LAKES

As of June 16, 2021, New York State has lifted all COVID-19 related restrictions that apply to a venue of Rockwood’s size. In accordance with these revised guidelines, vaccination records will no longer be checked, nor will social distancing or masks be required, while masks will remain highly recommended for non-vaccinated individuals.

LAKES is a New York City based rock quartet fronted by actress/singer/songwriter/sommelier/Minnesotan Libby Winters.

Growing up in the suburban shadow of the Twin Cities in the 1990s, Libby naturally began tuning the dial to 89.3 The Current, a famed radio station known for spinning the records of local heroes and Midwest music monarchs such as The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Prince and Smashing Pumpkins. A profound love for fuzzy guitars, splashy drums, rumbling bass lines and rich, dreamy melodies was born. But before she would front her own band, fate took Libby on a serendipitous detour.

An actress and singer since her childhood, Libby moved to New York City in the early 2000s and became a member of the art-pop glam band The Fabulous Entourage, an act formed by the award winning singer/songwriter/playwright Kyle Jarrow and known for their theatrical live show. Libby was plunged headfirst into the local theatre scene and it wasn’t long before she was auditioning for roles in developing plays and musicals.

In 2008, Libby was one of the first performers to be cast in the stage adaptation of Green Day’s blockbuster rock opera American Idiot. She would spend the next three years appearing in the smash show at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California and the St. James Theatre in NYC when the production moved to Broadway. With Green Day’s own frontman Billie Joe Armstrong in the producer’s chair, the original cast recording was tracked at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York’s West Village. The following year it won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and Libby was seen performing with her cast-mates on the Grammy Awards, Tony Awards, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

It was during this time that Libby met actor/musician John Gallagher, Jr., her costar in the Broadway musical. After years of bonding over a shared fondness for the hooky sounds of long lost alternative-rock radio, the pair formed LAKES in 2016, named after the 10,000 majestic bodies of water common to Libby’s home state. Normally a singer/songwriter and guitarist, LAKES saw John returning to the instrument of his youth and first love; the drums. It wasn’t long before the duo became a trio and then later a quartet with the help of bassist Alan Hewitt and lead guitarist John Kengla. Helmed by Ms. Winters and driven by her confessionally catchy songwriting, cut crystal vocals and distorted down-stroked electric guitar, LAKES is a love letter to the shimmery sounds of a seemingly simpler time when rock songs were short, sweet and straight to the point.

LAKES released their debut EP Just to Feel the Feeling in 2018 and is currently drawing up plans to record their first full length LP.