Vienna Beef Choir Cooks Up Tasty Music - Windy City Times

CHICAGO, IL—Fans of the historic standard Chicago staple diet and five century old choir music teamed up recently to form the much anticipated Vienna Beef Choir.

Jake Steele, Max Lindez and Joel Paterson show off the tools of their craft..

"Chicago has it all when it comes to music and it has some of the best food on the planet too. Really, just look at how many phat people there are here. They don't call me Joel "Phatz" Paterson for nothing," is the constant mumbling that can be heard if one listens closely to Joel Paterson, local Chicago musician, phat sonuvabitch and co-founding member of the Chicago's Vienna Beef Choir. 

The groups humble beginnings spawned from a typical Chicago summer outing to woefully cheer on the struggles of the world famous Cubs. It was within the confines of Friendly Wrigley Field where Max Lindez, in typical obnoxious fashion, felt it necessary to sing along with an AC/DC song broadcast over the loudspeakers at the top of his lungs, mouth full of a juicy Vienna Beef red hot and all.  The boys knew at that point they were on to something big. 

"It's all in the name. You gotta pull people in first or else you got nothing," are the opening remarks of Jake Steele's drunken monologue immediately before a narcoleptic episode at a 4:00 AM stop for hot dogs on the way home.

"We learned a little bit from our heroes, The Vienna Boys Choir. We all grew up watching them sing their cute little songs in their cute little sailor outfits every year at Christmastime. We're really no different than them, just a little older," belts out Lindez who fills a double role for the adult boys choir as both tenor and media director.

"We love hot dogs and we love music, especially Boys Choirs," is the one rare, straight comment given by the man who's so full of shit his hair is brown, Max Lindez. He continues, "we were big fans of Menudo back in the day but everybody made fun of us. I called it, way back then, I so called it. Now look at Ricky Martin, he's a household name and he's rich. I wanna be just like Ricky Martin, except I want to do my music the way I feel it should be done, not the way record executives feel we should do it because it sells more records."

	The Vienna Beef Choir Sings A Three Part Hot Dog Harmony On Damen Avenue.

"Hot dogs and music are what being in a rock band is all about for me. I've been in bands before where the women were plenty and so were the  drugs but now I'm after something different. You hear about these guys having concerts for Tibet and all, that's great but what about having a positive message here at home? I mean who are we to tell someone else or better yet some other communist empire how to manage their affairs when we have totally lost sight into how important family values are here at home. That's the message we're trying to spread just like mustard on a red hot. Humanity comes in many different flavors, so do hot dogs. You can have chili, cheese, make it a double, with or without celery salt, relish, you can steam it, boil it, grill them or just plain eat them cold. Hot dogs are made up of the waste no one else wants but they're packaged nicely and dyed pink so they look cute and tasty. People are just as diverse and we want to recognize everyone."

The Vienna Beef Choir cook up a positive message along with their irresistible brand of pop and indie rock flavored choir music. Even if they weren't super huge rock stars they still say they'd follow their mission statement to a tee:

Every person has music in him, and every human being should have hot dogs in their lives.

The Wiener Sängerknaben aim to create an atmosphere in which people can pursue their love of hot dogs while developing their musical potential. A chorister performs at the highest level and learns to express himself with music and food. We are all part of culture and have a duty to add to the culture we live in.

A choir is just like a kitchen: each individual adds something of himself, and the whole, a performed piece of music, can only grow out of a team effort.

The members of the Vienna Beef Choir admit they may be out of place to some or to many but they believe so strongly in what they are doing and in their message they refuse to give up. 

Hot dogs and music can save the world, or so they think so we'll continue to let them think they're onto something good.  A hot dog is a $1.49, smiles are free.