Effusive passion, joy and connection drive Naked Brunch's musical performances

“Falling Out of You,” the recently released single by Chicago-area rock band Naked Brunch, is a searing look at severing connections as vocalist Michael Hanna sings of extricating oneself from what he calls a “black hole of a relationship.”

But for Naked Brunch, connection is everything. Connecting with the audience, connecting with the music and connecting with each other.

The four-piece band is just over a year old, but Hanna and guitarist Sammy Dolgin, both recent Chicagoans, Park Ridge drummer Scott Tentiger and Elgin bassist Hayden Accola take the stage with the confidence of pros, pulling the crowd along with their self-assured verve and dynamic performances. And most of all, a lot of fun.

“We're putting on a show, so we try to really get engaged with it, get some crowd work going and really perform instead of just standing and playing our music,” Accola said. “Or you might as well just stream it at that point.”

A Naked Brunch show is packed with unrelenting, high-energy music and lively audience interaction, much of the theatricality driven by Hanna's background as a stage actor and singer for the Queen tribute band Ready Freddie in Minneapolis before he moved to Chicago last year.

“When we do a show, we want to give people something to look at,” he said. “The more artists give physically and the more they try to engage the audience and be there with them in whatever the moment is, the more they get back from the audience. There's just a higher energy flowing between the two.

“Our big thing is giving people something to engage with and to be like, 'Oh man, that was a sick moment when the bassist did a backbend and the guitarist kissed the drummer,'” he said laughing.

“We're all pretty high-emotion people,” added Dolgin, who also plays in Chicago punk-ska band Run and Punch. “Hayden and I talk about our feelings with each other all the time. Just big, big feelings. And we need these shows to just explode them out somewhere, you know?”

That camaraderie shows in their excitement to be on stage together and confidence in each other.

“I trust that Hayden, Sammy and Michael are going to be right there with me. And I trust all the musicianship within us,” Tentiger said. “So pretty much whatever happens on stage, I know we can adjust, we can figure it out, we can move through it and push through it.”

So far, Naked Brunch has released two singles. The vividly cheeky “Punish Me Good,” released in early June, solidly established the band's slinky, sexy funk-rock sound. “Falling Out of You,” the latest, is a groove-dripping, soul-rending rebuke of a relationship gone very, very wrong.

“I feel like with every breakup there are always so many different steps where you are justifying all of your decisions and then regretting them just as quickly,” Hanna, who wrote the song's lyrics, said. “So, for me, it's about pulling yourself out of a relationship that feels like it has stripped you of your identity.”

Naked Brunch will be playing both, along with a slew of other soon-to-be-released songs, at more shows later this year. This weekend the band joins AudioMonkeys, Tommy Kessler and Sin. for a Sunday night show at Beat Kitchen.

For Accola, the band's founder, this is the culmination of a childhood dream come true. Learning bass in his early teens, Accola said he'd never been in a serious band, mostly just jamming with friends and playing open mics around the suburbs before - in his late 20s and with a handful of songs - he started to assemble the team, bringing in three strangers who clicked instantly.

“This whole thing has been nothing short of magical for me,” he said.

AudioMonkeys, Tommy Kessler, Naked Brunch, Sin.

When: 8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 6

Where: Beat Kitchen, 2100 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago

Tickets: $12; beatkitchen.com