By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
“I really want to see a moose,” Lake & Lyndale songwriter and guitarist Jonathan Krentz said.
Krentz was excitedly talking about the band’s upcoming visit to Sitka.
They’ve never been to Alaska.
When you hear them perform at the Sitka Performing Arts Center Sept. 28 you will wonder why.
Our land is big, beautiful and bold and the music Lake & Lyndale share, with influences of Americana, rock, country and blues, complements our world like Xtratuffs and sunshine - you can never get enough of either.
Krentz. guitarist and spokesman for the band, and Sitka Fine Arts Camp office manager Drew Sherman served together in the U.S. Army, traveling around the desert with musical instruments strapped next to M-16’s.
Lake & Lyndale. The band will perform at the Performing Arts Center Sept. 28. (Photo provided to the Sentinel)
They agree that during that tour they loved the chance to perform for audiences who hadn’t heard live music in a while and were wanting to just feel some connection to home, a contrast to the typical bar scene as a performing venue.
“We did an Iraq tour in 2009 or so and our job for that was troop morale,” Krentz said.
They toured from base to base in a seven-piece horn band playing Aerosmith and Stevie Wonder.
“You could see the joy in their eyes,” Krentz said. “It was something we take for granted, but you could see their love for music.”
Sherman might be seen on stage with the group as well, just reliving some old good times.
The two formed a band when they left the service. The formative years involved attending the now defunct McNally Smith College of Music in Minnesota, where the current Lake & Lyndale bandmates first met.
“It no longer exists,” Krentz laughed. “I don’t know if that says anything about the school but it was a contemporary music school and the only thing like it in the Midwest.”
Common interests and goals led to Krentz’ meeting his wife – and lead singer – Channing Marie, there, as well as band bassist Eric Clifford, and drummer Tyler Kloewer.
The band toured the Midwest with various trips to Nashville.
Different directions put the band’s roots in Tennessee in 2018 and Sherman’s in Sitka, but his photos of Baranof Island helped seal the upcoming performance.
The PAC audience will be drawn to Channing Marie’s honesty. There is no mask or fake persona. She is raw and true, has a background of musicals such as “Annie,” and can choreograph on stage if the need should ever arise.
“I think a lot of times when people see an artist or singer they kind of pedestalize that particular person and think of them as this superhero or super mythical thing,” Krentz said. “Channing doesn’t try and create that or try to do that. People see that. There is a realness to her that people gravitate to, not only with her stage performance, but also with the songs she writes.”
Band bassist Clifford had attended McNalley, but at a different time, and when the band practiced at drummer Tyler Kloewer’s apartment they got his roommate’s stylings as well.
“We would go over for rehearsal and Eric and Tyler would be doing the nerdiest musical stuff ever,” Krentz said. “They were just constantly playing and so it was a perfect fit. Bass guitar and drums have to get along well and they have to be able to be critical of the other at some points because that has to be a cohesive unit.”
The first thing music aficionados, record labels, professionals, and artists-in-training look at when they go to see a band is the bass and drums and how they play together.
“It can make or break a group,” Krentz said.
Krentz’ early influences were with the guitar, and groups such as Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and AC/DC, “just like every other young kid,” he said. “That music is such a gateway to the musical world. It kind of started there. In college I fell in love with song writing and the power of a song and how it can affect me personally, for good or bad or happy or sad, it can evoke an emotion. I kind of wanted to be a part of that.”
Krentz also noted the band’s Midwest upbringing, he in Nebraska and Minnesota, Marie in Illinois, Clifford in Minnesota, and Kloewer in Iowa.
“There wasn’t a lot to do but lock yourself in your room and dive into some old records and stuff,” Krentz said. “You start by learning a chord or a drumbeat to a song and it sticks out to you. ‘Oh my gosh that is so cool, I want to do that.’ It ends up being a springboard into music. It just takes that one kind of cool sound, or lyric or guitar solo. We all started that same way.”
On drums, Kloewer is the band’s secret weapon.
“Not only is he an incredible world-class drummer but he has a crazy high voice,” Krentz said. “He is singing the higher harmonies above Channing.”
Kloewer also writes songs and is proactive on the business-minded activities with Krentz.
“He has his hands in a lot of things; he’s not just a drummer,” Krentz said. “That’s the bummer kids when you want to join a band is you think you are just going to play guitar and write songs but there are a thousand and one other things that come with it.”
Some of those issues have been solved as Lake & Lyndale have signed with the Nashville management team Talent Associates and have put together their debut EP.
“All the stuff that goes into the music world and music business, just outside writing and recording a song, blows my mind,” Krentz said.
Their three popular songs, “Passing By,” “Today Ain’t It,” and “The Whiskey Will Miss Me,” are being spread across the music scene, and will be heard here as well.
“We will do those and then some,” Krentz said.
Krentz said in their shows they try to have a healthy dose of every emotion.
“It’s not just a show of loud rock and roll,” he said. “There are parts of that. But we like to do some ballads, or a slower song about the lyric, or some old covers reworked… sometimes people want to hear stuff they know or are familiar with… a lot of our stuff of course… a little bit of variety we can deliver to the audience.”
And now they can’t wait to see Alaska, or a portion of it with a volcano in the distance, a mountain outside the PAC, and a critter or two.
“I have not seen a moose in person,” he said. “That’s my one goal. I think we have a day off to explore and see what’s up. We heard you need bear spray?”
If their music can make a moment of peace in a war zone, or gravitate a group of young artists together, or establish a following in the hallowed musical haunting grounds of Nashville, then, just maybe, it can make a moose appear.
(The concert will start at 7 p.m. Sept. 28 at the PAC. Tickets $20 adults/$15 youth available at Fineartscamp.org, Old Harbor Books, and at the door.)
