The Takes

Born out of Portland, Oregon, The Takes are a folk rock band making music for the fun of it, creating community wherever they happen to be.

 

In 2020, Sumner Rahr (guitar/vocals) and Fritz Frerichs (drums) found themselves in Jackson, Wyoming, writing songs together in their living room to pass the time. The result was the “High Lonesome” EP – The band’s first release as a two-piece rock band that skewed psychedelic, taking inspiration from Pink Floyd and The Doors. When asked to play their first live set at a friend’s warehouse, the pair recruited high school friend Phoebe Webb (bass) and Sumner’s brother Guido Rahr (guitar) for a show that made the group want to stick together. Between semesters away at school, the four friends spent their summer and winter breaks playing shows and recording new music, culminating in a move to Berkeley, California. They built a studio and rehearsal space from scratch out of their Berkeley garage and began working on music together, finally in the same place.

 

On their 2024 EP “Lay Hold,” The Takes delve further into their country/blues rock tendencies, led by Sumner’s raw lead vocal and backdropped by a classic four-piece arrangement of guitar, drums and bass. Drawing from their early psychedelic influences, the band still creates songs the way a jam band would: “Someone comes up with a riff, we’ll start out writing it one way, and as time goes on we’ll change it and change it,” Sumner explains. “We’ll mess around until a song slowly gets shaped out of it.” Similar to the band’s formation, their lyrical themes are organic: the changing of the leaves, flickering lights, relationships that drift apart.

 

The band’s unbound approach is part of their ethos. Shaped by the Pacific Northwest and its innate rock traditions, The Takes feel most at home in the outdoors, forging songs to soundtrack scenic road trips or nights spent around campfires. “I think our community is less place-based and more so with people who resonate with our same values,” Phoebe says. “Just spending time outside, whether it’s Portland or Jackson or Berkeley.”

 

After selling out Portland staple Mississippi Studios at the end of last year, The Takes set out on their first headline tour this spring. The 14-date “Desert Mind” tour culminated in a debut set at BottleRock Napa Valley, followed by their Fairwell Fest debut this summer. Their new “Lay Hold” EP came out in Spring 2024.