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.