Great Lakes is an American rock and roll band formed in Athens, Georgia, United States, in 1996. The band was formed by Ben Crum, James Huggins, & Dan Donahue. Great Lakes were among the second wave of bands included in The Elephant Six Collective.
History
The debut self titled album Great Lakes was recorded 1996–1999 on Crum's 1/2" 8-track tape machine in their home studio in Athens, Georgia. It was released in 2000 on Kindercore/Elephant 6. The group consisted of founders Ben Crum, Dan Donahue, & James Higgins III, with a bevvy of supporting players from the Athens/E6 music scene. After relocating to Athens, Ga from Birmingham, Alabama, the trio met like minded musicians in fellow Athens bands like Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Of Montreal. Great Lakes grew from a three piece recording project to a full-blown rotating ‘mini- orchestra’ featuring over 12 musicians for the recording sessions & live tours for the first two albums. By the third release Donahue and Crum had moved to New York, and the band entered a new phase. By 2008, Crum was solely at the helm, and had assembled a Brooklyn-based lineup of the band that would continue playing together for over a decade. Crum discusses this shift in an interview with Dagger Zine:
"I’ve been the only original member of the band for over 10 years now. But it was really only for the first 2 records that the original members were a big part of the band, anyway, to be honest. And even then it was really just the first one that was the product of genuine collaboration. Back then it was me and Dan writing songs together, but by the time the first record came out we'd put together a big band that also featured Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal, Scott Spillane from Neutral Milk Hotel/Olivia Tremor Control, Bryan Poole from Elf Power, and Derek Almstead, Dottie Alexander, Heather McIntosh, and Jamey Huggins as a multi-instrumentalist and our main drummer. Jamey and I really collaborated very closely on the first record, in terms of working out the instrumentation on the songs. That was a really good, positive collaboration. And, truthfully, it hurt me when he chose to pretty much leave the band and focus on Of Montreal. But I understood his decision. They were getting really popular, and I couldn't blame him. Then, in 2002, I moved to Brooklyn and Dan followed not long after, and once we'd both left Athens that was basically the end of the original lineup. Dan and I kept writing songs together, though, with him writing the lyrics and me writing the music. We went back to Athens to record Diamond Times, and a bunch of the old crew pitched in and played on the record... The thing about bands continuing on without original members is tricky. A lot of times those bands aren't very good without the original lineup. But I always think about The Byrds when this subject comes up. My favorite Byrds records are the ones Roger McGuinn made without Gene Clark and David Crosby. I mean, I love the Gene Clark solo stuff, and that first David Crosby solo record, too. And of course the early Byrds stuff is great. But those late Byrds records are the ones I like the most. I like to think of Great Lakes like that. Maybe some people prefer the early stuff, and that's fine. But I'm just going to keep on doing my own thing, regardless of what anybody else thinks."
The other two founding members have released music through their other songwriting outlets, Dream Boat & James Husband respectively. James released the album A Parallax I and continues to work on J.Husband and Donahue has contributed lyrics to several other bands' albums, including Of Montreal's City Bird, Elf Power's The Taking Under, and Bear In Heaven's Space Remains. Donahue has designed art, album covers, and videos for the bands MGMT, Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, and R.E.M.
Formation
The group started as a songwriting partnership between Dan Donahue and Ben Crum with James Huggins III joining band when it officially formed in 1996. The original lineup also included bassist/vocalist Craig Ceravolo and performed and recorded demos in Birmingham, Alabama, under the name ‘Cherry Valence’. For a time the band was also called ‘Wheelie Ride’, before it changed officially to ‘Great Lakes’.