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Rock Lake

"We play rock ’n’ roll — simple, catchy music," says guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jan Quackenbush about his hi-energy band, Rock Lake.
   
"Like something Shane MacGowan once said: If you go out to see a band, and afterwards when you’re walking home you start humming their songs — they’re decent. Those are the types of songs I try to write."
   
Quackenbush (Nervous Lugers, ex-Squareheads, Crank Journals, Moe Bi666sly) has been writing songs for over 15 years, starting with his first punk band, Mohosimrots, in 1997.
   
A hundred songs later, and after an extensive sojourn to Vancouver and back, Quackenbush is still enriching the Winnipeg underground music scene with catchy numbers such as Cheap Thrills from the 11-song, self-titled Rock Lake debut album released last September on his independent label, Eat Em Up Records. "I’ve got a shitload of songs written and finished. It’s just a matter of recording them and getting them out there."
   
Quackenbush says the Nervous Lugers still have an album’s worth of material ready to record, and he’s currently trying to nail down a new album with his friends Kyle Dubois (77 Guns, ex-Dead by Dawn) and Dave Brett (Everyone’s Fired, The City Champs, ex-Squareheads, Crank Journals and more).
   
"We don’t have a name yet, but we’re ready to record," he says. "I hope to have that album ready for the Eat Em Up Expo at the Negative Space in April on Friday the 13th."
   
Other releases on Eat Em Up include the Squareheads’ Persona Non Grata CD, and two rappin’ projects that includes the same members — Dubois, Anthony Bueno (Memorial Fund, ex-Squareheads), and fun-lovin’ Eugene Boittiaux (ex-Turnbull AC’s). These are the self-titled Chillaz disc from 2005, and last year’s North Central Muck album by DirtyTurtles.
   
Quackenbush appears on all of the EEU albums but he’s pretty quiet about it, preferring to focus on the forthcoming label expo, and planned Eat Em Up releases.
   
"Kyle (Dubois) has an unnamed project — an album of country songs with his family," Quackenbush says. "Half are originals and half are covers. It’s really good ."
   
Right here, right now, though, Rock Lake is the immediate rush for Quackenbush.
   
"I was reading this book called Booze which is about prohibition in the Prairies — in Winnipeg — and there’s this Temperance League somewhere in Alberta called the Rock Lake Total Abstinence League mentioned. That name stuck in my head. I thought it would be a cool name for a band," he says.
   
"The (debut) album was made up of songs I had written since Nervous Lugers. I decided to get Joe (Warkentin — Archagathus, High Thunderers, ex-Hot Live Guys, Under Pressure) on drums, and Daniel (Pangman — Lonely Vulcans, ex-Squareheads) on bass to just record the album. Then we decided we were a good little band."
   
Catch Rock Lake when it performs at the Big Fun Festival at the Atomic Centre, 157 Logan Ave., on Jan. 27 with the Girth and the Mystics.
   
"We’re opening. I’ve never played there before. I’m looking forward to it," Quackenbush says before focusing on some of the new songs the trio has ready to blast for U streetbeaters at the Big Fun gig.
   
"Bear Cabin is a song that Joe wrote. He sings on it while he plays drums. Some of the other new ones are Easy Street, Bottlecap and Paystub. As far as songwriting goes, I don’t even know what they’re about half the time. As long as they sound like they will be about something. When I listen to a song, I usually listen to the guitar. I don’t pay much attention to anything else."
   
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