Named after a common physical feature in their hometown of Olympia, Wash., L.A.K.E. actually changed to an acronym after discovering ’70s German band Lake.

Re-imagining medieval parables and mainstream yacht rock a la Steely Dan through indie-rock boy-girl harmonies, L.A.K.E. draws from a diverse and distinct pool of influences. The band’s latest album Let’s Build a Roof is a housing for the ethereal and sprightly music they have been honing on tour.

Also on the bill is fellow K Records artist and collaborator Karl Blau. The all-ages show is at The Hangart on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5.

Below Elijah Moore talks about playing on-the-spot arrangements with tour-mate Karl Blau, keeping copyright infringement to a bare minimum with ’70s German band Lake and where they get their varied sound.

AZNB: First off, who are we speaking to, what do you do in the band and where is your favorite lake?

EM: Hey, this is Eli from LAKE. I write songs, sing and play musical instruments in LAKE. My favorite lake is Lake Cushman, about an hour outside of Olympia, a man made lake, just like LAKE.

You’re currently touring with Karl Blau who plays in LAKE, but does LAKE also play with Karl Blau. Tell us about the line-ups for the bands and what it is like sharing members.

EM: Well, we in LAKE are all playing in Karl’s band, playing mostly the songs of Zebra, Karl’s new album. We’re also playing a new song every night that Karl writes, notates, musically during the day, then we play it by reading the music. We play it without practicing and it’s thrilling. So the band is seven people including Karl, we have to leave lots of space musically.

It seems like everyone in LAKE has umpteen separate solo projects and collaborations. What is it like working on different projects and also coming together as LAKE? Does LAKE take precedence over side projects or just when you’re touring and recording?

EM: I think all the side projects really help the band because even if we’re not practicing together as LAKE we’re playing music and staying busy. It keeps things fresh in the band, and keeps people fulfilled in other ways. It’s important that people have special and different outlets; it’s not healthy to put all the eggs in one basket. That’s not to say that LAKE isn’t a priority, on the contrary I think everyone, at this time, seems pretty committed. On the other hand, touring is really tough, and occasionally members will skip out of a tour for personal reasons or because of conflicting schedules with other bands. It’s always ok because we don’t want pressure pressurizing the situation. I would say that everyone’s ‘side projects’ and stuff are just as important, although LAKE is pretty busy these days and takes a lot of time out of everyone’s lives. Markly’s new band Lazer Zeppelin is amazing! They should be doing some touring this winter and spring so keep an eye out, and check out their blog.

As a band and as individuals you all also do a lot of blogging. Why do you think the band is so into writing and what do you personally gain from writing on the road, about LAKE or anything else you might blog about?

EM: It’s fun, and it’s cool to imagine that maybe someone out there that we don’t know personally might read the blog. Also, hopefully it’s entertaining to people that we know. Who knows though, it’s fun…actually, I have to admit, I haven’t blogged yet, so I’m not the person to talk to about this. It’s a creative thing for members, Adam’s blog Cool Breakfast is full of amazing musical discoveries—it’s quite fantastic.

Tell us about some of the cool new songs you’re going to be playing in Tucson. I was especially excited to hear you were doing a song called ‘Michael Jackson’ and a folk song called ‘99 & 90.’ Is that a cover?

EM: ‘Michael Jackson’ is a new song Ashley and I wrote in Malibu just before tour. It’s pretty mellow, and of course, that’s just a working title. It’s very smooth jazz, and Sade influenced. I can’t promise that we’ll play it, it all depends on the audience because its’ a pretty mellow song and it’s no fun playing it to an audience that is too rowdy. ‘Sing 99 and 90’ is a song from our new album, it’s an old folk poem/song that Ashley found in a book and wrote music to. It’s pretty dang rockin, and one of the songs we do like playing to a rowdy audience.

We also have a fun new song called ‘Roger Miller’ that is brand new (relatively speaking).

One of my favorite songs off your newest album Let’s Build a Roof is ‘The Weaver’s Bonnie,’ which is a medieval parable about God and the devil that you transcribed into a beautiful song. Tell us about finding that piece of literature; what inspired the music around it and what does it mean to you.

EM: That’s actually the song ‘Sing 99 and 90’ and I think it was pretty influenced by Heart and Blue Oyster Cult, but I can’t say for sure. I’ll try to get Ashley over here to answer that, but it’s a fun song for sure.

Since you learned about the ’70s German band Lake, you’ve changed your name to LAKE, but I didn’t know L.A.K.E. was actually an acronym. What does it stand for?

EM: Well, we’ve been going back and forth about the band name for a long time, and we’ve actually known about Lake, the band from the ’70s for a long time, since we finished our second album, but when we got signed to K we decided to have the band name be all caps even though that doesn’t really do anything in a Google search or in court, so hopefully it’s all good with our German brothers.

I found it really funny that your song ‘Madagascar’ has been compared to the German Lake’s song ‘Jamaica High,’ both of which sound somewhat like Steely Dan or The Doobie Brothers.

EM: Yes, that’s funny. You know what else is funny? Our new album looks just the cover art on all the Lake albums, very accidental, but very funny, oops, hopefully no Lake fans accidentally buy our album. All their albums are circularly framed paintings.

I also noticed that ‘Madagascar’ and the song ‘Don’t Give Up’ have similar ‘don’t give up’ refrains in the chorus. Do you think Let’s Build a Roof has any underlining themes?

EM: Well, ‘struggle’ I suppose—trying and wanting to give up, having a hard time and trying to keep a positive attitude, disaster, and lots of random stuff.

Tell us a little bit about your varied sound. Does it come from working on myriad different projects or does everyone have their certain influences? How is most of the music for LAKE created?

EM: Most LAKE songs are written by Ashley or I/Ashley and I, but Lindsay’s written a few, and everyone puts a hand into the arrangements. We all like lots of different kinds of music, and by no means do we go about the band with the intention of having a varied sound. It’s really just that the music we like comes out in the songs we write and it’s fun to try new things.

What is on the horizon for LAKE?

EM: Millions of dollars! Fancy cars. Umm, well, we’ll keep making albums, hopefully, we have a bunch of seven inches coming out. A series of songs we recorded with Tucker Martine.

Is there anything you’d like to say to Tucson?

EM: We love Tucson! Andrew Lane, Steven Steinbrink!

LAKE plays with Karl Blau at The Hangart Sunday, Nov. 15 around 8 p.m. Tickets are $5.