Wake Up Bedhead has been hard at it, playing shows in and around Winona for the past eight years. Founding members Joshua Lauer and Eli Beach, as well as newly added drummer Justin Wieczorek, have lived in the area the majority of their lives. All of the band had resided in Winona, but Josh and Eli moved back to the Twin Cities area recently to focus on casting a wider net. Josh and Eli met each other while working at Winona music publishing company Hal Leonard back in 2006 and that’s when the band was conceived. Wake Up Behead bassist, visual artist, and bird enthusiast Birdie Lynn aka Sherry Dahlen, moved to Winona to attend college at WSU as an art ed major and very recently wound up an art teacher at Winona Senior High School. She actually learned how to play bass guitar rehearsing Wake Up Bedhead songs years ago prior to joining and has been a permanent fixture in the band ever since.
Wake Up Bedhead has seen their share of line-up changes over the years, but the core of the group and direction has never really strayed from its origins. It seems, if you’re a local musician, you may have ended up in Wake Up Bedhead at some point over the past several years. The list includes: Rory Harding, Joel Sutton, Devon Towers, Jason Jacksen, Travis Mord, and Matthew Corcoran to mention a few. Both Lauer and Beach alternate as front people in the band with Josh Lauer writing the bulk of the songs. Lauer describes the band as “If the Beatles, the Strokes, Weezer and Dinosaur Jr. got together and had a love child— that child could be Wake Up Bedhead”. Their sound ends up being an interesting mix of fuzzed out psychedelic rock with the pith being well-written power pop tunes.
You may have seen them over the years at any number of local venues such as Ed’s (no name) Bar, Broken World Records, The L-Cove, Hei ‘N Low, and even Steiny’s (yup, they’ve had music). If you hung out at former Rascals bar in “the glory days” before the dividing wall of the Cheaters meat market dance floor and the Mason Jar back room, then you probably caught one of their sets. That is, unless you were spending the night in a haze of funny smoke behind the stage in the back by the pool tables where most of the lowbrows hung out. Bedhead has shared the stage with former and current local acts like Maudlin, My Private Eye, Hill County Destroyer, Porcupine, Thumbelina and the Tangerine Fists of Justice, Ralphed, We are the Branches , Sluthumper, Boats vs. Manatees, The John Beach Band, So It Goes, General B and the Wiz, White Light Riot, and a list of regional indie rock bands that goes on and on. They’ve played several of the Mid West Music Fests and were mentioned as a band to check out by The City Pages and The Current. They were also mentioned as an up and coming band to check out on Spin.com in 2007 and were an opening act for The Arctic Monkeys at the Rave in Milwaukee, WI in 2011.
The current line-up is Joshua Lauer, Eli Beach, Birdie Lynn, and Justin Wieczorek. They’ve self-released two albums, “The Hook EP” in 2007 and “Listen With Your Eyes Closed” in 2012. Listen to their latest offering below.
Upcoming local gigs:
Who: Wake Up Bedhead, The Ultrasounds, San Dimas
When: Saturday, July 19th
Where: Broken World Records