A 15 Year Adventure
About the Band
Lights Out Chicago played primarily the music of UFO and The Michael Schenker Group. Based in the suburbs of Chicago, and founded in late 2007, the band had 141 performances throughout the Chicagoland region and neighboring states. The music of UFO and guitarist Michael Schenker was a heavy infuence to all of the band members. This helped us present thier music with detail, and provide the audience with a hear it like you remembered it experience. Unfortunatley, due to unforeseen circumstances, the band played it's last show on December 2nd, 2022.
Navigating through the site will provide various video and audio pages from the second show in 2008 through some of the final performances in 2022. Some video pages will be entire shows while others will be random performances from a particular era. Individual audio pages contain songs from a specific performance.
This Lights Out Chicago section of the Family Preisler "A Place for Memories" website was created for Band Members, Family, and Friends, to look back and review what were some of the best times of our lives. Some of the content has never been viewed even by the band members. New pages are added as archives are reviewed and time permits.
Looking Back
How It Started
Many of the members were raised in the same neighborhood and played in bands during the teenage years. Some as rivals during "Battle of the Bands" events. 20 years later after raising families, the infamous call came. "We're Getting the Band back Together". I don't think any of us took that very seriously and probably thought of it as "Lets get together and have some Fun Jamming". It started with Joe, Rich and Eric who played together frequentley back in the day. Having very little gear to work with, and no other members, we would occasionally get together using a small mixer, headphones and a metranome just to see if we could keep it together.
By the end of 2007 we found a drummer and lead vocalist. We gave our band the name "XSNRG". After setting up a basement rehearsal area at a members residence, we would get together several times a month playing a variety of classic rock songs. Since Michael Schenker was a big influence on Joe's playing style and enjoyed by the other members, many of our songs were UFO songs. With the help from a friend of the drummer, we played our first gig in April of 2008.
During the first show we were introduced to a keyboard player which was needed to fill the gaps in some of UFO's material. We played our second show as a full band in June of 2008 in Berwyn (our hometown) for the Berwyn Centennial Fest with the entire set being the music of UFO. Since songs from UFO seemed to be the direction we were heading, the band changed it's name to Lights Out Chicago in June of 2009.
Over the years as with most bands, aside from the three founding members and for a variety of reasons, musicians moved in and out. Some due to relocation, loss of interest, other priorities, and of course personal conflicts which unfortunately always seem to be inevitable with any band. Most of the missing gaps were short lived and we always seemed to find a talented musician with the same musical interest with a couple of members playing through the last decade. The band ended it's 15 year run in January of 2023.
The Line-Up
Band Members
Who They Were and When They Played.
Joe Mazzuca (Lead Guitar)
2008-2023
Rich Leonard (Guitar/Vocals)
2008-2023
Eric Preisler (Bass/Vocals)
2008-2023
Ron Silay (Percussion)
2008-2011
Brian Perfect (Lead Vocals)
2008-2010
Scott Leonard (Keyboards)
2008-2011
Jeff Tokar (Lead Vocals)
2010-2013
Lamar Almeida (Percussion)
2011-2013
George Logemann (Keyboards)
2011-2012
Brian Buxbaum (Keyboards)
2011-2012
Andy Banathy (Keyboards)
2012-2019
Rudy Chemlik (Percussion)
2013-2023
Axel Brown (Lead Vocals)
2013-2016
Rich Tendy (Lead Vocals)
2017-2020
John Leonard (Keyboards)
2020-2021
Mike Restivo (Lead Vocals)
2021-2021
Andy Banathy (Keyboards)
2021-2023
Chad Van Damme (Lead Vocals)
2021-2023
End of An Era
The Best of Times
Time passes quickly and it seems like as soon as it started it came to an end. Throughout our 15 year run, we played with some great bands, at some top notch venues, met many wonderful people and made lots of new friends along the way. What started out as a hobby for fun, as our talent progressed, it eventually turned into a serious lets be the best we can be project. We all had a great time as did the audience we performed for. As with most good things, they eventually come to an end.
This great time we had together are memories that last forever.
Booking: Not Available
© 2023 by Lights Out Chicago
