We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dennis Bradley. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dennis below.

Dennis, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I started playing music at a young age – some time in elementary school – but didn’t become “hooked” until my teenage years when I discovered the guitar. My first instrument was the saxophone, which I wasn’t very fond of. But once I started taking guitar lessons, I knew that playing guitar and performing was something that I wanted to pursue seriously. Coming from a small town in Michigan, there weren’t a lot of opportunities, or bands, for me growing up. But I made the best of it and tried to learn as much as I could. My musical career took a slight detour for about 30 years immediately after high school when I joined the Marines and decided to make the military a career. But as I neared retirement, I was determined to play music again, and I was lucky enough to choose a city and surrounding area to settle in that has a great music scene and a lot of opportunities – Colorado Springs.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve been playing guitar for over 40 years and am fortunate to play in a fantastic band with some exceptional musicians – Mimic. All of my bandmates have decades of experience performing in numerous groups in the Colorado Springs area, and some members also played in groups in Florida, Minnesota, Texas, and Washington. We formed in early 2022, and have been playing bars, restaurants, summer concert series, and festivals along the front range steadily since then. We are a classic rock cover band that plays the greatest hits from the 1960s through the 1990s, with a focus on the 1970s and 1980s. We try to stay true to our band name and mimic the original artists as closely as we can. Although only a 4-piece band, with the level of musicianship that my bandmates possess, we can reproduce most songs in a manner that pays homage to the timeless classics. Our singer, Darrin Mlaker, is extremely talented and has an unbelievable vocal range that allows us to cover just about any song that we want. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Rob Elsner is our bassist and he has played in countless groups in the area for decades, and his experience shows in his playing and the backing vocals that he provides. The foundation of the band is our incredible drummer, Jim Baggarly. Jim started playing professionally at the age of 15 and his talent and versatility are unmatched. We also have two dedicated sound engineers who serve as our road crew as well, Aaron Hicks and Tyler Guerin. They are both musicians and keep us on track by assisting with any equipment issues and mixing the live sound. I am truly lucky to be in a group with such a tremendous amount of talent.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

The days of promoting a gig through word of mouth or hanging flyers around town are long gone. Artists in today’s music scene have to be adept at social media promotion in order to get noticed, book gigs, and stay connected with venues and booking agents. Social media also gives fans a place to connect with artists, and to follow what artists are doing or where they are performing. As soon as a band or artist begins their career, they need to establish social media accounts and keep them updated. Mimic have a web page, but we also have Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube accounts that we update regularly. Some artists may also want to establish a Twitter and TikTok account. Our target audience gravitate towards Facebook and Instagram, so we focus on those two platforms. I would tell any new solo act or band to do their research and incorporate best practices – from other local bands and from the pros. There are also great resources that they can learn from that are published by music industry insiders. Bobby Owsinski has published books on social media promotion for musicians and also has a blog and website with a library of great information on this subject. Post often, always engage with your fans and followers when they respond to a post and use these platforms to promote your gigs and your brand. When playing live, always let everyone know that you have social media that they can follow you on. We’ve been told by many venues and booking agents that they book based on how many Facebook followers a band has. Although this is an arbitrary metric at best, that is the nature of today’s music industry. A best practice that we use are our marketing banners. We had two banners made with all of our social media accounts on them – one with the address and one with QR codes – so someone can follow us instantly if they are at a gig and like what they hear. We have booked far more gigs through social media engagement than we have through word of mouth or reaching out to a venue via email or phone.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For everyone in our band, the most rewarding aspect of what we do is keeping this music alive. Many of the artists that we cover no longer tour or play live, and some are no longer with us. The only opportunity that fans of classic rock have to hear some of this music live is through cover bands. A lot of this music is truly timeless – it will be popular for decades to come. You can watch a video of the original artist, but hearing this music live, and being able to dance to it or sing along, is an entirely different experience. That is one of the many reasons why we try to stay true to the original versions of these songs as much as possible. As a result, we’ve heard comments from audience members after a gig like “we see why you guys call yourselves Mimic!” That’s a huge compliment, and one that we don’t take lightly. It’s also meaningful to hear from audience members statements like “you guys played our song tonight” or “I was a having a really rough week but hearing you guys play some of my favorite songs that I grew up on made it better.” It’s also rewarding to see younger generations of music fans in the audience. We’ll often talk to people after a show and they’ll tell us how they grew up on this music, and now they have their kids with them in the audience, and their kids enjoy it just as much as their parents.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MimicRocks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mimicrocks/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MimicRocks
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MimicRocks
• Other: Email: [email protected]

Image Credits

Erin Kiemele
Sarah Brezniak