OPENERS:
Penelope Road
The Dip
Trousdale
St. Paul and The Broken Bones

Lake Street Dive have pushed the possibilities of pop music as a unifying force, not only through
their eclectic sound—a boldly original cross-pollination of soul, folk, jazz, classic pop, and
more—the five-piece’s all-embracing ethos has also made them a beloved live band known for
building a potent connection among every crowd. In the making of their new album Good Together,
vocalist Rachael Price, bassist/background vocalist Bridget Kearney, drummer/background vocalist
Mike Calabrese, keyboardist/vocalist Akie Bermiss, and guitarist/background vocalist James
Cornelison reinforced the deep sense of purpose behind their output, often turning their attention
to the many factors driving us apart today (e.g., unchecked technological growth, culturally imposed
isolation, the cult of relentless self-optimization). Born from a mindset they refer to as “joyful
rebellion,” Good Together arrives as a body of work both gloriously defiant and primed to inspire
unbridled dancing and ecstatic singing-along.
“There’s a lot to be angry about in the world right now, a lot of pain and rage and divisiveness, but it
isn’t sustainable to constantly live in that anger—you need something else to keep you going,” says
Calabrese. “Joy is a great way to sustain yourself, and we wanted to encourage everyone to stay aware
of that. In a way this album is our way of saying, ‘Take your joy very seriously.’”
In keeping with that spirit of communal uplift, Lake Street Dive’s eighth full-length marks the first
time they’ve ever worked together in the earliest and most vulnerable stages of songwriting. Back in
early 2023, the band’s members met up at Calabrese’s home studio in Vermont and spent nearly a
week generating new songs, catalyzing the process with the help of a 20-sided die (a holdover from
the many Zoom-based Dungeons & Dragons matches held by Bermiss and Kearney during
lockdown). “The captain of a particular song would roll the die, and the result would decide the
chords, the meter, and the tempo for that song,” Kearney explains. “We’d take those elements and
jam for a while, go our separate ways and come up with lyrics and melodies, then come back
together and workshop everything. It ended up taking us to new places we never would’ve gotten to
otherwise, in terms of things like harmony and tempo and groove.” Along with expanding their
musical palette and expressive range, that highly collaborative approach helped the band reach a new
level of intimacy. “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,” says
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 follow-up to Obviously—a 2021 LP acclaimed by the likes of Rolling Stone, who noted that “[a]t a
moment when pop strives for lo-fi, solitary-world intimacy, the jazz-pop-whatever band refuse to
think small”—Good Together finds Lake Street Dive working again with Grammy-winning producer
Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr.) and recording at his Phantom Studios in
Tennessee. With its sonic landscape encompassing everything from R&B to funk to Brazilian pop,
the album opens on the radiant synth of its title track: an exultant duet between Bermiss and Price
that arose from a happy accident. “‘Good Together’ came from a dice roll where I was captain, but
when I went to go work on the production I cut it up wrong and ended up with a very weird time
signature,” Bermiss recalls. “It somehow worked anyway, and Bridget came up with the narrative of
two people from dubious backgrounds and trying to start over together.” One of several tracks
featuring the horn section from Brooklyn-based jazz band Huntertones, the result is a left-of-center
love song celebrating the thrill of defying expectation and following your heart’s desire.

Next, on “Dance with a Stranger,” Lake Street Dive once again prove their undeniable gift for
crafting feel-good songs with an illuminating message. “I went on a solo writing retreat in Kingston,
New York, and ended up attending a square dance at a VFW hall,” says Kearney in discussing the
song’s origins. “It was a group of people from all generations and all walks of life, all there dancing
together, which made me think, ‘What if we could write a song that helped to create that kind of
connection at our shows?’” Lit up in lush grooves, glistening textures, and exuberant gang vocals
calling out instruction (“Left, right, front, side/Find somebody new and then/Take them by the
hand and/Say you understand”), “Dance with a Stranger” ultimately achieves the singular feat of
inducing a carefree euphoria while gently fostering empathy.
Although much of Good Together emerged from Lake Street Dive’s incisive observation of the outside
world, many songs mine inspiration from the intricacies of their own lives. To that end, “Walking
Uphill” took shape as Price thumbed through her journal from seven years earlier, then transformed
a series of underlined passages into a gripping meditation on the work of self-repair. “It’s about the
idea of toil turning into something beautiful, so we wanted it to sound intense and gritty but with
some catharsis at the end,” notes Price, whose vocals shift into exquisitely raw abandon in the track’s
final moments. Originated by Calabrese, the luminous and summery “Seats at the Bar” puts a
sweetly playful twist on the classic love song, unfolding in tropicália-esque rhythms and the breezy
but elegant percussion of guest musician Abe Rounds (Andrew Bird, Blake Mills, Emily King).
“When my wife and I first met she was in the wine industry, and sometimes I’d visit restaurants with
her and we’d end up staying for dinner and sitting at the bar,” says Calabrese. “It was fun to write a
love song about bucking trends in our own little way—sort of like, ‘Enjoy your fancy table with your
fancy tablecloth; we’ll be over here eating french fries and having a good time together.’” And on
“Twenty-Five,” Price delivers a stark and lovely ballad steeped in tender reminiscence of a long-ago
romance, her voice accompanied only by Bermiss’ gorgeously understated performance on piano.
“It’s about a great love that was never meant to last, but you still end up carrying it with you for the
rest of your life,” says Kearney. “I thought that was a beautiful sentiment, but it also ties into the
theme of the album and the whole question of, ‘How can we as a species continue to love one
another, in spite of all the challenges we face?’”
All throughout Good Together, Lake Street Dive reveal the immense expanse of their musicality and
expressive imagination. On “Better Not Tell You,” for instance, the band presents a
’70s-funk-inspired dance track Bermiss originally penned from the perspective of the three witches
in Macbeth, while “Far Gone” serves up a bouncy piece of psych-rock exploring what Price sums up
as “this existential crisis where we’re all realizing we’re addicted to technology before we even got a
chance to take a step back from it.” Closing out the album with the dreamlike grandeur of “Set Sail
(Prometheus & Eros)”—a Bermiss-Price duet featuring a spellbinding string arrangement from Rob
Moose (The National, St. Vincent, Bon Iver)—Lake Street Dive also endlessly tap into the palpable
camaraderie that’s fueled the band since they formed in Boston back in 2004.
Lake Street Dive continue to fully embody the effusive sense of togetherness and mutual care
embraced throughout Good Together. “At this point our tastes in music differ more than they ever
have, but we’re still able to bring all those influences together with a real love and respect for the
diversity within the band,” says Price. “I think the main thing that’s kept us going over the years is
that very strong foundation of friendship—everyone has a voice, everyone gets heard, and we’re all
really careful about looking out for each other’s happiness.”