“Good set.”
It’s a saying you’ll hear bands pass along to each other after a gig, regardless of a set’s actual quality. To Chicago filmmaker Dan Stewart, the camaraderie between underdog musicians that the phrase represents often goes unsung.
“[Bands] have this language that we all understand. I wanted to utilize that. The humor and tragedy of being in a DIY band,” Stewart says.
Hollywood loves stories about musicians but tends to avoid the unglamorous bits. Fitting in practices around tight work schedules, paying hand over fist for a rehearsal space, and playing to no one are all integral to the experience of most underdog bands, yet they rarely make it onscreen.
Stewart aimed to give those moments their justice, and he brought together some of the Chicago indie scene’s favorite bands to help. The result is Local Band, a feature film about a fictional band that, like their real-life Chicago counterparts, still give it their all despite feeling doomed to fall through the cracks.
“This project started way back at the end of 2018. I was living in Saint Louis, which is my hometown,” says Stewart. “I was starting to really get into the local music scene there.”
Stewart and Local Band cowriter Nick Wandersee would frequent underground metal shows together. The acts they saw varied wildly from conventional rock and metal bands to some truly niche offerings.
“There was a touring noise act where this guy wheeled out a folding table and there were VCRs involved, and it was the loudest wall of death and noise. The band was called Terminator 2.”
Though genres varied, the underground shows were consistent in the creative energy on display, and Stewart and Wandersee saw a story that wasn’t being told.
“I sat down in my basement with my friend Nick and we just ironed out this idea for a movie about a band that is struggling. [It’s] a story about a band that doesn’t end up successful,” Stewart says.
Thinking back to Terminator 2 (the band), Stewart says, “This guy is clearly not doing this so that he can have the ‘Live Aid’ ending of the movie. This guy’s doing this because he loves what he’s making, and he loves performing.”
After years of tinkering with the concept and navigating film school, Stewart—who had uprooted to Chicago by that point—was ready to get the film off the ground. Funding for the film was secured primarily through an Indiegogo campaign that Stewart describes as “an emotional journey.”
“There was an incredible outpouring of support from the scene,” says Stewart. “They say a lot of funding comes from one person who wants to pick up your idea and give you a couple thousand dollars. Ultimately for us the average donation was 50 bucks, and that was just from very generous contributions from people in the scene.”
Local Band’s production caught the Chicago indie scene in the middle of a small renaissance, with the end of pandemic lockdown energizing veteran and new artists alike. As Pinksqueeze’s Ava Marvin puts it, the time apart has brought Chicago’s indie bands closer together.
“I think that it’s just beautiful how much people show up for each other in this community and really go hard for each other’s shows, and just truly, genuinely support each other. So, it’s just been special,” Marvin says.
“That was something that kind of really didn’t happen a lot in the older scene,” says Isabella Martinez, who pulls double duty as the film’s lead and representation for Chicago alt-rockers Cut Your Losses. “It really does now feel like a little family. To see all the same people at each other’s shows.”
Along with Pinksqueeze, Local Band’s roster of bands includes scene regulars Superkick, OK Cool, CalicoLoco, and Nora Marks, with their contributions ranging from short clips of sets to full-on speaking roles, according to Stewart. Stewart himself lends guitar and vocals to punk trio Damager.
“[Adding] grit and weight, and to ground it a little bit in the real scene, he’s going to have this footage of other bands playing,” says Nora Marks’s Michael Garrity. “That was our primary role; he filmed one of our concerts.”
“To bring us all a little out of our comfort zones to be actors and musicians was a beautiful feeling. Especially the last day of the shoot when we were all at Double Door. It was bittersweet, but we all knew we would see each other again. But who knows when we’ll all be able to collectively be a part of something like this film again,” says Superkick’s Mike Vaughn.
Local Band producer Jake Rotger says that the crew initially anticipated that working within the schedules of nearly ten different bands would be herculean on its own.
“And that’s on top of the fake band we put together with the actors,” Rotger says. “We went into this project thinking that [scheduling] was going to be a total obstacle to get around. I thought it’d be a constant pain in the ass. But it wasn’t. Everyone was very good about just being there when they needed to be.”
“Even the bands that are just in one scene, like CalicoLoco, who just play a few songs,” Rotger explains, “they came in, played three great songs, and were awesome.”
Local Band
@localbandthemovie
Local Band was shot over August and July of this year. Scenes were filmed in some of the same practice spaces and venues used by bands across the city, all “without a tripod in sight,” Stewart says. The use of real locations and bands was meant to give the film an unmistakable sense of place within Chicago. Even the behind-the-scenes photos were taken by photographer Vicki Holda, a staple at many shows.
“It’s our scene, and yeah, they’re drinking Old Style and talking about Beat Kitchen in the dialogue, or Double Door. These are things that we understand as people in Chicago. I think that sometimes, being very specific can be the most universal thing,” Stewart says.
But as OK Cool’s Bridget Stiebris rightfully points out, Local Band’s full roster still only captures a small portion of Chicago’s musical talent pool.
“[The film] is definitely not comprehensive; there’s so much music in this town. It’s insane,” Stiebris says.
Local Band is currently in postproduction, with Stewart aiming to enter the festival circuit afterward.
“I have maybe an incredible opportunity to, in the tradition of something like The Decline of Western Civilization, document something really magical and cool right now,” says Stewart. “I think maybe it’s the optimism of a post-COVID lockdown world where we’re fulfilling our angst to get back into crowds and make things.
“I want the world to see these people and hear their music and love it like I do.”
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