Artist description Freshwater is the first Toronto-based project fronted by Newfoundland singer-songwriter Michael Lake. ATYPICALFRIDAY was a demo experiment that took on a life of its own. Besides Lake, it features four amazing young musicians from backgrounds as diverse as their DNA. Due to various personal commitments, the band is currently going through a line-up change before heading back into the studio to take on a more acoustic-based and traditional-influenced series of recordings. Michael Lake is to Freshwater as Mike Scott is to the Waterboys. He writes the songs, and then surrounds himself with the people who can bring them to life beyond a single acoustic guitar. There are pictures of him in the family album as a kid with a plastic Mickey Mouse guitar, lip and hip synching Elvis songs for visiting relatives. He claims his dad had the biggest record collection on earth, and loved playing them nice and loud. From The Chieftains to Neil Diamond, Johnny Cash to Three Dog Night -- they were Michael's school of music. He was born in a small town called Freshwater, on the southeast coast of Newfoundland – an island in the North Atlantic. When he was four, the family moved to the province's capital city of St. John's, and that's where he grew up. By the time high school rolled around, he was imitating America and Neil Young at variety shows and auditioning to sing for heavy metal bands. But Sunday mornings still found him bending an ear to traditional tunes and folk tales with the family. His first coherent songs were written just before university, but the degree led to a shirt-and-tie job and music got pushed to the background for a while. When he moved to Toronto in 1997, the guitar was dusted off to cure bouts of homesickness. It worked well enough that music was moved to the foreground again. A lot of songs and Freshwater were born around that time. The latest "version" of Freshwater sounds entirely different from the one on atypicalfriday. It's much simpler, and focuses more on traditional instruments like acoustic, fiddle, even some bodhran. Old instruments making contemporary sounds. What does he write about? "Big dreams and everyday things. That's all."

Music Style Bittersweet Groove-rock

Musical Influences From east-coast folk to classic rock.

Similar Artists Some say Spirit of the West; others say Dave Matthews.

Artist History Pre 2001 -- played in various rock and folk bands in native St. John's. 2001 -- Received a Professional Demo Award from FACTOR (www.factor.ca) for "This Old House". 2001 -- Initially recruited musicians for studio work, but the band stayed together and gigged around Ontario for nearly two years. 2002 -- Revised Freshwater line-up heads into studio to do some new roots-based recordings.

Instruments Acoustic & electric guitars, drums, bass, piano, hammond-leslie organ, dobro, percussion

Albums ATYPICALFRIDAY

Location Toronto, Ontario - Canada

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