Throughout his 30-year acting career, actor Michael Peña has had many notable roles in films, including “Ant-Man,” “Crash” and “End of Watch,” and TV series such as “Narcos: Mexico,” “Jack Ryan” and “The Shield.” Despite these accomplishments, the Chicago native expects his performance with rock band Nico Vega at Lollapalooza to be one of his biggest achievements.
“I can’t even grasp it. I just hope I can remember my parts and enjoy it,” says Peña. “I’m through the moon. I’m a local guy whose first concert was Lollapalooza and now I get to play it. It’s got to be one of the best achievements of my life.”
It’s a full-circle moment for Peña, who went to Lollapalooza while in high school and discovered the music of Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It’s just one of the encounters with show business he had growing up in Chicago that made him want to become an actor and musician.
Growing up across the street from Douglass Park on California and 16th, Peña always had easy access to the arts . While walking the 10 blocks to and from school with his mother, he’d often see people breakdancing and hear music from Run-DMC and Beastie Boys emanating from boomboxes. Murals were all over and graffiti artists were in demand.
“At 8 o’clock in the morning, there’d be Spanish music, soccer, sports across the street, a lot of rich Mexican tradition and heritage,” he says. There were also kids in the corner of the park rapping and learning freestyle.
“I was constantly surrounded by this,” he says. “So, the jump from that to playing music and acting didn’t seem that far off.”
Peña would often hear his parents sing, and his father played guitar, so it felt natural to get into music himself through things such as church and school choir. He grew up listening to a lot of hip-hop and his father often played the albums of artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and Elvis Presley. Most of the music was rhythm-heavy, which is a big reason he was drawn to playing drums and bass.
Peña’s Lollapalooza performance carries further special significance as it’s among his first shows back with Nico Vega in almost 20 years after leaving the group to focus on his acting career. The group also features singer Aja Volkman, guitarist Rich Koehler and drummer Dan Epand. Peña and Koehler, who previously played in the band The Wells, were so impressed by Volkman’s open-mic performance in 2005 that they asked her to form a band.
“She had very simple songs, but I could see what she was talking about, meaning she painted the images and the pictures for me with her lyrics,” says Peña. “I thought, ‘What a great singer.’ … We both thought that a female lead singer would be great with the band. And sure enough, the universe just presented her in front of us. And that night we showed her some of our music and she’s like, ‘Oh, this is good. We should jam a little bit.’ ”
Michael Peña (from left) is joined by Nico Vegas bandmates Aja Volkman, Daniel Epand and Rich Koehler.
cameron jordan photography
They named the group Nico Vega, a reference to Peña’s mother.
While he now plays bass with the band, Peña served as the band’s original drummer. In 2006, the group released its debut EP “Chooseyourwordspoorly.” However, with a burgeoning acting career, he decided to exit the band in 2007. It was a tough decision for him and one he isn’t sure was right. . He says that there was more of a stigma about being an actor who was also a musician.
However, that has faded in recent years, he says. In 2023, he rejoined the band and it felt like no time had passed. “Last year we wrote so many songs,” he says. “I don’t even remember when I joined the band again. We just planned our next show.”
With people more open to “embracing music from wherever it comes,” Peña has felt welcome in his return to music.
“I can have two careers at the same time, and they’re both super fulfilling and one feeds the other. But everything happens for a reason,” he says. “I’ve always loved to play the bass and play melody. So, this was the right call at the time for all four of us to find each other.”
A new album release, “Make It Out Alive,” slated for later this year, also marks the band’s first since 2018.
They also plan to tour heavily. That includes November’s Corona Capital festival in Mexico City, which excites Peña as his parents were from Mexico.
“That’s another dream, because I’m going to fly my dad there,” he says. “For him to see us play in Mexico is going to be amazing.”