Not many bands can say they have played in a brothel. Fewer still can say they have played in a brothel-turned-rock venue.

Daniel Ellsworth and The Great Lakes find themselves in that few.

Lead guitar player Timon Lance says The Subterranean in Chicago had to be one of the cooler places he and the band have played at.

But it’s not the only peculiar place they’ve performed in. From Los Angeles to San Francisco to Seattle, the band has made its way across the map the past few months.

In Seattle, the band played a private show in the Amazon.com studios; and in Tucson, Ariz., they played outdoors with the southwestern cacti surrounding them.

“They were unlikely shows but unforgettable,” Lance said.

On Saturday, June 23, Daniel Ellsworth and The Great Lakes will play at Barley’s, another new venue.

The band, comprised of faces and names from all over the country, was just formed a little over two years ago, and released their first album, “Civilized Man,” last May.

As many artists do, Ellsworth started off solo. He would go from place to place and play, and at times he would pick up players, but never found real consistency

“I was trying to transition out of going solo into a band,” Ellsworth said. “I would have different guys play with me, but started calling the band, whenever I had a band play with me, ‘The Great Lakes’ with the idea that I was going try and find some permanent members that want to do this as a band.”

Ellsworth said “The Great Lakes” just comes from growing up in Minnesota and paying homage to his roots.

When the band started to create the album, they went in with a year’s worth of songs and material they had been working on.

“I don’t know if there’s an overall theme to the album, but it’s certainly diverse musically,” Ellsworth said.

Ellsworth said that the band is not a copycat of anyone, but their first album is a convergence of diversities compiled into one place.

The album, which was #18 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart in February, consists of 12 songs, including “Shoe Fits” which made it on Amazon’s Best Songs of 2011 list.

“We made it with the intention of these are songs that you are meant to listen to from start to finish,” Ellsworth said. “Not that you can’t enjoy the songs out of context, but we are definitely made it to be listened to as an album.”

Lance joined the band last September, but had heard of “Civilized Man” before he was ever asked to play in the band.

“I was not a part of the making of the ‘Civilized Man’ album,” Lance said. “That being said, I was a fan of ‘Civilized Man’ before I was offered the job to play guitar in the band. It’s one of those few albums where I remember the first time I listened to it — that first spin and how it made me feel.”

Out of all the music that Lance has listened to, this album has made one of the biggest impacts on his life.

“I’ve listened to a ridiculous amount of music in my life, and I only have about a dozen of these ‘first listen’ moments — ones that were so powerful that my brain was stamped with particular images and sensations of the moment,” Lance said.

“Civilized Man is a smart, brilliantly composed album that deserves a listeners start-to-finish, beginning-to-end, attention,” he said. “As a fan, that’s the only way that I used to listen to it.”