The Madison band talks with us ahead of their September 26 show at Mickey’s Tavern.
Wood Chickens are, from left to right: Griffin Pett, Alex Reilly, and Justin Johnson. Photo by Rachel Virnig.
Madison has been breeding a healthy variety of punk/garage-rock/power-pop bands of late, and Wood Chickens are both an integral part of and an outlier in that community. The 2014 album Have A Cow finds guitarist Alex Reilly, bassist Griffin Pett, and drummer Justin Johnson careening through a scorched, at times hallucinatory landscape of quick-burst punk songs and smeary sound collages, all of it shot through with earnest but eccentrically interpreted country influences. This year the band also has released a split cassettewith fellow Madison band Paint and one new song on Madison zine Toothtaker’s second compilation‘s second compilation. This fall, they’re hoping to put out a new live cassette, and they’re going on a tour of the Midwest and South, starting with a September 26 show at Mickey’s. All three Wood Chickens joined me at WORT this week to discuss their approach to songwriting and how their small-town Wisconsin upbringings inform their music. Thanks to WORT’s Dylan Brogan for producing this segment.
