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Toledo rock band Renegade Lemonade performs regularly throughout northwest Ohio Source: Mike Hallock Not Blade photo
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Cover band Renegade Lemonade ready to record original music

MIKE HALLOCK

Cover band Renegade Lemonade ready to record original music

It was Saturday night at Dexter’s in Maumee, and Renegade Lemonade was hard at work.

Becca Hallock strummed her guitar while crooning a perfect rendition of “No Rain” by Blind Melon, while the boys in the band — Mike Hallock, Marko Karia, and Mike Jenson — backed her up in perfect harmony. 

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Becca Hallock commanded the stage like a musical lioness on the hunt, growling, purring, and roaring her way through such rock standards as “Come Together,” “Under Pressure,” and a sultry cover of “Bette Davis Eyes.” She also did a rendition of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” that was pure musical fire — a pretty good show from a woman who was once told as a choir student that she was tone deaf and she should never sing. But she was later encouraged to sing by a former employer who heard her sing to herself one night and was impressed by what he heard. She also learned guitar after discovering she was a wizard at the video game Guitar Hero.

“Once I got into doing music, I was really influenced by Melissa Etheridge, Janis Joplin, Heart. I love a really powerful female singer,” she said. 

Her drummer husband, Mike Hallock, is a devotee of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham who counts the Led Zeppelin live album How the West Was Won as a record that changed his life. He also gave accolades to Meg White of the White Stripes for her influence on his drumming.

Lead guitarist Karia was born in Ukraine and emigrated to the United States when he was 4 years old. As a kid, he fell in love with the electric guitar after being loaned the albums Who Made Who and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC. 

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Karia and Becca Hallock previously played together in a country band called Black Swamp Rebels (“Marko and I had a really great musical camaraderie and we knew he’d be perfect,” she said), and he has been with Renegade Lemonade since 2020. Karia shares vocal duties with Hallock, and he does an especially potent rendition of Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”

The youngest member of the group is bassist Jenson, who met the Hallocks when they were doing a show as a duo at Majestic Oak Winery in Grand Rapids, Ohio. Jenson grew up listening to his dad’s copy of What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, which he described as the album that made him want to play music.

Renegade Lemonade started as the husband and wife duo in the latter part of 2018. Since the band’s inception, Renegade Lemonade has amassed more than 2,000 followers on Facebook, a strong showing for a Toledo-based band. They play all over northwest Ohio, everywhere from Toledo to Put-in-Bay.

Like most Toledo working bands, Renegade Lemonade does mostly covers — they know they have to play the songs the people want to hear. But after a few lineup changes, the musicians have settled into a rock solid group and are preparing to record some of the original songs they’ve been working on for a while.

“Becca has written a lot of originals. Marko has written some guitar licks that are just incredible. So we’re ready,” Mike Hallock said. “We didn’t want to record with somebody who wasn’t in for the long haul, but now that Mike is on board, it’s time to record some of our originals.”

Becca Hallock shared her husband’s enthusiasm about getting into the recording studio in the near future.

“Now we feel really comfortable with the lineup of our band,” she said. “It’s time for people to hear and see another side of us.”

First Published March 22, 2023, 12:00 p.m.

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Toledo rock band Renegade Lemonade performs regularly throughout northwest Ohio Source: Mike Hallock Not Blade photo  (MIKE HALLOCK)
Toledo rock band Renegade Lemonade performs regularly throughout northwest Ohio.  (MIKE HALLOCK)
Toledo rock band Renegade Lemonade performs regularly throughout northwest Ohio.  (MIKE HALLOCK)
Toledo rock band Renegade Lemonade performs regularly throughout northwest Ohio.  (MIKE HALLOCK)
MIKE HALLOCK
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