Czech Republic band named after Lake Malawi
Is it not an amazing thing that a music group from a European country would name itself after the Lake Malawi? Definitely it must be!
Lake Malawi is not only a name for Malawi’s great lake, but also a name for an indie-pop band from the Czech Republic, led by a two-time MTV Award winner, singer and songwriter Albert Cerny.
The four-piece, founded in 2013 by Cerny, further consist of Patrick Karpentski on guitars, Jeronym Subrt who plays the bass and the drummer Pavel Pilch.
The band’s manager, Pavel Cerny, confirmed the group was named after the country’s Lake Malawi, but said it stems from an American indie folk band, the Bon Iver’s line: “So it’s storming on the lake”, from the song titled Calgary.
“The name of the band is the same as your country’s Lake Malawi. Albert decided for this name for several reasons. He loves water and big lakes and he also likes the sound when we say in English ‘Lake Malawi’, it sounds nice and romantic to him.
“Originally, Albert was some time ago impressed very much by one song of Bon Iver, singing about ‘storm on the lake’ and he connected the original ‘lake’ idea with the name of Lake Malawi mainly because it sounded nice to him and it gave a feeling of a distant romantic place,” explained Pavel in an online interview.
Regardless of the name, the European band, whose main activities are in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, has no personal experience with Lake Malawi and they have never been to Malawi.
Pavel admitted in the interview that neither their music, a kind of independent pop-rock, has no influence from Malawi nor Africa, indicating that they know about Malawi from pictures and videos on the internet.
“We are sure the real Lake Malawi is a very beautiful and pleasant place. Our aim is to bring joy and happiness to our band’s fans, so we believe the beauty of the real Lake Malawi fits very well to what we do.
“We don’t know if people in Malawi would be interested in our European pop music. When our fans ask about the name of the band we just say ‘you know it’s a place in Africa, a beautiful big lake,” he said further. “So maybe our band’s activities in a certain sense attract the attention of our fans to Malawi and to the real Lake Malawi.”
Pavel said it was the wish of the Lake Malawi band to come to Malawi sometime not only to hold a concert but swim in the lake they decided to name their band after.
Lake Malawi Band are currently locked up in the studio recording their new single titled Chinese Trees with a Grammy-Award winning producer called Matt Lawrence, whose credits to date consist of Adele, Amy Winehouse, The White Stripes and Foals, among others. The song will be out on October 6.
