Hungry Lake

HUNGRY LAKE is a psyche-folk-rock band from Toronto. And their brand of nostalgic lyrics, coupled with haunting harmonies in ‘The Devil’s Teeth’ makes things cozy, even with ‘death’ staring straight into our eyes. The sadness is gripped only by the inability to act upon the obvious. HUNGRY LAKE makes things a bit more brilliant, as we go into the far reaches and depths in our individual lives. Look for more from this dynamic rock bank. - comeherefloyd

‘Flying or Falling’, the new tune from reggae-gazers Hungry Lake, is groovy and sedated. This is the perfect tune to smoke weed to – where it’s legal, of course. The staccato bass lines in conjunction with the mathy drums really put the rhythm section on another level. The ethereal, reverb-drenched guitar has its own character too. Instead of going for the twinkly, math rock tone that’s defined this type of music for a while now, these guys boosted the bass and the mids for a unique, satisfying sound. These guys have everything in order to trailblaze a new genre. Check out ‘Flying or Falling’ below! - Rock the Pigeon

Toronto act Hungry Lake show a consuming sound that intertwines folk, psychedelia, and rock. The group’s first iteration came upon founding members Joe Thomas and Ryan Webb meeting at Seneca’s Independent Music Program in 2008, with gradual additions to the lineup combining with the songwriting growing to a more progressive stance in recent years. They will be releasing a new full-length, New Destruction, this fall, as well as embarking on a national tour. New track “Out of Line” does well in building anticipation for the release and showcasing the group’s sound, with calming vocals guiding mellow verses into melodic expansion that shows commendable musicianship and melodic chops. With a lively and vibrant sound, Hungry Lake seem like they’re in for a big 2018. - Obscure Sound

Hungry Lake are out of Toronto and their track Out Of Line from their upcoming album of the same name has a vast big indie rock sound for a self described psychedelic folk rock band. The bottom heavy groove is cut deep and guitar sounds ebb and flow and crescendo in big walls of sound and ambiance. There are touches of California garden rock and as I listened to the cool double guitar lead breaks I thought of surfing in Northern California amid big breaks and fog rolling in at Big Sur. The dimension to the sound is so amazing.
-Robb Donker - American Pancake

The first time I ever heard Hungry Lake’s debut album, ‘The Overpass’, I knew I had to learn more about the band who describe themselves as “Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear Who Played Spacey Garagey Folky Melodies”. I hunted down their contact info and a few weeks later I got to sit down with lead singer/songwriter Joe Thomas. Read on as we discuss old songs becoming new songs, being a musical Mad-Lib, and why they want ‘The Overpass’ to be absorbed organically.

AMBY: Hi Joe, thanks for sitting down with me today. Can you tell our readers; who are Hungry Lake and what are you creating?

HL: Well, Hungry Lake is: Me, I’m Joe, Ryan and Taylor, Josh and Dave and our sound guy is Josh as well, we have lots of Josh’s. We are a noisy folk-rock band and we just recently released ‘The Overpass’. We’ve already written another album that we want to record early next year.

AMBY: Oh really? Ok, that is impressive. Let’s speak first about your debut album, ‘The Overpass’. The band has actually been creating the music from this album for years. What was the recording process like? Was there a lot of refining that happened?

HL: Well, we recorded the album ourselves; for the most part it was done on tape, which limits you, in a way, because you can’t edit things in on the fly, you have to live with it.

AMBY: Kind of a more authentic sound, in a way.

HL: Exactly. There was some digital work done at the end, to put everything together and make it sound really great.

AMBY: In terms of your experimental sound, what sort of experimental things are you using as instruments in the music?

HL: Sometimes it’s as simple as just using a guitar in a way you wouldn’t typically. I’ve definitely used drumsticks on guitars to beat the strings. On (The) Chemical (That Ate This City) the guys used butter knives on an acoustic guitar and they beat it like a drum to get this weird sound out of it.

AMBY: So taking instruments and repurposing them to make new and different sounds?

HL: Yea, just using whatever we have at our disposal but also not going to any extreme lengths.

AMBY: You guys have actually been making music for years, what prompted you to release an album now? And why was the release so soft and gradual?

HL: Well, it was always supposed to be this album… it wasn’t always called ‘The Overpass’ but the album was always there; we were always working toward this. Instead of trying to push it out over a three month period, getting press and having a CD release party and inviting our friends in bands to open the show and inviting all our friends to come to make it look like we have tons of fans when we don’t (they do), we just…put it out there. I just didn’t want to do any of that stuff. After working on this album for so long, it made sense to me to just put it out without any kind of hype about it and just see what happens with it. This way, people can receive it on their own; maybe have a friend tell them about it or see us at a show and buy a copy.

AMBY: So having it come to them through the love of music, rather than the hype machine?

HL: Yea. Not that there would be a very big hype-machine surrounding us.

AMBY: There could be

HL: There could be. It depends how rich our parents are.

AMBY: Well, ‘The Overpass’ is good, it definitely warrants a bit of hype.

HL: Well, we thought about all just crowding around one guitar, and each playing a different part of the guitar to make up a song, but that’s the stupidest shit in the world.

AMBY: [Laughs] Speaking of crowding, Hungry Lake recently played ‘Band on a Couch’. What was that like, how did you fit on the couch? I understand it is the closest you’ve ever been to your bandmates.

HL: Yea. Ryan and I were pretty close. There were a lot of guitars in the way. No, it was cool. We had Rebekah and Vale from a band called House Art. We thought “We’re playing on a small couch; we should probably bring more people, because 5 people is not enough.

AMBY: Just trying to make it super-awkward.

HL: Rebekah and Vale are playing with us on Monday (at the Silver Dollar Room)

AMBY: How did you decide what songs to play on Band on a Couch?

HL: I guess we wanted to play Leaside (10am)…..

AMBY: Because that’s my favourite song

HL: Yea, that’s exactly why. The song has a good vibe, its one song that always stays in the set while every other song comes and goes. New Destruction, the second song we played is an important tune from our forthcoming record. Some of the songs we might not play anymore, or they’ll turn into other songs and we will just play them in different ways

AMBY: That sounds really awesome. Okay, tell our readers about your cover series – why did you decide to do one and how did you pick the songs?

HL: I’ve always done covers, especially while doing solo gigs. There are so many great songs that have such big production, like ‘Friday I’m in Love’ but there’s a song in there that’s really sad, same with ‘Dancing in the Dark’; an upbeat song with really bleak lyrics. It’s like, hey, even in the most over-produced decade in music history there were still songs that had lyrical content that was heart-wrenching, whereas today you’re lucky if the underground stuff has lyrics that make you think. I find a lot of artistry in film and comedy writing these days in terms of writing that blows my mind.

AMBY: What does Hungry Lake have planned for the near future?

HL: We’re playing a full-band show on Monday and after that there might be a few Hungry Lake shows but mostly it will be me and a guitar until we start recording the next record.

AMBY: You’ll be playing shows in Toronto?

HL: Yea, hopefully farther.

AMBY: Maybe Detroit?

HL: Yeah, I would be down to go to Detroit and play a folk show. I feel like it’s important to keep a strong focus on my song writing; always becoming a better performer and writing songs that can stand up on their own. You’ll see some of our new material is pretty progressive but still rooted in country, folk-y music that’s noisy. A bunch of descriptive words that don’t quite match up – we’re like a musical Mad Lib.

AMBY: What is something about Hungry Lake that your listenership doesn’t know yet?

HL: We are super hilarious; we don’t do hard drugs, which may be surprising to some people, maybe. We don’t want to be the same thing on every record, so you can expect something different from ‘The Overpass’ next time.

AMBY: Sounds like we have something great to look forward to

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Thank you Hungry Lake, for giving us your answers!


-Interview by Heather Cook - A Music Blog Yeah (AMBY)

It’s November in Toronto and obviously pretty cold outside, but even the threat of winter itself cannot stop the concert-goers in this city. Tonight I’m going to see Friends of Foes on their Eastern Canadian tour. Supporting them will be Hungry Lake, Alma Cassels and Noble Oak, all from Toronto. Hungry Lake will be closing out the show, because they are local and Friends of Foes are super nice guys. Hungry Lake just put out ‘The Overpass’, a solid studio album that has been getting a lot of praise over social media, so it’s needless to say I’m pretty stoked for the tunes ahead.

This is my first time at the Silver Dollar Room. It is dark and intimate, long and narrow. The stage is lit up with rotating red, green and blue lights which make everything look a little hazy at first. I like a good hazy rock show, so I settle in, albeit a bit late from trying to find parking.

As I arrive, Noble Oak is playing his final few songs. I really enjoy listening to his music, and what I am able to catch live has an attractive sound. Blayne, a blogger who caught the whole set, had this to say about Noble Oak’s performance: “In a set lasting 30 minutes, Noble Oak combined smooth, tropical background texture with live riffs from various synthesizers, his guitar, and his voice to create a sonic space that was somber, yet upbeat. Songs ranged from soulful to danceable synthpop and back again. “ You can see his full write-up on Noble Oak HERE.
Alma Cassels are up next. They describe themselves as: “Refreshingly different indie rock from Toronto” and I would say the description is pretty spot-on. Their sound is groovy and reminds me, at times, of Cage the Elephant. Their set is warm, upbeat and dreamy and helps to loosen up those of us still half frozen from the weather. My favourite track of their set, ‘Chinchilla’ is a dreamy dancing tune and lead singer, Cameron, implores everyone holding up the bar to come dance in front. As usual, it takes a few brave souls to loosen everyone up and by the time Alma Cassels share their funky take on Britney Spears’ ‘Toxic’, people are definitely dancing.

Next to play are Friends of Foes from Saskatoon, SK. They are currently on tour performing songs from their 2013 album ‘Chronophobic’ and some new material that sounds really exciting. The moment Celeste Nicholson starts to sing you get the feeling that this is a band to watch for. Her voice is beautiful and melodic, kind of like Amy Millan’s, and I feel it compelling to move closer to the stage and just lose myself in the music. Anthony Nickel, the bass player straight grooves for the entire set with the nicest smile on his face. He is an absolute pleasure to watch and very talented; the whole band has a great dynamic. Their interaction is so genuine and you can tell that they really enjoy making music together; it is so endearing that I feel closer to the band because of it. They take us through their set with track after track of sweet but substantial indie-pop, blazing through with standout tracks like ‘Youth’ with Nicholson beating away on a drum which produced a sound that extends past the walls of the Silver Dollar and has me excited for the future of Friends of Foes. If you like Stars, Chvrches, Florence and the Machine or Rah Rah, you will love Friends of Foes. I hope they come back soon.

Now it is time for Hungry Lake. There are so many people in the Dollar now that it is getting difficult to walk through the crowd. You can feel excitement building in the air and I get the sense that the performance is going be something really special. I share in this excitement myself having listened to little else but ‘The Overpass’, Hungry Lake’s new album, for the past two weeks. Right before Hungry Lake takes the stage, a musician/producer from another band says to me “Joe (Thomas, the lead singer) is going to be the next Neil Young.” I tell my friends to remember this performance when we are traveling to see them headlining a festival one day. They start the show with ‘Leaside (10am)’ which is such huge song and fills the Silver Dollar up with their fuzzy folk music. Right from the first chord, it is evident that Hungry Lake is a great live band. They play so well together that it is often difficult to isolate which instrument is making what noise because not only do their instruments play together in perfect harmony, they also throw in countless experimental sounds that make their performances stand out from other folk-rock bands I have seen recently. The 5-man band is joined onstage at times by musician friends Vale Abbot and Rebekah Hawker who provide sweet supporting vocals and jam along with the band. The stage looks nice and full with all seven people on it – it seems to properly reflect the big sound of Hungry Lake. Speaking of big sound, Joe Thomas can SING. There is no appropriate string of adjectives I can present to properly convey how magnificent his voice is, so please, just go see him live.

The folks of Hungry Lake are so creative that they play totally different versions of their own songs live. On their album, ‘The Overpass’, ‘The Chemical That Ate This City’ is a spooky, acoustic track, so when the full band starts playing it, I have trouble placing it at first. This live version is incredible; it has so much energy and is like a completely new song. It strikes me that this is why Hungry Lake is such an amazing band to see live. I really enjoyed everyone’s focus – there are no amateurs in Hungry Lake.

They play some songs from The Overpass and some new tracks that sound very promising but, at times, are too big for the low-ceilinged Silver Dollar. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy the intimacy of the room and proximity to the band but I feel like these new songs should be played in the mighty outdoors and I really hope Hungry Lake makes it out to some festivals next year.

Toward the end of their set, they turn on something called a Thingamagoop. The Thingamagoop is a handmade, analog + digital synthesizer you control with light and you can use it to make robot sounds. I know it is a Thingamagoop because I saw it in Hungry Lake’s Band on a Couch video and asked Joe Thomas about it. You can watch a noisy video about one HERE. So if that’s not already one of the coolest things I’ve seen at a live show, the guitarist then plugs it into his instrument and just goes crazy on it. The sound produced is just insane and at this point, people are looking at each other with open mouths and widening eyes. I start thinking ‘why aren’t they closing with this?’, but I am about to find out why.

‘Pretenders’ the final song, is actually two songs in one. It is an entire song, a country folk-ish song, with beautiful but sad lyrics that are honest enough to make you feel a bit uncomfortable, as good lyrics often do. Just when you think it’s over, it becomes a progressive musical tornado that everyone in Hungry Lake just completely shreds to pieces. It is the perfect song to end a show and everyone present seems to agree. As soon as the music stops, I remember the band mentioning that this would be their last performance for a while because they are going to start working on a follow-up album immediately. I feel happy knowing these new songs will be recorded soon but I’m also really sad that I wouldn’t get to see them live again in the near future. I can’t wait until their new album is complete so I can go to another Hungry Lake show.

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Review by Heather Cook - A Music Blog Yeah (AMBY)