What started out as a recording project with the goal of one album and one show eventually turned into a regular show-playing, album-making band. Now Rock Lake is ready to drop their second rock and roll bomb on the City of Winnipeg and blow your fucking mind.
Rock Lake’s newest self-titled album will be released on high-quality CD-R via Eat ‘Em Up records. Given that this will be the band’s second release, they were able to take their first album and build on their strengths while learning from their mistakes.
“I think it’s an improvement,” states Jan Quackenbush—pronounced “yun,” but most people say it more like “yawn”—the band’s guitarist and vocalist. “When recording our first album we put a new snare skin on wrong and Joe [Warkentin] obliterated the thing – you could drink soup out of it after. We avoided that particular problem this time. None of the bands I’ve ever been in have done a second album so I’ll just say it sounds exactly the same but different.”
“With the latest self-titled [album] there is a marked improvement in the quality of production as Jan figures out his craft,” says bassist Daniel Pangman.
Quackenbush is certainly an asset to any band with his innate ability to write catchy, fast rock and roll with a punk edge. Paired with Pangman’s melody-making abilities, this duo is unstoppable.
The band is rounded out by Joe Warkentin, a veritable rock and roll madman involved in such notable projects as Hot Live Guys, Those Guys From Last Night, and the High Thunderers. Warkentin is comparable to Animal from the Muppets behind the drum kit, a hot mess with long sweaty locks often seen sporting a housecoat on stage.
“Playing with Daniel and Joe is awesome and it’s a privilege to make music with such talented guys,” says Quackenbush. “We’re all into different shit and that comes out really well with the songwriting and the rocking. Joe plays in a bunch of grindcore bands and he’s a force of nature on the drums. Daniel leads the Lonely Vulcans and is [the] monarch of melody. I fit somewhere in the middle and I guess it all works somehow.”
Though all three gentlemen have their hands full while playing in other bands, Pangman claims that this adds to Rock Lake’s music rather than takes away from it.
“The best part about Rock Lake is that we’re all in other bands that we write for,” states Pangman. “This makes writing and learning our songs so very un-grueling. It’s like the yet-to-be-completed song had already been predetermined, and we kind of just mindlessly float out of body to the conclusion. Except sometimes it’s harder. Go figure.”
Rock Lake will be releasing their new CD with a good ol’ rock and roll show to be held at the historic Windsor Hotel on Mar. 28. The band isn’t quite sure yet whether they’ll follow up this show with a tour. As Pangman puts it, they’re “not too concerned with anything besides making cool songs.”
Catch Rock Lake at their CD release show on Mar. 28 at the Windsor Hotel with the Vibrating Beds and the Hoots.
