The student band that calls themselves The Laser Cats is made up of four SFUAD Contemporary Music majors. Daniel Mench-Thurlow plays the upright bass, Kyle Driscoll plays the guitar, Matt Ruder also plays guitar, Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose plays the banjo and Konor Hunter-Crump plays the violin. Jackalope Magazine had the opportunity to talk to the band members about their music.   Jackalope Magazine: How did you get into music? Sam Armstrong-Zickefoose: My family is in a bluegrass band, all of my uncles and most of my cousins, which is 20 or 30 musicians total. We’ve always been playing bluegrass and my uncle plays banjo, so I picked one up.   JM: How did your band get together? Matt Ruder: Well, when we were freshman Sam got asked to provide music for a creative writing thing so he asked me and Kyle to help him out. It was just going to be for that one time. We needed a name, and Kyle was wearing a shirt with a cat shooting lasers from its eyes, so we said we’d call ourselves the Acoustic Laser Cat Jazz Trio. But then we added Konor and changed it to just The Laser Cats and about a year later added Dan.   JM: What are the best and worst things about being in a band? MR: The best part is that it feels like family. You can be friends with someone but it just becomes deeper when you’re in a band with them. Kyle Driscoll: The only bad thing I would say is that sometimes it’s time consuming and that we all want to do The Laser Cats plus so many other things.   JM: What type of band are you? MR: Gypsy Jazz, which all started back with the gypsies...

In the first of a series of interviews with student bands at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Jackalope Magazine talked with the musicians from Venus and the Lion.