Lake Street Dive have pushed the possibilities of pop music as a unifying force, not only through their eclectic sound – a boldly original cross-pollination of soul, folk, jazz, classic pop, and more – the five-piece’s all-embracing ethos has also made them a beloved live band known for building a potent connection among every crowd. In the making of their album Good Together, vocalist Rachael Price, bassist/background vocalist Bridget Kearney, drummer/background vocalist Mike Calabrese, keyboardist/vocalist Akie Bermiss, and guitarist/background vocalist James Cornelison reinforced the deep sense of purpose behind their output, often turning their attention to the many factors driving us apart today (e.g., unchecked technological growth, culturally imposed isolation, the cult of relentless self-optimization). Born from a mindset they refer to as “joyful rebellion,” Good Together arrives as a body of work both gloriously defiant and primed to inspire unbridled dancing and ecstatic singing-along.

“There’s a lot to be angry about in the world right now, a lot of pain and rage and divisiveness, but it isn’t sustainable to constantly live in that anger – you need something else to keep you going,” says Calabrese. “Joy is a great way to sustain yourself, and we wanted to encourage everyone to stay aware of that. In a way this album is our way of saying, ‘Take your joy very seriously’.”

In keeping with that spirit of communal uplift, Lake Street Dive’s eighth full-length marks the first time they’ve ever worked together in the earliest and most vulnerable stages of songwriting. Back in early 2023, the band’s members met up at Calabrese’s home studio in Vermont and spent nearly a week generating new songs, catalyzing the process with the help of a 20-sided die (a holdover from the many Zoom-based Dungeons & Dragons matches held by Bermiss and Kearney during lockdown). “The captain of a particular song would roll the die, and the result would decide the chords, the meter, and the tempo for that song,” Kearney explains. “We’d take those elements and jam for a while, go our separate ways and come up with lyrics and melodies, then come back together and workshop everything. It ended up taking us to new places we never would’ve gotten to otherwise, in terms of things like harmony and tempo and groove.” Along with expanding their musical palette and expressive range, that highly collaborative approach helped the band reach a new level of intimacy. “In the past we’d written pieces of songs and shared them with each other and built them up from there, but we always had the space to listen and reflect in total privacy,” says Price. “At first it was terrifying to write together in the same room, but as soon as we got started it felt so fun. We very quickly realised, ‘Oh, we need to do this again and again.'”