BIO

Seven years ago while visiting New Orleans in the springtime, Seattle native Colin Lake met his future wife in the Louis Armstrong International airport. The meeting sparked a cosmic chain reaction that would change his life forever.

Overwhelmed by the gravity that seemed to be drawing him to the city, Lake made his home in The Big Easy less than a year later, and his passion and innate feel for roots music found fertile ground. Lake draws from a unique musical palette, creating songs that reflect a personal journey which has already spanned great distances, both spiritually and geographically.

While his soulful vocal style and searing touch on the lap steel guitar owe heavily to countless blues greats, Lake’s knack for song craft defies genre and is what truly sets him apart. Lake’s latest release One Thing That’s For Sure captures his personal sound, which springs from songs teeming with penetrating lyrics and gritty sincerity. On the album’s eleven original songs, Lake sings of love and longing, truth and transcendence, hope and struggle. Indeed, they are love songs, but not exclusively in the romantic sense. They are songs that celebrate love’s well-earned triumph over fear, treading the territory where light and shadows meet.

On songs like “I’m Trying to Tell You” and the heavily distorted “Pay the Price”, Lake offers desperate pleas reminiscent of a man fighting for his life. The chorus of the laid back title track and the sun-soaked refrain of “She’s Mine” finds the singer swelling with joy as he revels in the spoils of love. And why shouldn’t he? These songs were born in New Orleans, the world capital of joyful expression. Lake may not have been born there, but he will tell you that in New Orleans he was born again.

In the past year, Lake has opened for acts like Dr. John and Gary Clark Jr, and performed at festivals around the country, including the 2015 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the 2013 Austin City Limits Music Festival, Alabama’s Hangout Beach, Music and Arts Festival, the Key West Songwriters Festival and New Orleans’ French Quarter Festival.

PRESS

“Songs as sturdy as his fleet-fingered, blues-based guitar skills” – Keith Spera, Times Picayune

“If John Mayor had any actual soul, he’d be the Seattle-bred, New Orleans based Colin Lake.” – Brett Milano, Offbeat Magazine

www.colinlake.com