Chad Wells, lead singer and guitar player in the band, sent in his pitch for the show without the knowledge of the other band members. He said he didn’t want to give anybody’s hopes up since he always has grand ideas. He eventually told Presley Wells and Aarika Voegele.
“They [Dayton Live] got a hold of me, and I let the rest of the band know,” he said. “The other two guys in the band didn’t even understand what I was saying. ‘We’re doing what?’”
According to Chad Wells, the musical will follow five misfit kids as they attend a concert with their favorite band, The Creepy Crawlers. Along the way, they share their struggles, their dreams and ultimately discover that they are not alone.
“The show is about finding your place in a complicated world, and how so-called freaks or horror kids aren’t broken,” Chad Wells said. “They’re just expressing truth through a different lens. It’s loud, funny, heartfelt and a love letter to all the outsiders trying to belong.”
The band has been together with one lineup or another since the winter of 2021. Presley Wells, Chad Wells and Voegele were previously in the band the Cricketbows. The Creepy Crawlers grew from there, combined with Chad Wells’ and the band’s love of horror punk.
The band recorded one horror-punk song called “The Power in the Fury of Rock and Roll,” which was picked up by a United Kingdom label called We Are Horror Records. From there, the band started doing more elaborate stage shows and added Corey Ryherd and Nick Colchin to the band.
“When you come to see us at a bar to play, it’s essentially a rock-n-roll show,” Chad Wells said. “It’s just everything that you want a punk rock or heavy metal show to be. It crosses both of those styles while maintaining our own thing, but there’s a whole other level to it. We created the band that we never saw that we wanted to see.”
The band has been working on rough drafts of the script and was starting table reads with the actors. January was the month that they started to get the cast together and build the actual show. They are all just trying to figure out how it’s going to work.
“We called it ‘Shock Theater Live’ as an homage to the late-night Dr. Creep ‘Shock Theatre’ show,” Chad Wells said. “We want to make the whole thing not feel like an episode of that show at all, but have that spirit in it. When we do it in Dayton it will be about Dayton.”
Chad Wells is hoping that the shows go well in Dayton, so that the band will be able to take the musical out on the road. Chad Wells said that he is always pushing forward and thinking of what the next thing is for the band.
“This is the proving ground for this sort of a concept,” he said. “If this goes well and works out, they [Dayton Live] will be assisting us in getting us booked and sold into … four or five other counties surrounding us, so we can turn this into a moving parts theatrical show.”
The musical is a family affair. Chad Wells is Presley Wells’ father and his other daughter, Lillian, will be an actor in the show. Voegele’s two daughters are also hoping to be part of the musical as well. One thing is also certain: Chad Wells is all about growing and expanding the concept and making it bigger and better.
“It’s not about I just put out records or just play shows,” he said. “We make a theatrical show, so that we sell T-shirts and records. We make T-shirts and records, so we can go on a tour. We want everything to continue to feed itself and to grow and to do new things.”
HOW TO GO
What: Shock Theater Live: Multimedia Rock-Theater Hybrid Performance
When: 7:30 p.m. May 15-16
Where: PNC Arts Annex stage, Second and Ludlow streets, Dayton
Cost:$20
Online: daytonlive.org
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