Mike LaBarre
Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals

Mike has been a musician for 20 years. He started playing double-bass in sixth-grade orchestra, and then branched out into fretted and fretless bass guitars, drums and other percussion, keyboards, and guitar. He sings baritone, tenor and counter-tenor, and "can sing all the way up to first soprano when motivated and in good voice."

Mike has played in a few bands with Rich Lehman and Chris Buerkley, the most notable being the financially-doomed Chapter 11. He explains, "We played at The Big Kahuna Cafe [a club adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University] one Wednesday night; it went under two weeks later and became a VCU parking lot. Shortly after the Kahuna gig, we played the Jade Elephant [a club on a notorious strip near VCU] one Saturday night. We could not collect the dough the night of the gig, and went by on TUESDAY to collect. [Unfortunately,] the IRS had seized the property on MONDAY for nonpayment of taxes and the Jade Elephant was no more...so we got nada. In our defense, the band never played at Newgate Prison, so we had nothing to do with that club going under!  At the time I lived right around the block from the "Grace Street Strip" and I'm sure the folks at Twisters locked the doors when they saw me walking down the street!...Shortly thereafter, however, the band split, Buerk moved out of state, and we went our separate ways."

A few years later, LaBarre and Lehman got back together with the guitarist from Chapter 11 to do an original band called Soul Shaker. Though a temporary diversion by design, the band opened for a major regional act "Egypt" at the Flood Zone, a large concert venue in Richmond.

After a few years off, Lehman called to let Mike know that Buerkley was heading back to Richmond, and that he wanted to form another band. Buerkley had decided that he would only work with the Chapter 11 rhythm section. For Mike, also known as "Bufa" or "Uncle Jam," the only attractive prospect for a cover band would be funk and soul from the '60s and '70s. Thus, with Buerkley and Lehman on the exact same page, SoulerCoaster was formed.