All photos courtesy Man Made Lake
What do language barriers, Zen Buddhism, Big Boi, The Peoples Republic of China, hurricane drunks and thrashed hotel rooms all have in common? Apart from their collective appearance at an idealized family reunion, all of these things are involved in the dynamic history that is Man Made Lake. Distinguished by a decidedly experimental approach to rock music, MML has been on a perennial up-and-up since the release of 2012s Murky Waters, having played numerous festivals and garnered high acclaim from Monday Magazine, the Times Colonist and The Zone @ 91.3 in the last year alone. LYF caught up with the boys at their Victoria rehearsal space to chat about strange beginnings, the current state of music, inspiration, and the meditative quality of performance.
Band Members: Colin Craveiro – vocals/guitarLive Young & Free: Tell us a bit about Man Made Lakes beginnings.
Colin Craveiro: The band started in Victoria with Nate and myself meeting up to jam every Tuesday and Thursday, not playing any shows, just practicing in a basement for a year straight. We were putting some good songs together and beginning to record, when suddenly my wife got a job-offer in china. I called up Nate and was expecting a shitty conversation, but he was just like “Fuck it. Lets go to China.” And so thats what we did (laughs). In China we wound up meeting a lot of really interesting underground Chinese punk rockers, basically all homeless, squatting in buildings downtown. We sort of absorbed a drummer from that community and began rebuilding Man Made Lake.
LYF: Sounds more like a transnational odyssey than your typical band roots
CC: Yeah, our drummer couldnt even speak English, but we learned Chinese and became really close friends with him. Before long we started playing shows, performed alongside The Great Lake Swimmers and The Thermals it actually turned into a really good learning environment and got us playing in front of big audiences, touring a bit, trashing hotel rooms, getting crazy drunk. We also got to record in a decent studio. Again, because the producer didnt speak much English, his only feedback was PLAY TO THE BEAT! which he would just repeat over and over again (laughs).
LYF: Evidently the band made its way home again what did that look like?
Steve Parker: They came back here without a drummer and a bass player who wasnt going to stick around back to practicing in a basement, which is when I started playing with them. We cycled through a couple of drummers, landed on Morgan and have since been working our asses off.
Morgan Hradecky: Two years, two jams a week, no one missing a single practice. Its pretty rare to see that kind of dedication.
SP: And all along we have just been fully experimental. We dont care about being really good individually, were more into the art. Its a little clich, but we believe the magic comes through when the six of us are playing together. Im not Slash, hes not Bob Dylan, but there is an energy that comes out when we play as a group. Weve become more like a family than a band.
MH: or a bickering couple at some points.
LYF: Would you say that sense of experimentation comes across in your sound?
SP: You could literally go through each of our musical influences and then listen to our albums and find all those things coming in. I think that the diversity of our influences really comes from the diversity of people we have contributing to our songs. While Colin usually begins it by bringing something to the table, we all put our own juices into it. Its too hard for me to even say what exactly our genre is.
LYF: Is that troubling at all, not being conscious of a specific genre?
MH: I dont think so. Music is music. I mean, sure you look over the years theres been waves, 70s and 80s and grunge or whatever, but I think that more and more everything has a piece of everything. In the 60s you only had so many genres to draw from to make a new sound. Nowadays weve got everything from fucking Marilyn Manson to Bon Iver!
John Flatman: I think what has had a major factor in this is that less bands are using record labels now. Labels have tended to sort of dictate one style usually theyll say, okay wed like to keep you in this genre, and this is the kind of music we want to hear from you if you are going to get paid, but now its kind of in the bands hands. We dont have to be one genre. We can be as many genres as we want.
Nate Bailey: And that has probably been in our favour since the get-go. We never sought out to be part of a particular genre, and thought lets play alt. rock, lets make indie musicit just kind of happened naturally.
From left: John Flatman, Nate Bailey, Morgan Hradecky, Colin Craveiro, Steve Parker, Brent Gosse
LYF: What have been some group highlights up to this point?
CC: This past Rifflandia is definitely up there. Morgan got asked last minute by Atomique Productions to perform at the Rifftop, which was a huge honour.
MH: We got to play right after Hannah Georgas and before Stars, and hung out with the band backstage. We also got to meet Big Boi (of Outkast). Colin drank his beer.
CC: Oh yeah, Big Boi gave me his beer (all laugh).
SP: Highlights? Man, every jam is a highlight. I always say to people in bands who feel that things arent going as well as they envisioned, like they arent getting exactly what they want out of it, I say just stick with it. Being in a band, with your friends, making music, playing showsit is the most fun you are going to have.
MH: When everyone comes together and youre all in the pocket, its like meditation. Your mind doesnt go to places that it goes when youre driving down the road or sitting at work or whatever, its pretty special.
CC: It has become our mantra to create music. At our gigs we will actually come together and ohm before stepping on stage. Some people might think its silly, but the vibration of ohm-ing together sort of connects you, and you all become centred on the same level. When I look at music from a meditative perspective, being in this band becomes a sort of dharma, not just something we do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but a way of life and part of our identity. And on our horizon is just us the embodiment of moving forward.
Man Made Lake can be found online @ www.facebook.com/manmadelake. They will be performing on November 8th at Upstairs Cabaret as part of The Zone @ 91.3s Band of the Month Showcase. Theyre forthcoming album is set to be released December 7th at Lucky Bar.
WATCH Man Made Lake perform at Rifflandia 2013:
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