Douglas Monaghan, also known as Stormy Lake, is an indie dream pop musician from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Getting started one winter day when he was 10 years old, Douglas found a website that allowed him to create music using loops. He subsequently released his debut single "THE LEADER" on to his former YouTube channel in 2014. When he was a kid his parents gifted him his first laptop which he primarily used to record himself play the hit game, Minecraft and post it online. Throughout those years Douglas developed many skills which he credits running that YouTube channel with. His first adventure into his multimedia passion was graphic design while learning how to use various photo editing suits, which eventually evolved into learning how to animate using Adobe Flash. Eventually Douglas picked up 3D animation as another hobby, which led to him designing a video game and creating a map for a Slenderman-inspired horror game he called Mary.
One of the most important hobbies Douglas picked up as a kid was music production. After producing a few songs on the aforementioned website, Douglas decided he was going to learn how to produce his own music without the use of loops. At age 12, Douglas downloaded the trial version of FL Studio where he began to make something that sounded like the music a 12 year old would make. At age 14, after telling his parents about his passion, they bought him the full version of FL Studio.
Flash forward a couple of years and Douglas, going on SoundCloud under the alias of "Dougie" started releasing EDM and Dubstep tracks that he produced on his laptop. When Rap took over as the dominating genre in the industry, Douglas quickly became enthralled with learning how to produce rap beats. Him and his friends would rap over them and his passion for music quickly expanded. Shortly after his parents helped him purchase a Native Instruments Komplete S61 keyboard which came bundled with Komplete 12. His production skills quickly sharpened from there.
It was not until his senior year in high school Douglas had another genre shift. One night Douglas stayed up extra late, messing around with a software synth that emulated a Mini Moog, where Douglas created his first milestone song, "A Butterfly's Dream." This song was nothing like he had created before and gave him a feeling of peace while listening to it. With every subsequent project, Douglas would try and experiment more and more with this soft-synth. This eventually led to the idea of releasing an album, featuring a collection of his experimental synthwave tracks. Douglas eventually scrapped most of the album because he did not feel confident in his music production skills, but kept working on tracks and improving his skills.
Eventually as Douglas kept practicing, he wrote his next milestone track, "Better Now." Better Now is a highly experimental synthwave track drawing inspiration from the music group Whitewoods. That song was a personal one, as he had written it as a promise to himself. A promise that he would better himself as an individual. This song changed Douglas and he decided he finally needed a proper stage name.
One night Douglas was on a band name generator looking for ideas when the website asked him what his favorite place in the world was. Douglas had an epiphany in that moment. Over many summers as a kid, Douglas would spend time at his family's cottage near Haliburton, Ontario. This cottage was located on the beautiful, natural, heavily forested, Stormy Lake. Douglas wanted to pay homage to the cherished childhood memories of his summers out there and decided that his musical identity would be Stormy Lake.
When the pandemic started, Douglas had a crazy amount of free time. Though he played his fair share of video games he also used this opportunity to greatly improve his musical capabilities. He was gifted an electric guitar from his uncle and started teaching himself how to play. Eventually Douglas felt he was skilled enough to start recording this guitar playing and incorporating it into his dreamy brand of music.
Flash forward two years and Douglas started attending the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, where he is currently studying Digital Audio Arts. He honed his musical skills and truly found his sound. He fell in love with the music genres, Dream Pop, Shoegaze, Psychedelic Rock, Indie Rock, and various other genres. Taking characteristics of these genres and crafting a sound that appeals to a more mainstream audience. Stormy Lake would go on to work on three albums and two EPs worth of music that each tell a story, each evoke an emotion. Alongside this Douglas developed the necessary audio engineering skills to make his music sound good.
Now Stormy Lake, is skilled audio engineer and song writer, working to finish his degree in hopes of working in a professional music studio, releasing his music to the world, and sharing his skills with other talented musicians.
Stay tuned for his debut album, as it may just become your favorite album ;)
