeful solutions part of things. Richard Carney, who plays bass in Lake Street Dive. We'll continue and we'll hear another song in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking with the members of Lake Street Dive. The band takes its name, of course, from Lake Street in Minneapolis, which has its share of dives. But this is hardly a bar band, or not anymore. Over many albums and many years together, they've become one of the tightest outfits around. Lake Street Dives' eighth studio albums called Naturally Good Together, and they joined me to perform at WNYC. We'll continue our conversation.

I want to have you play the song, Shame, Shame, Shame, but first can you talk a little bit about what inspired the song and what was going on at the time? Yeah, I think, like, broadly speaking, it's about, like, a person in a position of power. who's trying to resolve their own personal petty grievances from that position of power, and everyone else suffers the consequences. Are we thinking of anyone here? Well, does it remind you of anyone? So, yeah, this song was written in probably 2017, 2018. And it's as vital today as it was then.

It's as vital today as it was then. And there is like the end of the song is like seeking a way forward. And there's a big like sing-along section there that just says like change is coming, oh yeah, ain't no holding it back. Like that kind of thing, like something that hopefully sticks in people's minds and can inspire them. But it's also like it's got this pretty long first half that's like hurting. So let's hear you play a little bit from the song shame, shame, shame. Sure.

One, two. Hold your breath. Underwater. Shame, shame, shame. Shame, shame, shame. Not a game, game. Shame, shame, shame. I bet you think you're a big man.

Rachel, we were just discussing before about the joy aspect of your music. The political aspect of music is also there too. What can it accomplish and what can it not accomplish political music? What music can really seek to do is unify people. You know, we play. everywhere in the country. We go to every town, every big city, and play for wonderful people everywhere, and you see all kinds of people. And to understand that probably we're all sort of seeking the same sort of life in a lot of different ways. If that makes sense.

Well, how would you describe that? Just that I do think that people are trying to have. help one another. I do. I think the people are trying to be joyful and trying to live in like conscious communities and a space where people are getting together and they're dancing to the same song and singing the same song and they're saying like, oh my God, you listen to this band. It's like this is like it's like such a wonderful place to be, which is why I feel like, you know, coming from, you know, 2017 playing a song like shame, shame, shame has brought us to the point where when we went to make this record, we were like, how can we express sadness and grief and frustration, but also like put in a joyful message so that people can have this catharsis together?

You've talked about the benefit of not having one big radio hit that everybody knows. And why is that benefit? Why is that a good thing? You don't want people just, especially when it's one song, I think that could be difficult. Like if they at least like 10 of your songs and they come to your show and you play like four of them, then everybody's going to be happy. And then you might have like a weird new like got got got, got, I'm only going to play two of these. But I got this is what I'm feeling right now. I'm just, what just popped into my head is a video of, I saw a video of Chapel Rhone who somebody said, who was taken earlier this week. In November of last year, she was playing for 200 people now.

she's one of the biggest stars in the world. And this is a video of her on stage, weeping. And the audience is very supportive, you know, but she's just like, weeping because she's so freaked out or so happy? No, no, so freaked out because it's so much because it happens so fast.

That, I mean, people might say like, oh, like, what are you complaining about? You're so famous now, whatever. But it's like that happening so fast could be traumatic, no doubt, you know. And yet bring it on or yet let? Well, I will say that at this point, you know, knowing who we are, knowing that we like each other,

you know, we would be able to dissipate any, I think, huge fame if that were to befall us. But so I'm not really that scared if it happens. I'm not necessarily in the bring it on camp. But yeah, bring it on, I guess. There you go. A moment of honesty. Yeah, come on.

Who doesn't want that? There you go. To an extent. The last song I'll ask you to play is also the last song on the album with the great title set sail prometheus and eros now who wrote that you're pointing back and forth bridget achi and i'm okay what's the story acchi behind that song bridget sent me a stanza and maybe explained to me that she envisioned people landing on a planet after this planet had been ruined or something like that it's a near future imagined

apocalypse what occasioned that um anything illegal Well, no. Really? I was just sitting down. I wanted to write like a kind of McCartney piano song. So the Prometheus and Arrows concept is like Prometheus giving fire to man and that kind of representing like man's insatiable desire for like growth and invention and expansion. And so Prometheus is counterbalanced by arrows. the god of love, which is hopefully what will save us. And that means, like, love for each other, like, lifting each other up, supporting each other, looking out for each other. Now, those two Greek mythological characters, like, never actually interacted in Greek mythology. So this is kind of like fan fiction. Greek fan fiction. But you get this stanza.

You open your email or it's been texted to you and you think, okay, now I know what to do with this. A hundred percent. Bridget knew she had a slight science fiction premise and she sent it to the right person. If Bridget says Prometheus and Aros are hanging out, how would they converse with each other? How would they dialogue? And that's basically how I tried to do it, but within the strictures of the stanzas that Bridget gave me. Because you go back and forth, back and forth, and then you all get in a room and start working it out. We have a guitar solo.

It sounds like tremendous fun. No, everything about set sail was fun Are you kidding? Aki and I are doing our best Celine Dion Bibo Bryson Oh yeah fulfilling a childhood dream to do a Disney soundtrack Yeah

Is that in the future? Disney soundtracks I'm there Call us up I hear you got my nose That's a bring it on I can get by it on Yeah

Yeah We've made Natural explores we unnatural disasters reset us from the start threatening to break my heart set sail

unto the breeze one more Rachel Price, Richard Carney Mike Calabrese, Aki Burmese and James Cornielsen are Lake Street Dine. They're performing at Madison Square Garden this weekend.

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. With guidance from Emily Boteen and assistance from Lom.

Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Deccan. And we had additional help this week from Irene Trudell. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.