Clickbait Said What?!: An Interview with Chicago’s Costumed Neo-No Wavers
Clickbait is a four-piece dance punk group from Chicago known especially for their charismatic costumes and playful live energy. As they geared up for a gig at Empty Bottle opening for legends ESG, and just before they embarked on their first ever European tour, we caught up with Jen (bass), Nick (drums), Sammy (guitar), and Sandra (vocals) at the illustrious Bric-a-Brac Records to get to know what makes them one of the most charming, entertaining DIY bands in the Midwest.
Cover photo by Kevin Talley
MRR: Take us back to when Clickbait first formed—what made you guys start writing music together?
Jen: It was 2017, and aside from a Halloween set as a Ramones cover band with Nick, Sammy, and another friend, I had never played in a band before. But after that experience, and after spending plenty of time around people in bands, I just knew I wanted to be in one. So we started playing—at first, it was just going to be Nick, Sammy, and me, but I quickly realized after one practice that I didn’t want to do vocals. I had someone in mind, and we eventually met up with Sandra from a mutual friend and asked her, even though she was already in two bands at the time. She said she could be in up to six bands at once, so she was in!
MRR: Sandra, were you the one who introduced the idea of homemade outfits for your sets?
Sandra: Right from the start, I think Jen and I had wanted to have fun with our outfits. At our first show, we wore yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuits. But we kicked up a gear after a show at Berlin [editor’s note: the historic, now defunct Chicago venue]. You can’t just walk out on that stage in jeans—the history’s too rich! Ultimately, I’d say our outfit ideas come from all of us, but their execution varies among us.
Nick: A good friend of ours who’s in a pretty successful band told me how important stage presence is. You want the audience to see the effort you put in beyond just playing the music. It’s a whole other dimension of the performance, and you don’t need to be so serious all the time,
Sandra: To close out that thought, to me, play is so important. Being a little bit silly and letting people watch you be silly—it allows them to get out of the world for a bit. Because it’s fucking heavy a lot of the time. I think adults forget to play, but you really should until the day you die.
MRR: Tell us about your relation to the Chicago DIY scene and how it’s changed over time.
Nick: Well, we’ve been a band for about seven years, and Jen and I have owned the shop (Bric-a-Brac Records) for twelve-and-a-half years. From the beginning, we tried to be tapped into what’s going on in DIY in Chicago. We used to host bands at the record store as an all ages venue, but a lot has changed over the years due to time, aging, and the natural course of DIY culture fluctuating. The pandemic affected a lot, of course, but with that in tandem with getting older (I’m almost 40 now), we don’t have the best idea of what’s going on anymore. A lot of the cool spots we played when we were first starting out no longer exist. And there are spots that exist now that we aren’t familiar with at all.
Jen: Now, though, we’ve gotten to a point as a band where people are reaching out to us more to play rather than us having to do the organizing.
MRR: You guys are preparing for your first EU/UK tour, how’re you feeling/have you done this before?
Jen: I don’t think it’s hit us yet. Sammy played in a band that’s done Europe before, and I drove them. But that was before I was in a band. Also, people were familiar with that band, and I feel like no one knows who we are. So, I don’t know what to expect. We’re just going into it excited to be there.
Sandra: We’ve done a couple tours through the States before, and I think we get along really well on the road. To me it feels like vacation with a purpose. We get to play music, and people get to come see us. I can only imagine that feeling is bigger and better in Europe since it’s totally unfamiliar to me. I think it’ll hit me once I step off the plane.
MRR: What’s the plan for outfits?
Jen: We are working on a couple of outfits that we’ll wear every/every other night, which is stylistically different for us—we often go all out on an outfit and never repeat it again. On the cover of our album (At Your Leisure), there are two ladies wearing hats, Flobella and Barbella (from Gamera vs. Guiron). We created helmets based on theirs, so it’ll be kinda space-age-y.
Sandra: Retrofuture.
MRR: Take Star Trek and put it in a disco.
Sandra: Exactly! But the cool thing is we made them out of scrap material. We love a free costume!
MRR: Your record, At Your Leisure, was it a Bric-a-Brac release, or is it considered self-released?
Nick: Technically, it’s self-released as “Clickbait 01.” So, on paper, Bric-a-Brac has nothing to do with it.
MRR: Any plans for future physical releases?
Nick: Bric-a-Brac released one earlier this year, Dog Eat Dog’s Re-Deux LP, and there are a couple other potential releases we’ve talked about—we’ll see. The nice thing about doing records for bands that don’t exist anymore is that there’s not a ton of pressure. Facebook is awesome for talking to older people in music. But, yeah, ultimately Clickbait is self-released.
MRR: Any plans for new Clickbait material?
Sandra: Yeah, since Sammy’s been back in the band, we’ve been writing. We have, what, three or four new songs?
Nick: Five or six probably!
Sandra: His math is better than mine. But, yeah, we’ve been playing some of the new ones at recent shows, but we haven’t recorded anything yet. It’s kinda just up here still [gesturing up in the air].
Nick: But we do have a 7” that we got pressed in Europe with two new songs that we’ll have on tour. Those are from a session we did a couple months back that’s gonna be for a new Bricktown comp, a long-running DIY spot here in Chicago.
MRR: Earlier, Sandra, you talked about how tour is like a vacation of sorts and how you all get along well on the road. But have there been any lessons you all have learned in the past seven/eight years you’ve been working together?
Nick: Have fun!
Sammy: For sure, have fun.
Nick: We don’t really have aspirations beyond having fun with each other.
Jen: We have big dreams, though.
Nick: For sure. But we don’t put a lot of pressure on each other. We have a lot going on outside of Clickbait individually, but we want to pursue this as something to have fun with.
Sandra: We prioritize it, but life outside this comes first. More than anything, we’re just really good buddies. We really enjoy one another.
Jen: And we all have different life goals. Like, Sammy is our original guitar player. He left for a couple years, got married, had a kid, and now that his kid’s a little older, he can have the band in his life again.
Sammy: And the kid can hang out!
Sandra: Hell yeah! He’s been to one of our shows, too.
Nick: Almost got on stage.
Jen: But I feel like, in terms of dynamics and being in a band together for so long, it’s unique because Nick and I have known Sammy for a really long time, he was our first employee here at Bric-a-Brac. And from the beginning of that, we had a really special bond, and Sandra and I had plenty of mutual friends and she was someone I wanted to spend more time with. Because of this history and being older in a band together, one of the nicer things is that at this point, we’re all just working on ourselves, our own lives. We realize now that when conflict arises, it’s best to just address it and talk it out, but that’s something even myself ten years ago wouldn’t have known like I know now. Communication is an inevitable piece of the puzzle.
Sandra: Kindness, too. Kindness and communication go a very long way.
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