Norman Lake
... is a project by singer songwriter Joey MacMahan from Los Angeles. The songs often focus on processing difficult emotions, and overcoming mental health and addiction. A majority of the songwriting is drawn from personal experience with unflinching honesty and a desire to connect with others who feel lost.
Early recordings such as "Mother Mary" and "The Polaroid EP" were tracked and mixed on a 4 track cassette recorder, while the newer ones have all been done at Joey's Hollywood recording space, Structurally Sound Studios. Throughout all the recordings however, is the common thread of sincerity over perfection, and emotional expression over commercial marketability.
Who is the "human" behind the artist Norman Lake?
Norman Lake started as a project for me around the time the pandemic started. I'd released some music under my name "Joey MacMahan" before that, but wanted to head in a new direction. I started making recordings using a 4 track cassette deck, and chose the name Norman Lake as a reference to my childhood home on Lake Norman in North Carolina.
The main purpose of the project was to find a production style and voice that felt honest to my writing and what I was feeling. By stripping a lot of options back and avoiding the altering of details a computer offers I was able to find a more authentic sound in what I was releasing. I live in Hollywood California now and co-run a recording space called Structurally Sound Studios where I do my best to help other artists find their voice as well.
How did you get into music?
I've played guitar since I was 15, and began writing songs as soon as I found a few chords. I always loved creative expression and music was a challenging yet rewarding medium for me. Later on in life, I developed an intense panic attack disorder that left me isolated for a lot of my time. While I was shut off and terrified of the world, music was my way of continuing to interact with it and to calm myself down.
Many of the early songs I wrote were lullabies to myself to soothe my anxiety and get in touch with the sadness I was running from. Although I'd consider myself largely recovered now from those past battles, the lesson of needing to be in touch with sadness to not be ruled by it carries through in my current writing, as well as the soft yet raw emotional expression and production.
What's the story behind your latest release "Feel"?
"Feel" was written during a brief period of low mood and general despondency that seemed to come from nowhere. The episode seemed daunting because it was hard to tell what had caused it, and therefore hard to create a narrative of understanding that would apply.
The takeaway I had was that oftentimes it's not about what causes an emotional state, it's about battling the narrative that continues it. For this reason I wrote based only on the feeling, giving emotional imagery over narrative story, and tying it in the chorus with that all too familiar and false idea that "this is how I'll always feel."
The intention was to provide myself catharsis by acknowledging fully where I was at, and it worked well enough that I decided to release it so others could listen and have it do the same for them.
What was/is in your opinion the last "big thing" in music history?
That's a tough one! There's a milestone almost every week in our era, so much new music comes out that expands the way we express and interact with each other. From what I've listened to and seen have an impact, Kendrick Lamar's new album "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers" really was unlike anything I'd ever heard and had such unflinching honesty on the topics of mental health and personal growth in overcoming trauma. For me to see an artist so successful in the mainstream take such a bold sincere approach had an impact that I only hope ripples out further within the industry.
Do your fans have the chance to see you somewhere live on stage?
Although I play pretty regularly in Los Angeles, I'm currently about to hop into recording my first full length album and likely will not be touring till afterwards. However anyone is welcome to reach out if they'd like to get in touch. I stay active online and enjoy hearing my fans' stories and how they interacted with my music.
Your first ever self written song was about ...?
It's hard to pinpoint a true first song, but I have one called "Back to Berlin" I wrote on a train in Europe that is likely the oldest one I still play today. It's about wanting to return to a city you just left in order to see a romance to the end that didn't get enough time.
What’s next for you?
Lots! In the time since I began putting out music for this project and opened my studio to others we have built a community that seems to grow and achieve together exponentially. The album I'm about to start will have support from incredible artists and session players such as Nolune, Daniel Bermudez, Aaron Liebman, and Sam Hinrichsen. I have to shout them out and the countless others who support me in so many ways. My plan is simply to keep doing all I can and ride the wave we are growing along the Pacific coast.
