The
Biography
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The story of Lake started in 1970, when keyboarder Detlef Petersen, drummer Fritz "Freddy" Graack and bassist Martin Tiefensee joined a band known under the name "Tornados". The band was known to be Germany's Top 40 band, which means that they basically played material which has already been perfomed by other artists. But performing live with an almost endless string of gigs gave them the opportunity to better their musicianship and instrumanetal skills and abilities. In 1973 the group recruited the Scottish bassist and lead singer Ian Cussick as a result of an ad in the Melody Maker magazine. The band renamed themselves to Lake and invited former 'Mott The Hoople' and 'Paul Ravens' keyboarder Geoffrey "Jeff" Peacey to join them. The lineup was eventually completed by Oreste "Lilio" Malagia [guitars]. Lake also had a small brass section at that time, consisting of trumpet player Bernard "Benny" Whelan [formerly also of the 'Paul Ravens' band] and saxophone and trombone player Gerd Beliaeff. The first single "Come Down/We're Gonna Rock" was published on Polydor later that year, but failed success. In 1974 The Hollies asked Ian Cussick to join them as a substitute for their former lead singer Alan Clarke, who had left the band in order to start a solo career. But Ian rejected because of his own intentions to pursue his solo career and terminated his Lake membership shortly thereafter. Therefore a new lead singer had to be found. Again the band was headhunting in London and happened to meet James Hopkins-Harrison from Scottland. Shortly after James' joining the band the second single "King Of The Rock'n Roll Party/She's Alright" was released [again on the Polydor label]. The following years of 1975 sees the another change of lineup. Drummer Freddy Graack was replaced by Detelef Ahrendt, and guitarist Lilio Malagia was substitued by Alex Conti from Berlin. The two brass player were also excluded from the lineup, which made the new formation look like this :
In autumn 1995 the debut album was released on CBS under the simple name "Lake". From the start the album sold real well in Germany and other countries of Europe. Surprisingly the single taken from this album, "Time Bomb" soon reached the US Billboard Top 40, eventually peaking at #13. They also participated in the well-known "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" TV show, reaching a broad spectrum of viewers in America. The album soon made it to #22, which earned Lake the credibility and the status of a superstar band within Germany.
The German phono academy elected the band ":Artists of the year" in 1977. In 1980 James Hopkins-Harrison obviously took over the lead of the band with his fellow musicians, Dieter Ahrendt and Alex Conti. To substitute Detlef Petersen as producer, session musician and composer Achim Opperman [vocals, guitars, keyboards] was recruited, together with bassist Heiko Efferts and keyboarder Frank Hieber. With this lineup Lake recorded their fourth album, "Ouch !". The band's lineup now looked like this :
"Ouch !" didn't remotely have the same success like the three predecessor albums, and Alex Conti and Heiko Efferts left shortly after the Germany tour following the release of the album. The musical quality of "Ouch !" was by far not as bad as the lack of success would lead to assume, and especially the opening song "Celebrate" is a tricky jazz-rock crossover and required highly talented musicianship in order to make it sound as easy as it comes on the recording. Conti and Efferts were later replaced by Jo Kappl [on bass] and Erlend Krauser, who already had some fame as a highly skilled Hungarian guitar player. This line up next prepared their next album "Hot Day !", Lake's Berlin-recorded album which was co-produced by Audio Recording Studio boss Udo Arndt. Arndt was already know at that time and instrumental for his production work and engineering for well known German acts such as like Nena, Spliff and Nina Hagen Band. 
Since it was apparent that Lake's star had already sunken and their collaboration with CBS was discontinued the big recording company acted on that and released previously unavailable live material from stage appearances between May 1999 and October 1980, introducing the Lake 1 [with Detlef Petersen] and the Lake 2 [with Achim Oppermann] formation with the double live album "On The Run". It's difficult to asses what happened at the time, but it appears that it were Achim Oppermann's connections which yielded another publishing contract with the German Polydor label. In 1984 Lake eventually published album #6, "No Time For Heroes", which contained some very catchy songs but was as unsuccessful as "Ouch !" and "Hot Day !". Lake had now become a rather unknown dinosaur of the German rock music scene and were basically the result of the joined efforts of James Hopkins-Harrison and Achim Oppermann. In 1985, following the "No Time For Heroes" album Lake released "Voices", an album with even stronger song material than the 1984 album. Right away the opener "Alright", "More Than A Feeling" and "Echo Of The Meldoy" were actually potential chart busters, but no one cared to listen anymore. In 1986 Lake's last album was recorded, the Polydor release "So What". Long time drummer Dieter Ahrendt had left the band in the meantime and was replaced by Udo Dahmen. Jo Kappl had also left the band and was replaced by Benjamin Hüllenkrämer. With this line up "So What" brought some more great songs, like "In The Midnight", the title song "So What" and one of Achim Oppermann's compositions which had already been performed by former Kajagoogoo lead singer Limahl, "Inside To Outside". Here's an overview of the final lineup of Lake :
I have had the opportunity to witness one of Lake's very last live appearances in Hannover, and it was sad to see how humiliating that gig was on lead singer James Hopkins-Harrison. He had desperately tried to connect with the few people in the audience and party with the band. Unfortunately, no one really listened anymore. I assume that the band did not have a record deal anymore and would not be able to sign a new one. That's why "So What" remained the band's last official album and nothing happened in the following years. Achim Oppermann continued various collaborations with other artists as a song-writer and producer.
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