A Dive Into the Soul of Akie Bermiss

Akie Bermiss At The Keys / photo by Eugene Zuckerman / courtesy of the artist

“While my parents had a pretty diverse record collection, which included classical music, ’60s rock and musicals … they were primarily about jazz and soul,” soul singer Akie Bermiss tells Brooklyn Roads. Being a teenager in Brooklyn in the ’90s, with two older brothers, he adds, there was also strong influence of hip hop.

“There was so much dope music coming out of Brooklyn when I was growing up,” he says. “After school with my friends spitting awful freestyles and holding down a beatbox. It was not merely listening to the music but a kind of … exchange of ideas and identities.”

He tells us he considers all of the above to be “an experiential and aesthetic resource from which to draw inspiration. My own music is [a] blend of the aforementioned styles. I play piano and sing, so I build my music around those instruments. I would call it soul music … but it’s also unabashedly nerdy. It’s sad and sometimes even somber but also kind of absurd and humorous.”

Akie Bermiss / photo by Ben Rosser / courtesy of the artist

Regarding Brooklyn’s impact on his art, Bermiss says community is key, citing the borough’s “rich, sometimes troubling, history” and noting that, “The interactivity, the sharing of ideas and concepts, the diffusion of personalities and struggles and triumphs that artists cannot help but give to and partake of is a critical part of making art in general.”

Playing With Lake Street Dive

While “hanging out” at Rockwood Music Hall several years ago, he wound up doing an opening set for Brooklyn rockers Lake Street Dive, “and we became personally acquainted.” Some years later, “They contacted me and asked if I would join them on a tour, adding keys to their live show.”

He tells Brooklyn Roads he was “sweating bullets every night and trying not to screw up their sound with errant plinks and plonks,” but as far as melding into the band and crew,

“They were very welcoming, extremely supportive. The challenge to rise to their level of musicianship and drive [was] one of the greatest experiences of my life.” (You can hear some of Bermiss’ keyboard work and backing vocals on Lake Street Dive’s 2018 album, Free Yourself Up.)

Akie Bermiss Hitting The Notes/ photo by Grayson Dantzic / courtesy of the artist

Quality Time in Quarantine

Bermiss tells us he has been using the current quarantine — what he calls a “mandatory sabbatical” — to work on several projects that he’s always wanted to do. “I have this ridiculous song-cycle / soul-opera thing called ‘Alien Love Songs’ about an alien that crash lands on Earth and falls in love with a human … a kind of cosmic ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ if you will. There are a good 30 songs already written for that.

He’s also writing a fantasy novel about a saxophone-player/private detective “for my own amusement. And I’ve been doing a weekly podcast about ‘Star Trek.’”