Lake Street Dive’s Akie Bermiss Talks Tour, New Album & The Community Of Music

Acclaimed band Lake Street Dive is about to embark on a North American tour in support of its new album Good Together. The band will be playing at Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards in Lafayette on July 7.

315 Music spoke with keyboardist Akie Bermiss who joined LSD in 2017, as he sets out on the band’s biggest tour yet.

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315 Music: Can you speak about your musical journey from youth to your professional career?

Akie Bermiss: Sure, I actually came to music rather late. I was a computer science major and went to a school specializing in STEM. Then in high school, I started trying out for musicals and had an innate desire to perform. It was then that I fell in love with music and performance. I still love technology, but when I had the choice to go to College I chose Bard College where I was able to study music. It was a late-in-life awakening and I was also just bit by that performance bug. Now I still have that thrill, especially with a new record and songs. When we get to play them for the first time live, it’s like this whole, huge community comes from a performance of that nature. There is an audience and the band and it’s an experience altogether that is happy and joyful and it motivates me to be a part of it.

315 Music: You joined Lake Street Dive in 2017, how did they find you or did you find them?

AB: They were at the start of their meteoric rise, and I was also in the New York scene where they had blown up. At the time I was doing the hardscrabble musician life, teaching vocal lessons, piano lessons, playing gigs, and playing weddings, and a couple of years before joining in 2015 I did a show together with them, where I opened for them.

We hit it off musically and personality-wise and had tons of friends in common. They were looking for a piano player and I thought it was a perfect match and they said: “Do you want to get on the bus?” So in Boston, I got a list of songs for the tour and the next day the tour started. Total baptism by fire!

315 Music: Wow! Truly took that ride!

AB: Well playing in various groups for years 5 or 6 times a week, prepared me for it. It’s been an amazing ride honestly, and I’m so glad I got on.

315 Music: What are some of the best memories of being in the band and touring so far?

AB: Oh man, there are so many show moments. Those are the incredible ones. I remember playing Red Rocks for the first time, and so many other places I had never been. It was amazing. I think that many musicians have that dream of being on the tour bus and seeing the country. Part of the reason I wanted to become a professional musician was the “hang after” the shows. We are tired and sweaty and in our pajamas, on a bus headed to the next venue and just eating tortilla chips and watching Stranger Things. It’s like being in an adult summer camp. It’s hard, but so much fun and at the end of the day it’s the music that drives us. I love making music with this group. They are such great people and their friendship is genuine and full of empathy and I’ve just been drinking that in.

315 Music: So having been with Lake Street Dive a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic and now continuing, what are your thoughts on the effect of living in this current state, for better or for worse or both?

AB: There was a huge negative impact on the music and performance scene in general obviously. We had to learn on the fly about honing our social media skills and streaming and the ways to connect with our bandmates and perform when you aren’t available in person.

I also feel like, a silver lining was, as we came back to live performances, the feelings were so much more heightened at our performances. Even when everything was closed or partially closed we all tried to find ways to connect to our community, to the people. It’s so important. I found a club in Brooklyn that had a piano on the street corner with no microphone or PA. I shouted over the traffic and played and people came out to see me and so many others trying to keep that spirit alive. So it comes back to the power of community, and not taking that for granted. In the future when we come together to create and spread joy we must keep that unity. It’s a precious experience to perform and to go see live music too. It made me take stock of just how lucky I am and also how I can support fellow musicians.

One of our first shows back on tour again was at Beak & Skiff, it was a socially-distanced show, but an absolutely ecstatic experience. to see your bandmates in the flesh, to play with them and have that audience response.

After performing a song on Instagram, you are transported for a moment and you are lucky to have that technology that can still connect you, but then it ends and there is no applause and you are just alone in your apartment. No one cheering, maybe just your cat walks by. So to get back out there, it heightens your experience of being a human being. That’s what the live music community does. To make art and to interact with others. The experience of goodwill, singing and dancing together… nothing can beat that.

315 Music: What advice would you give your inner child starting to perform and to younger musicians?

AB: Ah wow, so much advice! I think fostering any kind of artistic inclination is very important and requires a lot of checking in and having support. I think for musicians starting out, and it might be a thing overlooked but I’m going to say it again…community! Finding your people for lack of a better word. It doesn’t mean you have to find bandmates, but other musicians and other artists that you love their work and personalities. Being inspired by others and enjoying when people are inspired by yours.

Music school teaches you chords, reading, song form, and harmony. But when you leave school there is no enforced community. After school, you have to set out on your own and find others that think like you or challenge you in a way that you find exciting. Then you build with those people. Before I was with LSD, we had a communal appreciation for each other. Being on stage is such a small and short time is what it is to be a musician, but behind the scenes, there are so many other ways to connect with bands, and other artists and become a person in this world. I can’t underline that enough: find your support groups and be supportive yourself.

315 Music: What do you believe is true success?

AB: If you take away the high water marks of success, money, housing, vacations….those are obvious points of success. I do think for me, my dream was to be a musician in a place. The biggest thrill I get is at the local coffee shop and they know this guy plays music and I feel as if I’m part of the local fabric and ecosystem of the community. To have that social cache of being an artist and being accepted locally, I still just pinch myself when I’m at the bodega or the laundromat and someone is like oh yeah this is a musician and to feel seen and recognized as being what my younger self’s dream was. To be locally known, not even celebrated. It’s like how everyone knows their local ice cream truck guy, I want to be the music version of that. It’s very exciting. That and to meet other musicians who know your work, this longevity of our lives as performers creates inspiration to continue. Being an artist in a place as part of the contemporary times and events is such a thrill. That’s a success to me.

Even down the line, if I’m not touring and hopping on and off stages, I hope I can have some musical application to my community. Even when people were coming out for small, safe performances during the pandemic, it made me believe more that a musician’s mission statement is to gather people to experience their humanity together.

315 Music: If you could teleport/time travel, where would you take yourself on a musical journey in history?

AB: I would have loved to have been born in the ’50s or ’60s and be in New York hopefully and go to those little clubs and see someone like Sarah Vaughan. To sit right up in the front of the stage, that’s one that I would definitely have loved to see. Being able to see and maybe even be a part of how that music was created would be so cool. I could name this sort of thing for a dozen other genres as well. Gosh, I will be thinking about this question for days. Wait, this is completely random. I would have loved to see Queen at Live Aid! I mean everyone knows that concert, but to have been there witnessing it. That’s a top one for sure.

315 Music: Soon you’ll be out there on the road, what is your favorite comfort food on tour?

AB: I have a somewhat bizarre answer. The idea of being a musician and the idea of after the show…. where everyone goes to hang. In my early twenties, we always went to diners at 1 AM. So a weak coffee or a Belgian Waffle. So that feeling of being on tour and finding a diner with my book on tour, brings me a sense of peace and that feeling that I’m doing it now. Sometimes you run into a friend or colleague and talk about the music and the art. It’s that atmosphere I live in.

315 Music: Any last thoughts you would like to share on the tour?

AB: We are excited to be on the road and I feel so honored to be playing this “in scene soundtrack” for what’s going on in the world. I can’t wait to create moments and memories of joy and bring people together with my band mates, it’s all about these lasting relationships.

The Good Together Tour marks their largest and most ambitious North American tour to date, featuring a career milestone with a landmark show at Madison Square Garden. A complete list of dates and more info is available here. 
The new album Good Together is out now, marking their debut with Fantasy Records. 

They’ve shared “Better Not Tell You,” “Good Together,” and “Twenty-Five” from the LP thus far, the latter of which was just featured in NPR Music All Songs Considered: The Contenders, Vol. 10: The songs we can’t stop playing this week who described the track saying “there is a generosity of spirit in this song and humility…” 

The album’s title track is currently in the Top 10 Mediabase Triple A Charts.

On Good Together the band arrives with a renewed sense of purpose, aiming to highlight our shared humanity against the social divisions pulling us apart. The ethos of Good Together can be described as “joyful rebellion,” just as energetic and danceable as it is defiantly principled.

The album finds Lake Street Dive working once more with Grammy-winning producer Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr.), also marking the first time all the members of the band collaborated in the earliest, most vulnerable stages of songwriting together, creating a unique approach to the sessions. The group gathered in drummer Mike Calabrese’s Vermont home, where bandmembers would each contribute, expanding the band’s musical palette and expressive range.

“In the past we’d written pieces of songs and shared them with each other and built them up from there, but we always had the space to listen and reflect in total privacy,” details the band’s Rachael Price. “At first it was terrifying to write together in the same room, but as soon as we got started it felt so fun. We very quickly realized, ‘Oh, we need to do this again and again.’”

The new record follows the band’s critically acclaimed 2021 release, Obviously, which received a host of critical praise including from Rolling Stone, who heralded, “at a moment when pop strives for lo-fi, solitary-world intimacy, the jazz-pop-whatever band refuse to think small” while Downbeat cheered, “Lake Street Dive finds beauty in pop.”

Across their storied career, Lake Street Dive have built a legacy as a rare collection of musicians with dynamic songwriting chemistry and genre-bending mastery, pushing the boundaries of pop, soul, jazz and folk. The group’s appearances include “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “CBS This Morning,” and NPR’s Tiny Desk, and they have drawn critical praise from The New York Times and the Associated Press, among others. With tens of millions of streams, an acclaimed discography, and an enduring worldwide fanbase, the band—Rachael Price, Bridget Kearney, Mike Calabrese, Akie Bermiss and James Cornelison—have become an exhilarating force in popular music.

Formed in Boston, the quintet first met while studying jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music. Their breakout album Bad Self Portraits was released in 2014, followed by Side Pony (2016), Free Yourself Up (2018) and Obviously (2021). Their most recent recording, 2022’s Fun Machine: The Sequel, is a six-track covers EP with songs by Bonnie Raitt, The Pointer Sisters and Carole King, among others.

LAKE STREET DIVE — GOOD TOGETHER TOUR 2024
June 27 – Ottawa, ON – Ottawa Jazz Festival
June 28 – Toronto, ON – Toronto Jazz Festival  (SOLD OUT)
June 29 – Saratoga Springs, NY – Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival
July 2 – Nantucket, MA – The Chicken Box (SOLD OUT)
July 3 – Nantucket, MA – The Chicken Box (SOLD OUT)
July 6 – Marshfield, MA – Levitate Music And Arts Festival
July 7 – Lafayette, NY – Beak and Skiff Apple Orchards
July 9 – Cleveland, OH – TempleLive at Cleveland Masonic
July 10 – Interlochen, MI – Interlochen Center for the Arts, Kresge Auditorium
July 12 – Indianapolis, IN – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park
July 13 – Nashville, TN – Ascend Amphitheater
July 14 – Cincinnati, OH – Andrew J Brady Music Center
July 16 – St. Louis, MO – St. Louis Music Park
July 17 – Bentonville, AR – The Momentary
July 19 – Dillon, CO – Dillon Amphitheater (SOLD OUT)
July 21 – Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre (SOLD OUT)
July 23 – Salt Lake City, UT – Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Series (SOLD OUT)
July 26 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
July 27 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre (SOLD OUT)
July 28 – Berkeley, CA – The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley
July 30 – Ketchum, ID – Sun Valley Center for the Arts
Aug. 1 – Vancouver, BC – Orpheum Theatre
Aug. 2 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheatre
Aug. 3 – Seattle, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery (SOLD OUT)
Aug. 4 – Seattle, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery
Aug. 17 – Portland, ME – Thompson’s Point (SOLD OUT)
Aug. 18 – Portland, ME – Thompson’s Point
Sept. 13 – Columbia, MD – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Sept. 14 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
Sept. 15 – Philadelphia, PA – The Mann
Sept. 17 – Buffalo, NY – Terminal B at the Outer Harbor
Sept. 19 – Shelburne, VT – The Green At Shelburne Museum (SOLD OUT)
Sept. 20 – Shelburne, VT – The Green At Shelburne Museum (SOLD OUT)
Sept. 21 – Hammondsport, NY – The Pavilion At Point Of The Bluff Vineyards
Sept. 23 – Grand Rapids, MI – 20 Monroe Live
Sept. 24 – Madison, WI – Breese Stevens Field
Sept. 26 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed
Sept. 27 – Chicago, IL – The Salt Shed (SOLD OUT)
Sept. 28 – Minneapolis, MN – Surly Brewing Festival Field
Sept. 30 – Columbus, OH – KEMBA Live! Outdoor
Oct. 1 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE
Oct. 2 – Richmond, VA – Maymont
Oct. 4 – Raleigh, NC – Red Hat Amphitheater
Oct. 5 – Charlotte, NC – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre
Oct. 6 – North Charleston, SC – Firefly Distillery
Oct. 8 – Asheville, NC – Rabbit Rabbit
Oct. 10 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
Oct. 11 – Atlanta, GA -The Eastern (SOLD OUT)
Oct. 12 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern