March 2026

By Jeff

         I’d like to say, first of all, that I have been spelling Cloee’s name wrong in these little band-columns. The first two, at least. I’ve known Cloee three years now, and she never told me I was spelling it wrong. She tells me she let it go on because she thought it was funny.

         Secondly, I’d like to say I was also wrong about what I said in the previous column regarding our two bass guitarists. I, at the time, had never heard of a band using two bass players in one band. I thought we were pretty hot shit. But Cloee’s dad, Ken, told me tonight about a British band, called Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, who was using two basses back in the nineties. So as it turns out, we’re not the first, but I still think it’s cool that we have our two bassists.

Thirdly, I’d like to proudly announce that Nuke Plant Chickens have a new album coming out! Well, I guess it’s not technically a new album. To those who have seen us live, none of these songs are new. We’ve been playing them for a year and a half or two years now. But we finally got these babies on tape, and they are louder, angrier, and sexier than ever.

On May 30, we’ll give you a whole LP, filled with fan-favorites like “Vegas Nerve,” “Jotnar,” “Springfield Rifle,” and “Tennant 6.” Mixed and mastered by our lead dreamer, ET. Performed by Max, Cameron, Cloee, Ethan, Hunter, Henry, and myself. On drums, bass, bass, guitar, guitar, keys, and vocals, respectively. We hope you like it like we do.

         This album is a mish-mosh of heartbreak and love and revenge and forgiveness and life and death and doom and gloom. The songs are all kinda sad in their own way, even if they’re upbeat and danceable. Everybody adds their own sauce to the pot, everyone’s involved. This is a delicious album, I’m telling you. It might satisfy your craving, it might spice up your life, it might tickle your taste-buds. If I’m wrong, it’ll taste like wet dog dookie. No in-between.

But I, more importantly, wanted to say that I cherish the fact that I am surrounded by talented musicians everywhere I go. Artists seem to spring out of the earth around here. The stinking swamps of the Chicago-Milwaukee suburbs are a breeding ground for musical talent.  I can’t go a day without hearing from them or hearing their compositions in my email inbox. I’ve been so ensconced in their excellence, so engrossed in their expertise, that I can’t even remember what life was like before it. I’m so used to being bombarded with fresh melodies and drowned in profound harmonies, I can’t imagine not living in that place. I’m here. I’m in the middle of it. Music, young and old, is everywhere I go.

I’m more than grateful, I’m ecstatic to live in that place. I’m having more fun every day than I thought I would have in a lifetime. The music is the key for me. There is music and people who make music everywhere I go nowadays. I can’t be bored of this life as long as there are sangers and twangers, pickers and kickers, left in the world. I’ve got to meet them, and I’ve got to make magic with them. This life is exciting because of music, and my friends, thankfully, all feel the same way.

We are servants to the music. We give music breath and body, and the music gives us life. We’re one. We’re a mirror in a mirror. We’re a portal for immortals, an instruments of the Gods. We are the blessed vessels which usher the music from an unreal realm into the next. We are the awaited gatekeepers opening the door between. We are the music’s designated escorts from world to world.

We are the missing-link thinking, we are the only souls cajoling, we are carriers of the music’s virus. We’re infected with the feckless, represented by the senseless. We are the music’s relentless apprentice, the animators of its tremendous appendix. We are the guileless guides of the music’s alignment, the tireless wives in music’s confinement.

We are as obsessed as we are possessed. Music is the cause and the method, the language which everybody speaks. We’re tapped into that. We feel the music moving through the air. We understand its discomforts and its displeasures, and it invigorates us. We hear the divine harmony in the dissonance, taste the wave of sweetness in its sour notes. We are the goulash and the gluttons, we are the salt tasting the sugar.

We are the seekers and soothsayers who find the music huddled, loveless, in a damp corner of humanity and beckon to it. We coax it out, we feed it, and offer it a warm place to sleep. We welcome it inside and we raise it from nothing. The music is just an idea before we give life to it. We’re only as good as each other. We are each other. The music and me? What’s the difference?

I’m just so fuckin proud, man. I’m proud that new music is possible because of us. I’m proud that I have so many friends, bonded in music. I’m proud that we do make music without any guarantee of anything. We do it because we like it. And I’m proud of that. It might seem like cope to any normie, but the music is the point. It’s not about us. We serve something greater.

         Here, I’d like to leave you with a Sonnet (1928) by Elizabeth Bishop.

I am in need of music that would flow

Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,

Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,

With melody deep, clear, and liquid-slow.

Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,

Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,

A song to fall like water on my head,

And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:

A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool

Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep

To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,

And floats forever in a moon-green pool,

Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

 No matter how many atom bombs are dropped, no matter how many volcanoes erupt, no matter how many asteroids come crashing down, no matter how many times humanity is burnt, turned to ash… the music always survives. It survived a hundred years, it’ll survive a million.

At least, that’s how I feel.

We are hapless chaperones on the music’s journey. The music lives its own life.

We just live long enough to prop it up.

By Jeff

It’s been almost two years since I wrote the first little anecdote about our band, Nuke Plant Chickens, back in September of 2023. A lot’s happened since then, and hopefully without being tedious, I’ll tell you about it. 

When I wrote the first anecdote, we were a five piece band. Ethan on lead guitar, Max on drums, Cameron on bass, Cloee on rhythm guitar, and myself on vocals. And some time in that autumn of ’23 (I can’t quite remember when), Cloee decided she needed a break from the band to focus on her college workload. We weren’t sure if she would return.

So, in December of ’23, we brought in the (then) newest Nuke Plant Chicken: a talented rhythm guitarist named Hunter. Prior to the formation of NPCs, Ethan, Max, and Cameron had played with Hunter in a thrash metal band, so he was already quite comfortable when he joined us. He’d already built chemistry with the core of our band, and he fit like a glove. We played a number of shows with Hunter covering Cloee’s rhythm guitar parts.

Then, as luck would have it, Cloee finished her tough, fall semester at college and decided she could come back to the band. We’d missed her when she was gone, and we were happy to see her return. But Hunter didn’t have any plans to leave the band and we had no inclination to kick him out, so we had a problem: we felt that three electric guitars in one band was too much. We felt we couldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) have two rhythm guitarists at once.

It’s been over 18 months since we had the discussion and I can’t remember exactly how it went down, but our unorthodox solution was to invite Cloee back as the second bass guitarist. That’s right; we felt that three guitarists was too much, but two basses sounded like a great idea. And we’ve done that ever since. We not only have lead and rhythm guitarists in Ethan and Hunter, but also lead and rhythm bass guitarists in Cloee and Cameron. 

Cameron handles the low-end, bottom-string bass lines, as he has reliably done at every gig we’ve ever done since 2022. And Cloee (though she’s joked about being “demoted to bass”) has the freedom and tenacity of a lead guitarist, while also contributing to the enormous low-end of our sound. It’s changed the way we write songs, too. All our newest songs written with this band configuration, songs like “Vegas Nerve” and “I Can Change You,” have allowed Cameron and Cloee to come up with their own bass parts. And they’re so good together. They listen to each other and they watch each other and they can dance around each other like fighters in the ring. The interplay between their two bass parts has given our songs so much depth and character, and the two of them just fucking rip.

We’ve played in that configuration since early 2024, and been told by dozens of people since then that we’re the first and only group they’ve ever seen with two bass guitarists. I’m proud of that. At least to bar-flies in the suburbs, we’re breaking new ground and offering them something they’ve never seen before.

Hunter, meanwhile, knows Ethan very well as a guitar player, and together they’ve created a guitar dynamic that is second to none in my opinion. Hunter can imitate anything Ethan does verbatim, and vice versa. It’s like they can read each other’s minds. Hunter is a skilled, intuitive rhythm player who can fill out the beefy mid-section of the band, but he also shines when he takes leads and solos on certain songs. Those songs, like “Jotnar” and “Hubris Pipe,” also happen to be fan favorites in our repertoire. Ethan, Max, and I haven’t had to change what we do very much in this new configuration. We just continue to kick ass in whatever way we can.

Now, I won’t give you a complete story on every gig since December of 2023. They’re not all that interesting. But some of the highlights would include the following.

We’ve played twice on the mainstage at Kenosha’s Taste of Wisconsin Festival. In 2024, we played at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but this year, we moved up to primetime: 8 o’clock. And we played for hundreds of people, if not a thousand. It was definitely the largest crowd we’d ever seen, and I don’t think we ever sounded better either. The drums boomed and the basses danced and the guitars sang and they put a shit-ton of reverb on my mic. It sounded like Heaven.

We were invited to play at Bitter Jester Music Festival in the Chicago suburbs, June of ’24. Though the festival had a competition element to it, with bands advancing to the next round by judges’ decision, we were not invited to compete. I believe they called us “an exhibition band.” We were only invited to play for one special performance and then go home. Still, they had the judges record little tapes of themselves giving feedback while they watched us perform. The judges, as I remember, were some of the first people to comment on our two-bass arrangements. They were not as complimentary as the bar-flies, but we had fun.

During Summer of 2025, we’ve played three shows for friends’ parties. One of them, we were hired to play a private graduation party, and the other two were played out of garages, mostly for friends and neighbors. Not only are they very fun and low stakes, they’ve also been some of our finest performances for some of our most responsive crowds. We hope to arrange more of those grassroots, free-admission type shows. As many as we can, as a matter of fact. Kenosha, Milwaukee, Chicago… if you want a young, energetic band to perform at your house show or block party, we’d be more than happy to be that band.

We’ve also had multiple shows each at Rustic Road Brewing Company in Kenosha, the Lake Andrea Beer Garden in Kenosha, McAuliffe’s Pub in Racine, the CD Warehouse in Kenosha for their annual Record Store Day, and the Kenosha Harbor Oktoberfest. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but these are repeat headlining shows, folks. These venues have been very good to us, and invited us back time after time.

Our most recent show, at the Social Club in the town of West Chicago, was a blast. With a wonderful Wisconsin-based band called Half Holiday and a talented group from Chicago called David’s House, we finally rocked the Chicago suburbs for the first time. We also, due to Hunter having some scheduling conflicts, introduced the newest member of our group: a skillful guitarist, Evan. He’s not totally new to the sphere of the band, as we’ve known him for years and starting in ’25 he’s been at our shows running the visual components projected behind us onstage. Evan’s psychedelic montages have already given our shows a new atmosphere, and now he’s gotten onstage with us to fill Hunter’s shoes. He’s just a delight.

So, yeah. I don’t think I’m very good at writing these promotional materials. I get bogged down telling you all the fun details when I should just be telling you that Nuke Plant Chickens is a band with two guitars, two bass guitars, and a badass drummer that you should definitely see live and stream online. And we’re playing a show in Milwaukee, WI, at the Falcon Bowl on August 30th. We’re hoping to continue booking gigs in Milwaukee and Chicago, and keep expanding from there. We’re young, we’re excited, and we have no plans to quit.

Maybe we’ll see you around.

by Jeff

Man. I don’t know where to start. We are a band. We are Nuke Plant Chickens. We only have four songs out, at the time I write this, but there’s much more music to come. Stream us anywhere, anytime. You’re feeling sad? We got two happy, upbeat songs called “Police State Disco” and “Parti Oiseaux.” You’re feeling happy and you want to feel scared or enraged? Well, we’ve got just the song for you; it’s called “Waylon 3.” You want to feel… some sort of way? “Gopher You” has just come out, to satisfy that need.

I’m inclined to tell you that the lyrics of the first three songs are politically charged, and that Nuke Plant Chickens is essentially a punk band. But it’s up to you to decide whether we are indeed punks or if it’s just the shitty lyrics. Our fourth single is about sex and that’s what we’ve called our genre of music at times. Though, I like to think of us as pfunk music. Not quite punk, not quite funk. A little bit of soul and a bit of ignorance goes a long way.

We are a six-piece band. We consist of Ethan, Hunter, Cameron, Cloee, Max, and Jeff; playing guitar, guitar, bass, bass, drums, and vocals respectively. We all met because ET, Cam, and me are all related. We share grandparents. Max was Ethan’s friend, and Cloee was the friend of a friend. Now, we’re all Nuke Plant Chickens. And when we perform, heads explode like Jack Kennedy. I’ll tell you why, in metaphors and similes.

On the bass, Cameron lays down the very ground the band walks upon. Solid as a rock. Also on bass, Cloee is the muscle of the band. If Cameron is the ground, then Cloee is the feet that walk on the ground. Metaphorically, you know? Max, on drums, breathes life into the beat. He grooves like water, fitting his drums into whatever container they’re put in. The rhythm section of Nuke Plant Chickens carries the weight of the music and also flows like a river. Floating above it all, like the wind, is Ethan and Hunter on guitar. They spin and tumble like a breeze. Ethan is also, metaphors aside, the band’s producer. Ethan is responsible for the three singles we have. Ethan plays the orchestra. And as far as singers go, I can’t comment. The singer of the band is me, and my opinion is simply that I am loud.

Come see us! We’re a riot! We start riots, in fact. Our shows are so awesome that people literally melt into puddles when they see us. That’s a genuine fact; you can check the police reports for yourself. All the rumors are true.

At the moment, we are lacking a member. Since our first live performance in July 2022, we’ve had a wind player. Until the summer of 2023, a friend of ours named Maddie played with us on the saxophone. She’s featured on the recordings of “Police State Disco” and “Waylon 3.” And since her departure, we’ve been blessed with the presence of Finn, a trumpet player, who’s lent his talent to Nuke Plant Chickens songs not yet released.

I met Maddie in 2019, as she was a good friend of my former band. Her talent on saxophone and clarinet wasn’t utilized in that band, but in Nuke Plant Chickens she shined. Finnegan I met many years ago, I don’t know when, as he’s been basically family with Ethan, Cameron, and myself. A cousin from another dozen, Finn replaced Maddie on winds, as she amiably stepped out of the band, and Finn exceeded expectations doing so.

Both of them are missing from the band right now, busy pursuing more important things. But I won’t, at this moment, rule out their return in the future. I love making music with them and I’m optimistic that the music will draw them back. I love them both, for what it’s worth.

And I love the other Chickens, all of them. I could gush on and on about them, and make this quite a sappy piece, but it will suffice to say this:

without Ethan, Hunter, Max, Cameron, and Cloee, there would be a lot less music around here. Without them, a big bunch of songs would have no home, no owner, no chance at life. These six Nuke Plant Chickens are animators of rhythm and operators of harmony; all of them One with the musical gods.

Our band also would be nothing if not for Jon, our unpaid manager. He’s been the main force behind Nuke Plant Chickens’ live shows. He books them, sets them up by hand, and often times operates the soundboard. Jon and his wife Anna are responsible for all the great footage and photographs of the band performing live. NPCs Live would just be a figment of some barfly’s imagination if not for their help.

I figured for the first formal introduction of Nuke Plant Chickens I should tell you about the band’s history. If it’s not too self-indulgent, I’d like to tell you all the story of how the band came to be. I’ll keep it brief.

It all started five years ago. I was the drummer for an indie rock group in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It started out as a three-piece, grew to a four-piece, and later a five-piece ensemble. And that all came to an end in the spring of 2020. Tensions within the band were exacerbated by the stress of the Coronavirus lockdowns, and the first band I was ever in broke the fuck up. 

That was a tough breakup for me. Music was what got me up in the morning, as pretentious as it sounds. I had become addicted to playing music with other people. With no band, a huge void opened in my life. Only another band could fill that void.

So bla bla bla, in the spring of 2020, I started jamming regularly with a friend from high school: a virtuoso drummer named Aaron. We would trade original songs and fuck around for hours together. And we liked to bring in other people to jam, too, because we pictured having our own band.

In the spring or summer of 2020, I invited my cousins Ethan and Cameron to jam. We shot the shit and threw song ideas at each other for a couple hours. And we literally threw them, with guitar amps and cymbals and Cam’s trumpet. Around the same time and not to my knowledge, Ethan was already jamming regularly with a friend named Max. So, the groundwork was set for Nuke Plant Chickens. We just had to put the pieces together.

We continued to jam with anyone and everyone we could, over the next two years, trying to find the band. The jam sessions grew larger and larger as time went on. At certain jams we had two complete drum sets being played or two basses being played and sometimes upwards of five guitars. We played with wind players including saxophones, trumpets, and clarinets, and a few keyboardists along the way. Without revealing their whole identities, the following is a list of people we jammed with at least once between 2020 and 2022.

We played with Aaron, Alec, Ben, Bert, Caleb, David, Ethan (2), Evan, Gavin, Henry, Hunter, Jack, Jerome, Josh, Kade, Kevin, Logan, Matthew, Mikko, Petr, Tysin, William, and Zach. Plus two dogs, named Bailey and Dazzle, who were present at many jams. We also made the circuit in the Kenosha open mic scene to get our footing and play for an audience with little pressure. Open mics are as exciting as they sound, and equally impressive, I know. It’s all part of the journey, though. (I’d like to shout out a particular Kenosha open mic that was at a bar called Fusion. It was where I first performed live with a band five years ago and the first place Nuke Plant Chickens played live, too. Fusion unfortunately went out of business in 2022 and may she rest in peace.)

On behalf of Nuke Plant Chickens, I’d like to thank you, whoever you are, for listening to our music. Thank you for giving us a chance. Music is of course enjoyed alone, but we Nuke Plant Chickens believe that music is best utilized as a community experience. We could keep these songs to ourselves, but we think it’s best to share them, just in case there’s something there for someone out there. We hope our upcoming songs have something for you. We hope that our music can simply inspire something. Whether our songs make you happy or sad or angry or conflicted or contented or nostalgic or motivated or rebellious or whatever… the goal is to make you feel something.

And if you listen to our music and you feel bored and you think you can do better… please do. From the bottom of our hearts, please do. There’s no limit to what you can accomplish with a small group of friends. We’re not any more or less qualified to make music than you.

Because we’re just disfigured, long-legged birds stalking the putrid swamps on the Western shore of Lake Michigan. We’re just mangey cranes dropped one too many times into toxic sludge. We’re just decaying cassowaries belching the crooked air. We’re just crude Neornithes crowing into the wind, hoping someone will get us before the radiation does.

         We’re just this and we’re just that. And you can be, too.