Getting the band back together: Garage rockers from St. Viator to perform in suburbs for first time since ’60s

Mentored by their St. Viator High School classmate Ted Nugent, The Huns regularly performed at teen dance clubs, Sunday night CYO dances in church gymnasiums, and battle of the bands contests throughout the suburbs in the late 1960s.

Despite scoring a recording contract after winning one of those battles, the band’s tenure was short-lived. Most members went off to college, moved away, and started jobs and families.

Old classmates and friends often encouraged them to pick up their instruments over the decades at class reunions.

Bill McCaffrey, now an architect in Seattle, wasn’t sure he could.

“I didn’t even own a bass guitar,” he said.

But after he finally got his hands on one last summer, he realized: “By God, I could play. It’s funny how muscle memory comes back.”

McCaffrey hosted his band mates for a jam session last summer — the first time he’s seen some of them since graduation day at their Arlington Heights alma mater.

“We were all so busy. But after 55 years, we got together. Just had a riot. Was just amazed at how much we could still play and how decent it sounded.”

This week, the band is back together and will perform publicly in the suburbs for the first time since the ’60s.

They’ll perform four songs during a record release and tribute show honoring The Cellar — Arlington Heights’ legendary teen music club that was home to The Huns and other local ’60s garage bands.

But because tickets to that show sold out shortly after they went on sale — McCaffrey estimates about a third of the 100-seat listening room at Hey Nonny in downtown Arlington Heights will be family and friends — the band has organized two dress rehearsal sets Tuesday at a Palatine music studio, for people they know who couldn’t get tickets.

They hope that playing again and interest from the community can lead to a bigger show next spring.

Besides eight original songs they’ve been practicing, The Huns plan to record two new songs, which they say are very much in the same ’60s folk rock style of their youth.

“We’re just shocked that we’re sitting here 56 years later playing an actual event before a lot of our old friends,” McCaffrey said. “It’s just very cool for us.”

After their successful reunion in July 2024 in Seattle, band members already were thinking of a Chicago-area reunion in 2025. Then came a rather fortuitous call from Bill St. John, who played with The High Numbers, another local garage band from the ’60s.

St. John, with Arlington Heights resident Sean Hoffman, was putting together a new album compilation of rare songs from bands that played The Cellar.

The Huns’ “Destination Lonely” is among 16 deep tracks from 11 bands on the record, “A Blast From The Cellar! Lost Gems From The ’60s Garage Rock Explosion,” which was formally released in September by Villa Park-based Cheap Kiss Records.

St. John asked The Huns lead singer Dave Grundhoefer if he’d like to play with the cover band performing selections at the Hey Nonny show.

“Dave said, ‘Well, that would be fun, but I can bring the whole band,’” McCaffrey said.

The four surviving members — Grundhoefer, McCaffrey, lead guitarist Bob Dempsey and rhythm guitarist Mark Abate — are dedicating their performances to original drummer Herb Klein, their class valedictorian who was killed in a car accident in the 1970s.

The three guitarists formed an earlier iteration of the band after winning an eighth grade talent show at St. Colette in Rolling Meadows, but began playing in earnest with their new name — picked up from a freshman history class lesson — in 1965.

Band member Dempsey rode the same school bus with Nugent, then a junior, who was playing with his band The Amboy Dukes at The Cellar.

Years before he became known as the Motor City Madman, Nugent took the underclassmen under his wing, putting in a good word for The Huns with music club owner/promoter Paul Sampson.

McCaffrey recalls one band practice in particular before their big audition at The Cellar.

“Teddy pulls up and we’re outside playing basketball. Teddy gets out of the car, walks up the driveway and says, ‘What are you guys doing?! You can’t be playing basketball, you gotta be in there practicing! You gotta play guitar all the time!’”

A few weeks later, The Huns were opening for the Dukes. They soon opened for other local groups, including The Flock and Saturday’s Children.

They won all of the half dozen or so battle of the bands contests they entered, including one sponsored by Arlington Heights radio station WNWC at a Des Plaines drive-in theater. That got them a record contract in the summer of 1966 heading into their sophomore year.

On the A side of their sole 45 release was “Winning Ticket,” with “Destination Lonely” on the B side.

But perhaps The Huns’ fortunes of greater success in the music business were spelled out in that original record deal.

“Our parents had to sign the contract. The stipulation was that there was no commitment and no strings after high school, cause all of these boys are going to college,” McCaffrey said.

Before the fatal car crash, Klein went to medical school and was to become a doctor. Abate got into his family’s banking business and later retired to South Carolina. Dempsey opened a graphic design studio in Las Vegas. McCaffrey also ended up out west for architecture. Lead singer and songwriter Grundhoefer stayed in the music business, performing and writing music with various bands throughout the Chicago area.

The surviving members — now all 74 and in good health — say they’re focused on sprucing up their old tunes before performing in front of others beginning Tuesday.

“We were pretty successful. We were almost too young for the time,” McCaffrey said. “We were just a very tight, young good band.”