Milkshake
A Refreshing Pop/Rock Band for Families

By Kurt Goerke  

Our lives seem to unfold in chapters, something I became keenly aware during an interview with Milkshake’s Lisa Mathews and Mikel Gehl after a show sponsored by the ParentGuide^® at MOSI museum in Tampa. The latest chapter in their lives includes becoming parents and forming Milkshake, a band that plays first-rate pop music for kids!

If you flip back to their previous chapter, you would find them in the critically acclaimed band Love RiOT. Love RiOT’s credits include being chosen to represent the United States, and subsequently winning, the Yamaha Soundquest Competition in Tokyo, releasing two well received CDs and having their music featured in TV shows like Providence, Homicide; Life on the Streets, All My Children and JAG among others.

New chapters often introduce new characters, and those new characters sometimes change everything! When first Lisa and then Mikel added a child to their families, the latest chapter began to unfold. The late nights, travel and smoky clubs lost their appeal. Actually they still had the late nights but there were no cheering crowds at the 3:00 am feeding and diaper change!

This new chapter finds their talent in tact tack but now their world-class song writing skills, musicianship and vocals are focused on creating excellent music for kids (and their parents).

As fate would have it, I selected a seat in the audience right next to Lisa’s mother at their concert. She told me about how different the venues for Milkshake were compared to the clubs that Love RiOT played. The smoky “feel like you went blind when you walked in out of the daylight” spot that Lisa’s mother recalls seeing her daughter once play, is replaced today by a stage outside of the MOSI museum. It seems completely natural to have family, including her mom and her daughter, singing along from lawn chairs in front of the stage as Lisa and Mikel brave the heat of the Florida sunshine to lead their band through songs featured on Milkshakes’ first two albums (Happy Songs and Bottle Of Sunshine).

I can’t help but admire the fact that they have found a way to earn a living as musician without sacrificing family. I’ve heard more than one popular musician lament the fact that due to constant touring they missed their children growing up! The band sounds great and delivers an energetic and creative set to a crowd made up of people ranging in age from one to eighty years old. Everyone enjoys the music and the band member’s charismatic personalities. There’s not a bad song in the set!

I had the chance to talk to them between shows in a room in the museum. They kindly waited to join family members at a lunch buffet set up in the room until after the interview. With all of the family in attendance, including some Florida relatives, I felt a bit like I was crashing a family reunion! I kept them from their lunch for longer than I should have as I had a hard time not babbling about how wonderful their music was and how much my family and I have enjoyed it! We talked about their current projects, including work on their latest release (Play), which they are very excited about. They have a childlike excitement as they tell me about things like having Cal Ripken Jr. featured on one of the new tracks. They also speak with the maturity of seasoned musicians when they talk about the thought and hard work that goes into everything from song writing to their CD artwork and packaging (which is wonderful by the way, the artwork for Bottle of Sunshine has a depth and charm not found on many CDs marketed to kids).

It’s hard to say how long this latest chapter of their lives will last but it’s clear to see that they are enjoying it and that you should be too!