Charleston band, Cenius, will open for local music legends NIL8 this Saturday at Macs’ Uptowner, located at 623 Monroe Ave.

The show starts at 9:30 p.m. Cover charge is $5 and audience members must be 21 or older to enter.

NIL8 has been around for decades. Brothers Jeff (guitar) and Bruce (bass) Williams started the band in the early 1980s.

Hailing from Springfield, the band soon started playing shows in Champaign and Bloomington.

“We started playing Charleston quite a bit,” Jeff Williams said. “Those were crazy shows with tons of people.”

NIL8 signed with a small label out of Chicago and started major touring in 1992.

“We got out of Illinois. We toured Kentucky, Texas, the West Coast, and most of North America,” said Williams. “Slowly, we built a following. It was kinda cool because there would always be people at our shows, and it was all because of word of mouth.”

Williams said the band toured with other musicians in their peak years.

“We toured with big punk bands, and opened for Smashing Pumpkins and Faith No More in their heyday,” he said. “We were playing 260-280 shows per year. We’d come home only to work on new material and record.”

Williams recalled how the band formed. “We were skating in a Milwaukee skate park called The Turf. This other guy seemed like a real show-off. He said he was in a band called Bam Bam, and we thought he was making up stuff. We didn’t have a band at the time, but we lied and said we were Annihilate, but spelled “NIL8.” He seemed impressed. We thought he was a tool, but we also thought it was a cool band name, so it stuck.”

Guitarist Damon Soper and drummer Wes Selinger joined in 2003.

“Damon sings exactly like Jack Black,” Williams said. “He’s all rock-and-roll and has a crazy falsetto, so I started writing songs that utilize his voice.”

Williams said they plan to play a lot of songs from their older albums, “Doug” and “Eunuch,” which will be for sale at the show.

“Our most current album is “Aloha Means Goodbye You Filthy Explorer,” but we ran out of copies,” Williams said.

“The last time we were at Macs’ Utowner, it was a good night with a lot of fun. People were really into it,” Williams said.

Opening band Cenius consists of Charleston residents Seth Asbell (acoustic guitar and vocals), Efrem Tutwiler (bass), Chris “Gibby” Gibbons (electric guitar), and Wyatt Wheeler (drums).

Asbell said he’s looking forward to seeing NIL8.

“I’ve only heard good things about them,” Williams said. 

This will be Gibbons’s last show with Cenius, as he is moving to Cedar Rapids the week after the show.

Shortly thereafter, Tutwiler is leaving for Arizona.

Asbell, Gibbons, and Tutwiler have been playing together for five years. That is when the name Cenius—a portmanteau of “command” and “genius”—originated.

“Gibby wrote the music, and I wrote the vocal melody and drums. We had an inside joke that we were Team Cenius,” Asbell said. “When I told Gibby about this project, it just seemed like the name to use.”

Cenius will play both original songs and covers. Covers include “Royals” by Lorde  and “Hold On” by Alabama Shakes.

Gibbons said he’s been going to Macs’ Uptowner for years.

“It has a chill atmosphere,” Gibbons said. “The people are laid back and easy to get along with. They book great shows, and the shows always sound great.”

Cenius has another show booked on March 20 at the Effingham Performance Center, where they will be playing with other local musicians including Position 12?, Salt, and StinkStone.

Kara Baker can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].