Larry Kaster was looking for band mates, and returning to his hometown of Des Moines seemed like a good place to start looking. Kaster began searching the bars of Des Moines and asking everyone a simple question: “Can you play music?”

“When I moved back here, I started going out to bars. I didn’t know anybody, I just starting asking everybody I met: ‘Hey, do you play music?’” Kaster said.

Before too long, Kaster made the acquaintance of one Gene Senn, a tattooed, hotrod enthusiast and musician, and Butchie Spector, formerly the drummer “Cuddles” of Slipknot. Senn had already written two songs, so the band Rumble Seat Riot was born.

“It’s actually really funny. The first time we got together we kind of just sat there and fumbled around our instruments,” Spector said. “Just kind of waiting for the other person to take charge, like give direction. … It was more kind of like feeling each other out. But by the second practice it naturally took off. It felt really good. It felt really natural to jam with these guys.”

Senn, Rumble Seat Riot’s guitarist and front man, explains that the band is in an interesting stage in its musical life

“The more we’ve been doing this, the more we’ve been progressing out doing other stuff,” Senn said. “We have some new songs coming out that, it’s not like typical of our sound. I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way, but some of the songs almost have a little bit of an edge of the pop culture. … But I could definitely see some of them being a bit more ‘radio friendly,’ I guess.”

Spector says the transition from the heavy music of Slipknot to the more Rockabilly/punk feel of Rumble Seat Riot was a welcome change.

“It was kind of going back to my roots,” Spector said. “I was born and raised in Los Angeles and played in a lot of punk bands back in the late ’70s through the ’80s. Slipknot was actually my first metal project. Being in this band brought me back to my original love.”

Rumble Seat Riot’s music has a style that is hard to find these days. Rockabilly is a style of music that spoke to all three members, especially Senn.

“The first car show I went to that was more or less around this underground scene was Hunnert Car Pile-up,” Senn said. “And as soon as I [saw] it, it all clicked I felt like that was me all the way. It was all over after that.”

Hot rods, cheap beer and women are what Rumble Seat Riot is all about. You can expect to hear their Rockabilly-esque sound pouring out of DG’s Tap House at 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13, for a cover charge of $5. Nothing is going to be unlucky about this show.

“Back Seat Bingo” music video by Rumble Seat Riot via Vimeo.