Agent: Mahmood Shaikh
——-
Dave Grohl claims a lot of incredible influences on his music, but the most important of all might just be a band of teens (and pre-teens!) from Evanston, Illinois that were only together for 18 months (1982-1983) and only released a handful of songs: Verböten.
That’s not hyperbole, either: Grohl credits watching a basement practice session by the band—his mom was old friends with singer Tracey Bradford’s mom—as a transformative moment in his musical life. “I was a changed man,” he told Nirvana biographer Michael Azzerad, though technically Grohl, at 13 years old, was a changed boy. But he saw in these kids—Jason Narducy (11 years old), Zack Kantor (12 years old), Chris Kean (13 years old), and Tracey Bradford (15 years old)—the possibility of punk rock. In his memoir Storyteller, Dave wrote a whole chapter called “Tracey Was A Punk Rocker” devoted to his life-altering trip to Evanston.
In their brief existence, Verböten managed to record four punk and new wave-leaning songs—mostly written by Narducy, who would go on to play in Bob Mould’s band, Superchunk, Verbow, Split Single, and more—and play a handful of shows, including a legendary set at Chicago’s Cubby Bear, parts of which ended up in Grohl’s HBO documentary series Sonic Highways and the definitive Chicago punk rock documentary, You Weren’t There. Before breaking up, they also played a high school battle of the bands, a middle school dance, and a church. For one gig, Narducy was grounded, so future White Zombie guitarist Jay Yuenger took his place on guitar.
Fast-forward to 2020, when Chicago’s House Theatre debuted a musical based on the incredible story of Verböten, with music and lyrics by Narducy and book by Brett Neveu to rave reviews and sold-out shows. Narducy and Neveu are now working with a production company on a film adaptation of this wild coming-of-age tale. And Verböten, all grown up, might just be ready to rise again and tell their own story from the stage.
