Combining Jazz And Mario Kart: Band Badwagon Speaks Out After Unique Idea Goes Viral

A group of musicians have garnered notoriety for playing live jazz music while others play the popular video game Mario Kart.

Joining the News 9 team on the Coca Cola Southwest Beverages Porch are the members of the band Badwagon: Ethan Neel, Nelson Gonzalez and Collin Ferrell.

Neel said the idea came from scrolling on social media, as well as his own musical experience.

"I woke up one morning and just was scrolling through my feed and kept seeing Mario," Neel said. "I met some friends in jazz school at UCO, so I started calling these guys, trying to figure out what it was going to take to get the event to a place where we could put live music with Mario."

Surprisingly, Ferrell said, they themselves went viral on social media.

"We didn't expect it to go as viral as it went after our second show," Ferrell said. "I didn't even know the post was made. I'm in bed and I get a text from Nelson: 'hey, we got 100,000 views.' It was pretty incredible.

As far as actually playing Mario kart, the group said the popular track Rainbow Road is one of their favorites from the game they grew up playing.

"We always wanted to try," Neel said. "We want to just put music with it, and see if we could add some extra energy to it and bring people together [to] have a really cool, communal aspect to it. It's a great soundtrack as well... if anybody hasn't listened to that they absolutely should."

When it comes to support from fans and Mario Kart enthusiasts, Neel also said it has been "overwhelming."

"The support has been completely over overwhelming in every regard," Neel said. "We're just excited that people are excited about Mario Kart. We think it's super fun and we're glad that we can enjoy it with everybody.

The band said their next public event will be on March 19 at 51st Street Speakeasy in Oklahoma City, and then at Opolis in Norman on March 30.