‘A bucket list item that I didn’t know I had’: Suburban garage rockers prep for first headlining gig since ’60s

Bands often break up over creative differences or personal conflicts, but in the case of The Huns, it was just the calendar: high school graduation day.

The garage rockers from the Northwest suburbs went off to college and careers, and hadn’t performed together in public — much less picked up a guitar, for some of them — since the late 1960s, when they were regulars on the local touring circuit of church gymnasiums, sock hops and teen dance clubs.

Then came the Oct. 15, 2025, tribute show to one of those revered, now long-gone clubs: The Cellar. The Arlington Heights venue provided a stage for local high school bands such as The Huns and The Shadows of Knight, but also up-and-comers including The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds and Buffalo Springfield.

Backed by a house band last fall at Hey Nonny — the live music venue of this era in downtown Arlington Heights — the four surviving members of The Huns took the stage for a four-song set, in what was their first public performance in 56 years.

Many of those filling the 100-seat listening room were old classmates from St. Viator High School, Class of 1969.

“It was thrilling,” said guitarist Mark Abate. “They were so receptive to our music.”

Added lead singer Dave Grundhoefer: “My whole mindset was being back in the day. I could look right at all those old people. I still saw the young faces.”

Bill McCaffrey, who relearned bass guitar after decades away from it, declared: “It ended up being a bucket list item that I didn’t know I had.”

The reception was so positive and the band so good that Hey Nonny’s booking agent almost immediately scheduled them for a gig of their own: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1.

Only standing-room general admission tickets remain; family, friends and classmates have already purchased the reserved seats.

Separated by decades of time and distance and different lines of work, the members decided to get back together for an informal jam session two summers ago in Seattle, where McCaffrey lives. The four surviving members of the band were in Palatine earlier this month with drummer Jeff Kmiec to begin rehearsing a 21-song set for their upcoming show.

The list includes two originals: “Winning Ticket” and “Destination Lonely,” which were the A and B sides, respectively, of their sole 45 release. The year was 1966, when the then-15-year-old high school sophomores had just nabbed a record contract after winning a battle of the bands at a Des Plaines drive-in theater.

Most of the rest of the playlist will be popular covers of bands they revered or emulated: The Kinks’ “Till the End of the Day” and The McCoys’ “Hang on Sloopy,” for example.

The recent rehearsal took place over four days at Rough Draft Studios in downtown Palatine. It’s not far from where their initial practice sessions began — in the Abate family room — lo those many years ago.

The three guitarists — Abate, McCaffrey, and Bob Dempsey — formed an earlier iteration of the band after winning an eighth grade talent show at St. Colette School in Rolling Meadows. Dressed in their school uniforms, classmates stood on chairs set up in the cafeteria and clapped along as the band — then, The Coast Watchers — plucked instrumental-only surf rock tunes.

“The nuns were going crazy telling us we had to stop,” McCaffrey said.

Later at St. Viator, the guitarists added singer Grundhoefer and drummer Herb Klein, and after a freshman history class lesson, decided to call themselves The Huns.

Their musical talents were soon spotted by an upperclassman who rode the school bus with Dempsey. His name was Ted Nugent, and he took The Huns under his wing and helped them get their first big gig at The Cellar.

“I’m on the bus for St. Viator, and this kid gets on the bus with a guitar,” Dempsey recalled of Nugent, who years before becoming the Motor City Madman was in a garage band of his own, The Amboy Dukes.

Eventually the two started chatting, and Nugent started giving guitar lessons.

“My dad would drive me to Ted’s house and I’d sit in his bedroom and we played back and forth,” Dempsey said.

During The Huns’ audition at The Cellar, Nugent was standing next to club owner/promoter Paul Sampson, who was skeptical of the group’s Catholic schoolboy looks — braces, short haircuts and all.

But then, as the story goes, Sampson heard Grundhoefer’s voice. They would open for Nugent’s Dukes weeks later.

The Huns sold a couple thousand copies of their only record and gained some notoriety. Classmates flooded the phone lines at WCFL radio to request their songs, sometimes putting them in the nightly top three with The Beatles and Rolling Stones, Abate recalls.

But their recording contract — cosigned by their parents — stipulated there was no commitment after they graduated high school.

They all went their separate ways.

Klein, the class valedictorian, attended medical school, but was killed in a car accident in the 1970s.

Grundhoefer moved to Algonquin and went on to perform and write music with other bands in the Chicago area.

The others put down their instruments. Abate was a banker in Elgin and later retired to South Carolina; Dempsey, a graphic designer in Las Vegas; McCaffrey, a Seattle architect.

All are 75, in good health, and when they’re on stage, feel like kids again.

Abate didn’t own a guitar until he picked one up at a show in Elgin 20 years ago. He had a premonition he might get to play again some day.

“It was still there. Something was there,” he said. “I knew something was going to happen.”