Detroit Dreamers is not something Martin Kierszenbaum and Tony Lake have to do.
The pair of Michigan natives, both Grammy Award winners, have plenty of other musical pursuits to occupy their time, mostly behind the scenes.
Kierszenbaum founded the Cherrytree Music Co. in Los Angeles, manages artists such as Sting and Shaggy, and has worked as a producer and writer with Madonna, Lady Gaga, Robyn and others.
Lake works closely on some of those projects and also has credits with Charli XCX, Mumford and Sons, Jukebox the Ghost and more.
After dropping a debut EP in 2020, the duo could have considered it their statement and moved on. But that’s hardly the case.
This week, Kierszenbaum and Lake release “Detroit Dreamers,” a full-length album that adds seven new songs to the EP’s five, plus a live cover of the MC5’s “High School.” The band may not be their priority, but it is a calling that they’re happy to be continuing amidst their other endeavors.
“We’re kind of freewheeling it,” Kierszenbaum says via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “We do things for the sheer love of it, then opportunities arise. We don’t overthink it from a marketing perspective or anything like that.
“Obviously, we have other gigs that occupy our time. We make time for this ’cause it’s joyous, a little bit of a love letter to where we were forged, which we both appreciate.”
That forging for Kierszenbaum took place in Lansing, while Lake hails from the east side of Detroit and Grosse Pointe. They both attended the University of Michigan as music majors and met in the fall of 1984 at Cousens Hall, when Kierszenbaum was visiting his best friend from high school and came upon “this crazy looking guy” playing an electric guitar in his room.
“Tony and I shared this dream that maybe we can do something music — that’s the root of all this,” says Kierszenbaum, who played in a funk band called Custom Blend in Ann Arbor and also got some national attention as MK Chilly Dog in the rap duo Maroons. “There was a real kind of … defiance to it.”
Lake, now based in New York, adds: “It was a volatile time. The heyday of Detroit had passed, and the city was getting a lot of really bad press. But we felt like: ‘We’re here! This is still us!’”
The two stayed tight after graduation. Lake, who stood up in Kierszenbaum’s wedding, lured his friend to Los Angeles (documented in the Dreamers song “California”), where they started a band called Bad Axe (as in Michigan). Both, meanwhile, credit their continuing success in music to the grounding they received back home.
“We’re grateful for where we grew up — the time we grew up, where we grew up, the people around whom we grew up around,” Kierszenbaum notes. “We really feel like it’s been a force field in our lives. The longer we spend in L.A. or New York, there’s so many pitfalls you see, and I think we were saved from so many of them just by having learned the lessons we learned growing up in Michigan.
“It kind of shaped who we are. It’s very, very, very useful and … secure, like we’re immune to a lot of the horses*** that happens.”
That perspective is evident throughout the 13 tracks on “Detroit Dreamers,” a set of guitar-driven rock songs that straddles the punky bravado of MC5 and the Stooges and the polished songcraft of Motown, with nods to other influences such as Mitch Ryder, Bob Seger and Brownsville Station. Kierszenbaum maintains: “I’m more the Dreamer in Detroit Dreamers. Tony’s the Detroit,” but both say it’s music they feel is part of their mutual DNA.
“‘Easy’ may not be the right word … but it’s fun, and it feels really natural,” Lake says. “This is what comes out. This is what I gravitate towards. This is what I grew up listening to. This is part of what I am and who we are — this kind of Detroit, working-class, defiant rock music.”
The first step towards the album came via Detroit, as well.
The duo had written a new single, an uptempo anthem titled “Dreamers,” that became part of a 2021 campaign with Jeep. In conjunction, Wallace Detroit Guitars created a custom instrument made from the old Packard plant in downtown Detroit. Kierszenbaum and Lake, joined by Emilio Navaira IV from the Cherrytree band the Last Bandoleros, also played a short show at Jeep’s Detroit 2 Assembly Plant, where “High School” was recorded. The group subsequently got a shout-out from MC5’s late Wayne Kramer for its version, which further encouraged the idea of another album.
Among the newly recorded songs is “Christmas on 10 Mile,” a remembrance of Lake’s childhood that Kierszenbaum is proud to have worked “Firebird” and “Euchre” into the lyric. The charged “Music Helps Keep Me Going” got Kierszenbaum out of what he calls “a funk in creative music,” while “Love in Disguise” stands out as a more restrained outlier within the Dreamers’ canon. Kierszenbaum acknowledges that Lake “indulged me on that one. … He said: ‘Dude, we’re really on the outskirts now. We’re the Livonia, the Romulus Dreamers right now.” But neither feels that’s a bad thing.
“We bring that kind of Detroit Dreamers ethic to whatever we do,” Lake says, “and while ‘Love in Disguise’ may not be as upbeat as everything else, it’s still us. If it works, it works. I don’t care how far out it is.”
True to form, the Dreamers have no plan or agenda for “Detroit Dreamers” other than releasing it via streaming and download platforms. Both men will be busy with their other pursuits. Sting returns to touring on Jan. 14 in Europe and is relaunching his stage musical “The Last Ship” in February in Paris. But Hot Wax Radio in Chicago is streaming the single “Believe” with regularity, and the duo is open to whatever opportunities present themselves moving forward.
“The beauty of this is it just comes out. We don’t even know when it’s coming,” Kierszenbaum explains. “If some opportunities arise, great. If they don’t, they don’t. One of the beautiful things about this is we don’t have pressure. It’s really an expression of joy and friendship, and that’s enough for us.”
