We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mike Larson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mike, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

A couple of us have been writing songs for 20 years. That process has changed significantly in that amount of time. There’s really no better teacher than time and failure. Mike has been studying and learning his favorite songs for 20 years and part of that is learning all the chord shapes and finding which work best for the sound we’re going for. For us that means a lot of 7ths. Major 7ths, minor 7ths, Diminished 7ths, you name it. Playing rock songs with these jazz chords gives a classic sound a refreshing twist. Additionally, vocal harmonies are a major part of our sound. Mike is a long time fan of the Beatles and Beach Boys. He has spend countless hours overdubbing vocal parts to build the harmonies from scratch. It’s also something that comes naturally to him after decades of singing along to songs that didn’t have harmonies, and finding the notes that worked. The most essential skill is the ability to play and learn by ear. No asking what note is that or what chord is that, we can hear it and figure it out from there. What really sets us apart at our level is our ability and willingness to play for the song rather than to show off. The songs are really only finished when you can’t take away any more from it.

Mike, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Rat Castle Jazz Ensemble is well, not a jazz ensemble, just a funny name. They are a 4 piece “indie rock” band from Minneapolis, MN. They make music at the crossroads of 70’s soft rock and Modern Neo-Soul. The two guitarists have been playing together for many years and the way their guitar parts work together reflect that. We’re most proud of our hooks and our harmonies. We’d like consider ourselves songwriters in addition to being musicians rather than just making music. The songs need cohesion and need to be memorable. Lyrically, we’ve been focusing on a good time. You won’t find much in the way of songs about feelings but you will certainly find songs about uncommon topics for a rock band. Examples include, songs about our pets, seeing old friends, airport bars, the month of October, wandering around New Orleans, dreams, and young love. On stage, our camaraderie shines. We are clearly having fun playing with each other and that energy translates to the audience.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building our following on instagram has been a fun aspect of being a band. We started out by researching the best times for posting each day and follow those trends as they change. Keeping a constant flow of content keeps us on people’s minds. We also engage directly with anyone who reaches out to us. This has lead to shared posts which in turn leads to more followers. We post mainly graphic design style posts as we rarely take photos together. We make sure to utilize tagging other accounts for a wider reach as well as utilizing hashtags to stay relevant and be discoverable. We keep an archive of any concert videos people may take of us. We also make sure to create posts that focus on something or someone other than us which shows humility, community building, and reaches a wider audience.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Our biggest goal is to create music we are proud of and want to listen to. It’s a huge bonus when someone outside of the band enjoys it too. From here our next goal is to release that music in a way that reaches the most amount of people. We’re also looking to get onto local radio as well as national college radio stations. Our next step is reaching out to find some representation to help us booking better venues and events.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rat_castle_jazz_ensemble/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ratcastlejazzensemble9687
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/17RflPCIukg1J0JETaYCZc