Photos: Sarah Koury / KoLAB Studios
What’s your favourite misadventure?
It’s not a question that gets asked enough in these modern hectic times but it’s one certainly worth pondering for a second: which incident in your life didn’t quite go as planned, might have caused you some physical pain or acute embarrassment, but still makes a great story?
We’ve all got them. If you haven’t, you need to up your hapless caper game and readdress that situation ASAP. Perhaps listening to part one of The Misadventures Of Lakeway series on MedSchool will give you some inspiration.
Following his commendably off-the-wall Shimmering on the recent Hospitality On The Beach album, The Misadventures Of Lakeway is three tracks deep, each one armed with a sharp stick that probes and prods a different corner of Lakeway’s sonic swamp. From his signature grime-influenced, unpredictable bashy chaos to much deeper, almost cosmic fields, it’s his broadest release to date and will be followed by a whole series of similarly explorative and (mis)adventurous releases in the coming months. The next one is expected in the autumn and his own misadventure-themed podcast is out now too. But first, we asked the Exeter-based artist for his own persy misadventures.
Please read on if you like tales of people walking into bollards, falling off chairs and showing security their birthday suit and random acts of trespassing…
Have you had a good summer? Hospitality On The Beach looked amazing…
It was! It is every year. The beach was great but the boat party was something else. One of those life-affirming moments.
Boat parties are the one! No one can get away, you’re all in it together.
And it’s impossible to clear the floor. You don’t like what I’m playing? Swim back to shore!
Ha! So the whole ‘part one’ thing makes me thinks your Misadventures series is more of like an album-sized project?
It’s weird. I’m so new that with an album there’s this feeling like ‘no one knows who I am’ so would spending all my time away in the studio writing one make sense? I need more music out there and this series seemed like a good way of doing it. Building up my body of work and getting my stuff out there.
And because it’s a series you can go off-piste a bit and not be focused on bangers…
Exactly. It’s cool to put out different styles and see what people enjoy and what they react to. The reaction of Highs & Lows has been especially inspiring. That tune is really special to me and it’s the most leftfield track on the EP so that’s been really nice.
It’s a great opener for the EP. It sets the scene, quite reminiscent of Culprate or KOAN Sound in a way. What’s the story behind Highs & Lows?
It’s one of those ones that wrote itself. I wrote it off the back of quite a bad break up.
Ah sorry to hear man.
No it wasn’t a ‘boo-hoo’ break-up. It was a bad relationship, so it was more like a ‘fuck yeah, I’m alone again! Sick!’ vibe.
Freedom! I like the symmetry of the titles – Highs & Lows, Dead & Gone, Aches & Pains – it’s almost poetic.
Yeah I know! I have to admit that after I realised this myself with Highs & Lows and Aches & Pains I changed the name of the other track to Dead & Gone. It was originally called Valentines Dub.
It’s the most gully tune on the EP. Not your classic erection selection end-of-night smoochy tune…
Ha. No, I guess it’s an anti-valentines tune!
Let’s talk about misadventures. I love misadventures.
Yeah me too. Misadventures make good stories.
Give us some stories…
Okay well I think I’ve told you before about my time in university and how it wasn’t the best time for me and I moved back home. But I’ve not told you about the amount of fun I had before I left. I had quite a few misadventures there….
Misadventure #1: Lakeway & The Missing Tooth
“So I was on my way to get a smoke and had to walk through an abandoned B&Q carpark to meet him. I was paying too much attention to my phone and walked straight into a concrete bollard. It smashed my nuts, made me fall over and I essentially bit into a metal railing as I fell.
I lost my tooth, I had blood all over my face, I was in pain but mainly in shock. So, I carried on with my mission and got into my mate’s car. He looked at me in the rear-view mirror and said ‘what the fuck happened to you?’ I looked in the mirror myself and was like ‘oh shit!’ He told me not to bleed on his seats and we went about our business.
It got worse though; I then had to return to campus and go past the security hut with blood all over my face stinking of herb. I thought ‘there’s no chance they’re going to let me through without at least asking me some questions.’ They’re there for the student welfare, right? Not that night. I breezed through, toothless and covered in blood and they didn’t even blink an eye. Thankfully.
I should have got it stitched, I’ve got a scar on my chin from it and one of my teeth is totally capped and fake now. I actually gave Luke from Koherent a knock and asked if his student nurse flatmate was able to clean me up. And the worst thing? The reason I was looking at my phone was because I’d got a message from an ex who I’d recently broken up with. None of this even needed to happen!”
Misadventure #2: Lakeway & The Fire Alarms
“Another uni story… This time I’d covered up the smoke detector with a plastic bag so I could have a smoke in my room and decided to have a cigarette in the shower. The problem was that, in doing this, I’d opened the shower door and a lot of condensation had built up in the bag I’d taped on the smoke detector… Which caused security to be alerted.
Next thing I know they’re banging on the door, telling me to let them in and I explain I’ve just got out the shower. I was like ‘ah shit I’ve got to take that bag off’ so I stood on a chair to take it off. Unfortunately my feet were wet, slipped off and bashed my head on the wall. By then security were like ‘right, something’s going on in there, we’re coming in!’ I don’t know who was more shocked, but they gave me a few minutes to sort myself out. They open the door and what do they see? Me stark-bollock naked spread out on the floor. In pain.
The consequences of this ridiculous misadventure? Pay £50 and go on a fire safety course or just pay £100. It seemed like a weird punishment to me. I took the easy option and I’m none the wiser about fire safety.”
Misadventure #3: Lakeway & The Random Person’s Garden
“So I was in Croatia, I’d just split up from the relationship I mentioned earlier and I’d been paid. This left me in quite the position; I was emotionally vulnerable, looking to get on it a bit and I was solvent. These are dangerous elements to mix. One thing led to another and I totally forgot where my Airbnb was. I eventually found it, arrived and found my apartment mates had locked me out. Bastards! I thought ‘not to worry, I’ll climb this gate. I can’t remember a gate being there to begin with, but hey I’ll climb it anyway!’
Then, as I roamed around this strange garden looking for the door, I realised ‘shit! This isn’t my garden!’ It was some random family’s garden that I had no business being in whatsoever. It’s quite a profound moment when you do things like that. Like ‘what if they wake up and see this UK partied up weirdo in their garden who can’t speak a word of their language?’ It makes you look at yourself in a very different way. I quickly removed myself respectfully from the premises and spent the next hour finding my actual apartment!”
The Misadventures Of Lakeway Part 1 is out now on MedSchool
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