Pluto Rising is known for getting audiences on their feet. They bring an original blend of cosmic rock, new wave, retro soul, and rocksteady grooves to the dance floor. The band’s sound draws inspiration from artists including Talking Heads, The Cure, Otis Redding, The Heptones, and Amy Winehouse—resulting in a spirited, genre-bending mix designed for dancing.
 
Pluto Rising features Christiana Athena (songwriting, vocals, keys, percussion), Tamsen Turner
(vocals), John Littleton "Lit" Tyler II (songwriting, bass), Rev. Dr. Karl Haas (drums), and Michael Scott
Duplessis (keys, guitar, album producer).

The band started as a "one-off" concert for the One Universe Block Party Festival on Langdon Street in Montpelier, VT in August of 2021.  Nick Sherman (songwriting, vocals, keys) was invited to put something together for the Festival, and he began writing and soon brought in Christiana Athena (vocals), Jeremiah Johnson (drums), and Tate Earle (guitar). The four had been collaborating on and off since they were in their early teens. They added backup vocals by Jean Squires and Claire Diamond. Headed by Nick, together the group wrote and perfected 12 original songs in 8 weeks (all hilariously detailing a space themed love-saga). 

Christiana noted that the moment the band hit their first note, the street was filled with dancers from ages 2 to 80. She recognized people really needed positive and dance-able music! It was a hugely cathartic experience for people to dance in the streets on a gorgeous August evening in the midst of a global pandemic.

Christiana took lead and has been running the group ever since with a combination of original and new musicians covering dance music while also generating more new songs.

The band’s debut album became available for streaming on all major platforms
on October 16, 2026. 

A little about the band members:

Nick Sherman was born from a stellar nebula, which is a cloud of hydrogen gas in space. The nebula eventually collapses under its own gravity, forming a heated core that bursts into a ROCK star. He landed in Washington, Vermont and evolved from gas to rock to prodigy / pianist / composer.

Christiana Athena inhabits a female form on Earth after the great eye of Jupiter destroyed her home planet in 3000 BC. She set out on a voyage traveling on the sound waves of her ancestors’ singing voices through space and settled in the Greco-Roman empire, and eventually made her way to Vermont. Christiana found her groove on earth as a songwriter, musician, and teacher with a Ph.D. in music education and ethnomusicology. She got her start as a singer and songwriter in Boston with her all women's rock band, Paper Waves. She returned to VT in the pandemic and has been grateful to work with talented Vermont musicians and be able to bring her vision through songs to life. Despite becoming a mom recently, while also writing and publishing a book, and teaching music full-time, she continues to find the creative inspiration, and motivation to keep writing, performing, and sharing her time-traveling and galactic insights through music.

Pluto Rising auxiliary vocalist Tamsen Turner was born to a resident alien on Mars(hfield). She dabbled in childhood stardom but ultimately tampered with a teleporter and traveled south. After a tesseract that spanned 15 Earth years, Tamsen hitched a ride on a meteorite back to Vermont and now spends her time writing intergalactic poetry inspired by portal-hopping to other dimensions.

Michael Scott Duplessis is a retired mathlete who dreamed of being an astronaut but it turns out that being extremely nearsighted, claustrophobic, and prone to motion sickness are dealbreakers. While sightseeing a UFO crash site, Michael was abducted by aliens and returned to earth with the guitar skills of Saturn's most famous rocker Papa Soulo. Powered by flux capacitor, he is able to shift genres from ska to country to nerdcore and everywhere in between.

Lit has immortalized the stage of a star’s lifecycle, when they turn into a Red Giant as its hydrogen core is completely converted into helium. His cooler temperature gives him the ability to pick up on earth's low tones and channel it into the bass guitar.

Tragically orphaned during the Glorgon Wars of 1980 in the Trappist-1 system, Jeremiah Johnson stowed away on a space raft destined for Alpha Centauri. Due to a rounding error and a pilot intoxicated on space grog, the ship crash-landed in a farm outhouse in Central Vermont. Assuming the child must have super powers, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson salvaged Gunther from the toilet sludge and raised him as their own. After one year, when they discovered his only superpower was playing the drums, they placed him back in the toilet, where he resided until a band flyer for Pluto Rising blew in, advertising the need for a drummer. He took the gig and the rest is history.