Come see the local five-piece band at Felicitas this Friday
Photo by Sona Eidnani.
Two Rats Loving is a Victoria-based, multi-genre band, comprising three students, a tattoo artist, and a UVic alum. The members are Finlay Macnaughtan on keys, Cam Seward on bass, guitar, and sometimes vocals, Noah Jenkins, also on guitar, vocals, and bass, Will Ainscough on drums, and Erika Kim on guitar.
While some members have been playing together since the beginning of the summer, the group of five officially began practicing in September. None of the current lineup was there for the coining of the name, which they told the Martlet a mutual friend came up with.
“We are quintessentially like a garage band, so we’re an amalgamation of a bunch of different genres,” Ainscough said in an interview with the Martlet. Two Rats Loving plays mostly indie rock; however, they draw inspiration from Latin, reggae, and jazz music.
Jenkins takes online classes in music production and sound engineering at Point Blank Music School in Los Angeles. Kim was enrolled at UVic as a microbiology student, but now she tattoos at Ophidia Tattoo. Ainscough graduated from UVic with a Bachelor of Commerce and is navigating his life post-university. Seward is a fourth-year civil engineering student, and Macnaughtan is a second-year psychology student. Amidst their busy lifestyles, they still find time to practice and perform.
Two Rats Loving made it past the first round of the Battle of the Bands, a competition for musical bands put on by Felicita’s Pub, gaining them a spot in the semi-finals and finals.
“We really pulled it together, pulled our socks up, and I think we delivered our best performance yet as a band,” Ainscough said. They’ve been working on their cohesion as a group for a while, and feel that their efforts paid off. The atmosphere at the Battle of the Bands helped Two Rats Loving to get into the performance as they played off the crowd’s energy and had a lot of fun.
“Even though it’s called Battle of the Bands, I don’t really feel like it was much of a battle,” Ainscough continued, noting that the music community is super supportive towards one another, and their audience that night was full of the other bands also competing.
The focus of the event, for Ainscough, was to watch each other jam out, rather than competing against each other.
For the semi-final round on March 6th, Two Rats Loving’s goal to “shake it up and deliver new stuff” paid off. They didn’t just regurgitate the same set; they played one of Kim’s original songs, the Phineas and Ferb theme song, and “Trap Queen” by Fetty Wap, to name a few. The crowd went crazy for them, chanting “Two Rats Loving, Two Rats Loving” throughout their set. Everyone was on their feet, dancing and singing along.
Their electric performance advanced them into the final round of the Battle of the Bands, taking place on March 27th.
Despite enjoying the competition, their favourite performance took place in the compact room where they practice. It was burning hot, and they were sweating, but they relished every moment of it because all the pressure was gone.
Another core memory of the band was the first show they played all together. They were huddled under a tarp in a backyard amidst a rainstorm. Their hands were slipping, and MacNaughtan’s piano got soaked from rain pouring through a gap in the tarp. Regardless of the not-so-ideal setup, they put on a great show. “Everything that could have went wrong, did. But we managed it. It was so much fun,” said Ainscough.
As Two Rats Loving prepares for the finals, they are also planning ahead for future shows. On April 4th, they’re playing at The Coda with two other local bands, so if you want to check them out, make sure to buy tickets. They also hope to record some songs in the future, and you can follow their Instagram @tworatsloving to support these rats on their musical journey.
