Listening to Mark Drake's music, you would not suspect that he is a yoga teacher turned singer/songwriter. You may expect him to be totally blissed out, dwelling within the universal ethers without a care in this mortal world. But once you hear the angst in his voice and his poetically disillusioned lyrics, you immediately realize that this soul still has some issues to deal with before moving on to the next plane. Love, loss, longing - nothing new as subjects for songwriting, but Mark writes in such a way as to give a fresh and in-your-face perspective to these old dogs of the human war. As Mark has said,"Music for me is like the shamans in ancient cultures who would ritually act out a tribe member's fears and nightmares. Doing so was thought to dispel the power of those fears and allow that tribe member to live a more joyful, carefree life. And so I write to expose all the demons lurking in my psyche, and then ultimately banish the little bastards through performance. It's my hope that others will have the same cathartic experience."Although it's tough to put an exact label on Mark's music, imagine if Chris Cornell and Ani DiFranco had a child together, and then that child was raised by his grandfather Tom Waits. That kid is the second cousin of Mark's music.In 2003, he released his first album, ironically titled"I Don't Write Love Songs". It came out on his own label, Nine to Three Records. The name is taken from the Enneagram system of psychology denoting personal evolution, and not from a lazy work ethic. Mark lives in Los Angeles and is playing local venues as often as they'll let him in the door.