Sold-out gigs in Cork and Dublin, playing the Late Late Show and hanging out with Hozier - US band Lake Street Dive enjoyed their recent visit to Ireland. Alan Corr met "the happy break-up band"
Fresh from hanging out with Hozier the night before at their sold-out gig in Whelan’s in Dublin, all four members of US band Lake Street Dive are relaxing backstage at The Late Late Show.
"Last night was awesome, really fun," says powerhouse vocalist and Tennessee native Rachael Price. "It was our kind of room," chimes drummer Michael Calabrese. "Just like the kinda place we play back in the states - a real dive bar."
"We’ve had interactions with Hozier before," adds Price. "I met him at Newport Folk Festival but he was at our show two years ago when we played Dublin and there was a series of really funny tweets that he posted and we were like `who’s this guy?’ and then it was `Oh! That guy!’"
Lake Street Dive are in the middle of another European tour and making their second visit to Ireland in three years. Last night was Whelan's, tonight is a winning over a new audience on the Late Late, and the next day they drive south, way down south for a Saturday night headliner at the Ballydehob Jazz Festival.
They sure travel well and they are also a colourful bunch who channel the joy and zest of their gumbo of blues, swing era jazz and snappy sixties pop into their appearance. Price is all fifties glam, limber double bass player Bridget Kearney ("yes, my great grandfather was Irish.") is in chic black, and the wise-cracking Calabrese is in Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants.
Meanwhile, taciturn guitarist and trumpeter - and de facto band leader - Michael "McDuck" Olson reclines on the sidelines. He seems like a cool customer.
Lake Street Dive (more on that name in a minute) are the classic Saturday night bar band - one shot giddy abandon and two shots tears in your beer at closing time. Their new album Side Pony is named after a devil may care asymmetrical haircut that one really needs the bone structure and the well, balls, to pull off, and it’s been winning LSD friends and festivals slots since its release last February.
They met in 2004 while studying at The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston but only went full time after a YouTube clip of the band singing a melancholic version of The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back on a Boston street corner went viral to the tune of four million views.
LSD are brassy and sassy for sure and ask them to describe their music for the uninitiated and there is no hesitation. "We sometimes say it’s like The Beatles and Motown get together and kind of party," says Kearney. "Then they go on a 12-year platonic double date . . . ok, I’m getting ahead of myself. Hahahaha."
"We give different answers all the time because we probably don’t have a good answer to what kind of music we play," says Price. "We’re not very genre specific but we do have some general ideals. We make music that is fun for the body and the mind. We want people to dance and enjoy themselves but we also want to have depth to the musical and lyrical content so you can go a little deeper and make you think."
LSD take their intriguing name from an area in McDuck’s hometown of Minneapolis. "The Lake Street Dive of yesteryear is a street in Minneapolis, lots of bars, lots of bands and it sort of had a bad reputation at the time," says Calabrese. "So we are the kind of fantasy band of that era. The kind of band you would see in a place like that which is why we have fun in a place like Whelan’s because it fits our archetypal bill."
Side Pony certainly explodes with joy but the lyrics also ponder the pitfalls of modern romance and Price has described LSD as "a happy break-up band". "I think there are dark moments in all the songs. It’s just that they’re masked in upbeat music," she says. "The title track is very dark. We explore it all. We just don’t really adhere to the stereotypical tropes of music where dark or sad subject matter need to be in a minor key and very slow. We feel like we can sing about our troubles in a way that makes people dance."
The Late Late Show and the Ballydehob Jazz Festival are calling but before they go, I ask LSD the ultimate old school Smash Hits magazine style question: If Lake Street Dive were a TV show, what TV show would they be?
"Oh god!" laughs Price. "I’ve thought about this . . . definitely a seventies TV show. Who would be the neighbour that comes over unannounced?." "I feel as thought McDuck would be Mr Wilson in Tool Time, the sage-like neighbour. That or Seinfeld." "Tool Time is a deep reference," says Price helpfully. "It was a nineties American sitcom with Tim Allen."
A silent and watchful McDuck finally stirs and says: "I agree with the Seinfeld reference. I think that because we’re in a band and we’re travelling all over the world, people assume that we’re living this fast-paced, exciting lifestyle and really a whole lot of nothing happens."
Side Pony Is out now on Nonesuch Records
Alan Corr @corralan
