fog lake

we caught up with fog lake for an intimate interview

question: We are loving your new single “Dakota.” Can you tell us a little about the backstory of that song? When was it written and recorded?
answer: “Dakota” was originally written while I was living in Montreal, sometime in 2019. Maybe it was just how I was feeling, but I felt the melody had an element of homesickness to it. I tried to evoke the feeling of moving back and forth from the city to back home, the effect it had on my personal life and how it wore me down mentally and emotionally over the years. Being from such a small town (according to Wikipedia it has a population of about only 2,100 people) moving to the city always is a big thing to me and my relationship with rural and urban lifestyles has always been changing. I’ve always been moving back and forth constantly, just trying to feel at home somewhere.

question: What is your favorite part of living in Newfoundland, Canada? What’s the music scene like?
answer: My favorite part of living in Newfoundland is definitely the quiet. I’m a loner and a night-owl so whenever I’m in Glovertown I tend to go out on my back porch around 2AM, smoke cigarettes and just sit and embrace the quiet. In the city that’s almost always nearly impossible. As for the music scene here, since I’ve been mostly living in Montreal the last 3-4 years I haven’t been up-to-date on the music being made there, but when I lived in St John’s (Newfoundland’s one of just two cities) there were always bands playing downtown. A lot of great folk stuff, but also a lot of great punk and singer-songwriter stuff. I feel like a lot of the folk influence on my new album came from being raised here. I’m actually really excited to be back in Newfoundland to see what’s going on there now music-wise.

question: Who are some of your favorite acoustic guitarists? What was one live show you will never forget?
answer: I definitely don’t consider myself to be a good guitar player by any means but I have a lot of favorite guitar players that I spent a lot of time listening to and watching videos of when I first started playing like Nick Drake, Bert Jansch and Elliott Smith. I have a lot of songs with weird tunings that I figured out from trying to learn Nick Drake songs especially. One live show I will never forget (and use as bragging rights with all my friends) was Lil Peep. I was probably the oldest person at the damn show but the energy was incredible and to think I only paid $23 for it back then. It’s a shame I’ll never be able to see another show of his ever again, it was definitely a special night to me.

question: What will ‘Tragedy Reel’ teach us about you? What is your personal favorite song on the album?
answer: To be honest I hope my new record doesn’t teach listeners anything about me but instead helps them understand and accept themselves more in some kind of way, especially on an emotional level. In the best case scenario, I hope the record helps heal a few broken hearts. I like to think the lyrics to my songs are cryptic enough to be about anything, but also personal enough to me to be about something I’ve lived through and experienced, whether that be a good memory or a bad one. I find often people have a lot of different interpretations for the songs I write. My personal favorite song on the record is “Catacombs”. I wrote it on the night of my 27th birthday and it was one of those songs that just fell out of the air and came really easy to me. It’s sort of like a letter to long-lost love.

question: What are some of your daily practices? Do you have an ultimate goal for Fog Lake?
answer: Right now I’ve been trying to get more into film stuff. Whenever I put out a new album I always try to take a little break and focus on something else. Me and a close friend of mine are going to be living together and we’re thinking of starting up some kind of youtube channel with weird and scary content, or just some dumb shit for other weirdos like us. My ultimate goal for Fog Lake is to always retain some kind of outsider status in the music industry, keep it as DIY as possible and try to make sure anyone who needs to hear my music does.