Music and Activism: Interview with Funeral Lakes

@funerallakes on instagram

1. Could you both start by telling the readers a bit about yourselves? What are some things you enjoy, or you think would be important for readers to know?

Our names are Sam (she/her) and Chris (he/him). We’re both students who recently started grad school in Kingston, Ontario, and we make music together through our project, Funeral Lakes. Most of our downtime is spent writing and recording music in our home studio space, but we also love to get outside as much as possible and enjoy the green spaces around where we live.

2. What drew you two together to form Funeral Lakes?

We’ve been partners for 5 years, but we didn’t start Funeral Lakes until 2018. We’ve both used music in our personal lives as a way to cope and process experiences, so it felt natural for us to do that together. We formed Funeral Lakes as a medium to express the fears and frustrations we were feeling about the realities all around us.

3. What kind of message do you want to spread with your music? What do you feel is important that you express?

We try to lead with our emotions first, and then tie those into the politics that create the conditions resulting in issues like environmental destruction. Our goal with this music is to help people feel less alone in the emotions we’re collectively feeling about the world we’re now living in – whether that be anxiety, sadness, frustration, anger, or hope.

4. For your debut album, you partnered with the RAVEN Trust to support the Pull Together Campaign. What was that experience like and how did you get involved?

We’ve been inspired by the work and legal challenges RAVEN Trust has supported over the years. Respecting Indigenous sovereignty is climate justice, and we wanted to put our support behind an organization that strives to support the communities fighting for that. We reached out and were able to have a really lovely video call with them, which made the decision to join this campaign very easy. The reason we chose the Pull Together Campaign specifically was because of our desire to oppose the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion – a project that infringes on Indigenous sovereignty and rights, as well as threatens the health and wellbeing of communities, lands, and waters. Having lived and worked in so-called Vancouver, BC, this was a very personal and meaningful decision for us.

The fight is far from over, and we encourage folks to check out and support the ongoing work at www.raventrust.com

5. Your newest EP, Golden Season came out this year! What were some of themes and messages behind this EP?

Golden Season carries on with similar sociopolitical themes as our debut album, ranging from environmental destruction and generational malaise to grifting and crooked politicians. With this EP, we dug into specific topics of toxic masculinity, petro-nationalism, and the detrimental effects of unhinged authority. We confront these unsettling realities head on, but try to create rallying points in the process, ultimately holding onto hope for a better way forward.

6. How has quarantine affected you music making process, if at all?

Like everyone else, we’ve been impacted in many ways, but of course we have a lot to be thankful for, especially our health. This pandemic has been devastating for so many people, so we realize that things could be a lot worse. Our trajectory has changed somewhat, but we’re adapting. It’s not possible to play live right now due to the restrictions, but we’re continuing to make music in our home space and plan to release more new music soon. Creating music has always been a way for us to cope with what’s happening around us, so that hasn’t changed much with the pandemic. Being able to have a creative outlet during these difficult times has been a great source of relief and is something that we feel extremely grateful for.