By day, Scott Mensching teaches percussion at the Music Makers … For Life music school in Crystal Lake. He lives in town with his wife Laura and children Garett, 16, and Ally, 13. His daughter Lyndsey and grandchild Jude, 7 months, reside in Milwaukee.    

Nothing scary about that, but his side project is spine chilling.    

Mensching, a man with music in his blood and an affection for horror scores, also sings, and plays drums and vibraphone for Moon-Rays, a five-piece Halloween band with a throwback sound and cult following.    

It all began in 1999 when Mensching and audio engineer Bill Holtane of Sound/Video Impressions (SVI) studio in Des Plaines were discussing the theme of the 1970s WGN spook show “Creature Features,” which featured scary movies like “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man” and “The Mummy.” “I watched ‘Creature Features’ years ago and always loved those old Universal horror films,” Mensching explained.    

The theme that introduced the show was Henry Mancini’s “Experiment in Terror” with an overdub of a poem read by then-newsman Marty McNeely.   

“I had an old, rusty reel-to-reel recording of one episode,” Mensching said. “Bill and I decided to re-record the original opening with the poem as it was done when it originally aired.”   

They shipped out the re-recording to radio stations in the Chicago area that Halloween, which got a huge positive response by locals who fondly remembered the show. That same year, they formed Moon-Rays, recorded and released the LP “Thrills and Chills” from SVI studios, and toured as America’s “Spookiest Hipsters,” Mensching said. 

Notoriety in the Underground   

The first Moon-Rays album only contained two original songs by the band, including “1313 Mockingbird Lane,” which moviemaker Paul Scrabo picked up in 2004 for his horror spoof “Dr. Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots” starring horror legend Zacherley and ’90s Scream Queen Debbie Rochon.    

“‘1313 Mockingbird Lane’ was also named instrumental surf song of the year in 2004 at the JPF Indie Music Awards,” Mensching said. “Also in 2004, ‘Thrills and Chills’ won best album in the surf category out of 30,000 submissions. Chicago’s WXRT radio also picked ‘Thrills and Chills’ as best new instrumental album for the year in 2004.    

“Quite a start for an unknown Halloween band,” Mensching said.

Hollywood Knocks   

The success of “Thrills and Chills” brought about the band’s second release, “Ghouls Go West.” This time, two of the original songs made it into Hollywood feature films  “American  Scary”  and  “The  Unpunished.”   

“’Ghouls’ is my favorite album,” Mensching said. “It has all the spooky flavor that we wanted to bring out and terrific artwork by New York artist Elliott Mattice.”    

In 2006, the band recorded “Sinister Surf” and has two songs in Fred Olen Ray’s “Ghost in a Teeny Bikini” — “Dragula au Go Go” and “Ghouls Go West.”   

Next came “Swingin’ at the Séance”  (2008) — an album of Halloween music from the 1920s through the 1940s.    

“’Swinging’ was a labor of love for me,” Mensching explained. “My father was a musician in the big bands of the ’40s — even playing with Glenn Miller’s AAF Band in Belgium during World War II. I grew up listening to this music and still have a strong affection for it. I wish my dad could have been here for this one.”   

In 2008, Moon-Rays also appeared as a special guest of the B-Movie Film Festival where they were dubbed “The B-Movie Band.” For his contributions to film, Mensching was listed in The United States’ “Who’s Who” for music in film production.    

“I’ve played most every kind of music with many musicians including pop star Chi Coltrane in the 1970s and jazz legend Joe Venuti,” he said. “By far, Moon-Rays is my most successful endeavor.”    

In addition to Moon-Rays, he plays at local clubs, private functions — even Chicago Bulls games — with several swing and jazz bands, including Night Train and Air Mail Special.

Early next year, check out Paul Bunnell’s “The Ghastly Love of Johnny X,” which features Mensching and sax man Andy Blanco’s title track. Also next year, Moon-Rays are scheduled to play West Coast tiki weekender Tiki Oasis in San Diego. Locally, the band played Lakeside Festival in Crystal Lake this past Fourth of July weekend.

>> For more information, visit www.myspace.com/moonrays.