FUNERAL LAKES

Funeral Lakes is an indie rock project led by Chris Hemer and Sam Mishos. They are currently based out of Kingston, Ontario, a small city where the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui rivers meet on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. Read our full bio here and our selected press here.

Funeral Lakes’ latest EP—Mountains Turned to Dust—is out September 19, 2025. Mountains Turned to Dust is a collection of anti-western songs examining the myth of the cowboy and the North American frontier. The songs expand on themes addressed through the band’s previous release, North American Martyrs, including historical myths and destruction of the land. Building on their usual indie rock sound, Mountains Turned to Dust finds Funeral Lakes drawing more heavily from the country and western genre—but with the goal of subverting it. Galloping drums and twangy guitars with dripping spring reverb are punctuated by lyrics unravelling historical myths and ‘heroic’ figures. Throughout the 5-song EP, Funeral Lakes confront the realities of westward expansion and the push-and-pull between people and the environment as they are driven by greed and sometimes ‘prairie madness.’ But the past is not past—Funeral Lakes remind us that this legacy continues on into the present day and is embedded in North American landscapes.

On the title track “Mountains Turned to Dust”—perhaps the most stripped-down Funeral Lakes track to date—the storyteller is at once an ancestor and a descendant who is reflecting on the destructive legacy they’ve inherited as the time comes to reap what has been sown. The EP’s cover art uses a needle-and-thread intervention on an archival image of a nameless, faceless figure on horseback at the foot of a mountain, symbolizing the glorification of westward expansion and the so-called frontier.

Mountains Turned to Dust was co-written by Chris Hemer and Sam Mishos. Recording sessions took place in Kingston, Ontario (engineered by Arden Rogalsky) and at Port William Sound in Mountain Grove, Ontario (engineered by Jonas Bonnetta). The EP was performed by Chris Hemer (vocals/guitars), Sam Mishos (vocals/keys), Michael Broadhead (bass guitar/backing vocals), Arden Rogalsky (drums/backing vocals), Dimitri Treheles (guitars), and Jonas Bonnetta (keys/percussion/backing vocals). The songs were engineered and mixed by Jonas Bonnetta (Port William Sound) and mastered by Heather Kirby (Dreamlands Mastering).

Lyrics

Ride On

Good lord, no summer for a year
I cut a path that led me here
Good will won’t fill my cup
I’ve got mine but it’s not enough
All my love don’t seem to last
And all of this will come to pass

Haven’t seen my neighbour in a while
About as long as a country mile
Saw a ghost in the dead of night
Said it was cold in the afterlife
All my love don’t seem to last
And all of this will come to pass

Gonna ride on
Down a long road
Gonna ride on
Till we’re all home

Hold on for a better man
Don’t let it fall
Hold on to the bitter land
Don’t let it fall
All my love don’t seem to last
And all of this will come to pass

Gonna ride on
Down a long road
Gonna ride on
Till we’re all home

But the wind blows colder than December
What is lost if I cannot remember
Believe me when I say I’m leaving
This cold-hearted life I’ve been leading

Gonna ride on
Down a long road
Gonna ride on
Till we’re all home
Gonna ride on
Down a long road
Gonna ride on
Till we’re all home

Dreaming of Heroes

Upon the open plain
I’ve come and gone again
These thoughts that wreck my brain
And I don’t know why I feel this way

All of the light in heaven
The heavy weight of living
I hear the valleys singing
That lonesome cry
From deep inside

I’ve been dreaming of heroes
All your legends are in doubt
I’ve been trying to tell you
Over mountains I will shout
I keep coming up lonesome
‘Cause I fear this is the end
I keep searching for something
But I’ve lost my way again
And again and again, yeah, yeah

Under that blood-stained sky
I beg, I plead, I cry
I pray that I survive
But now it feels so far away

Under that wide horizon
My sun no longer rising
Across what we’ve divided
And still we ride
Will you provide?

No More Cowboys

I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome

Roll and rip through me
As I stumble forth to see

In barren land
I’ll never leave
And when I rise
Where’s the glory that I seek?

I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome
I am wild and I am lonesome

The Valleys Wept

I don’t know him like an old friend, but I might
Cross an ocean where I’m going, I will ride
And the new moon shines likes silver as I sleep
And the low land, she delivers all I need

Ancient land I fill with fear
I’ll carve my map right outta here
The scars of centuries that we left
Look how them lonesome valleys wept

Like a cold wind, felt you blowing across them peaks
I have laboured on your favour for weeks

Ancient land I fill with fear
I’ll carve my map right outta here
The scars of centuries that we left
Look how them lonesome valleys wept

Mountains Turned to Dust

First his mind went then his soul
It cut him open, left a hole, wide
Love and conviction, where are you?
All them other boys are gonna light the fuse

From a distance I watch the fall
Of a home and where I was born
And where you grew half as tall as the other men
Throwing down roots, can’t you understand?

And boy, I’m sick of it
That’s why I lay in bed
All these thoughts run in circles
All these thoughts running through my head
Dream of death
In my bed, I dream of death

Now if you look far you will see
What is yours now, what we leave, yeah
Pass it all on like sleeping fools
Don’t ask questions, they will eat you through

And all the mountains I turned to dust
And all the steel track turned to rust, yeah
From where the sun now sets forevermore
Release me father from this dying shore

It’s the tide, tide of time
It’s all right, I’m just fine
It’s all right, I’m just fine
It’s all right