The Envy Corps, an alternative rock band that was started in Ames, has been chosen to play a show at 9 p.m. April 25 in the Maintenance Shop, along with the Des Moines band Maids, to honor the venue’s 40th anniversary.

The special event is the second part of a celebratory coupling of shows that honor different eras of the M-Shop’s history. The first installment was kicked off with the appearance of blues legend Eddie Shaw on January 31.

“Our anniversary is this year, and we’ve decided to do a couple of different shows highlighting the decades of the M-Shop,” said M-Shop co-director George Potter. “The Envy Corps is a local band that has played for the M-Shop for about 10 years. They’ve always done incredible shows.”

Choosing The Envy Corps to be the band of the night was an easy choice when the decision had to be made.

“Since I started here about two years ago, they’ve done three shows already, and every single one of them has been sold out, if not close to it. It was a pretty easy choice to have them celebrate the 40th anniversary with us just because they are such a big part of our history, and they love coming here anyways,” Potter said.

This second show has been selected with the M-Shop’s more recent history in mind. The Maintenance Shop chose The Envy Corps considering their popularity and close relationship with the venue over the last several years.

“We’re kind of an indie rock band,” said Envy Corps founding member Luke Pettipoole. “We take influence from a lot of different genres. Generally it’s rock music, but we’re kind of all over the place. From record to record it changes.”

The musician is humbled by having his band chosen to commemorate the anniversary of a concert venue with a rich history of providing space for artists, some of which are famous throughout the world today.

“When George [Potter] from the M-Shop brought [the 40^th anniversary] up to us, we were super honored,” Pettipoole said. “We’ve always been thankful to the M-Shop for not only providing a place for cool touring acts to come through Ames, but for always being really supportive of the great local music that’s been going on.”

The Envy Corps was started in Ames by Luke Pettipoole, with the help of some ISU students.

“I’m from Ames,” Pettipoole said. “I lived there my whole childhood. I ended up meeting some guys that went to Iowa State while I was still in town after high school, and we started the band in 2001.”

The band’s first album, “Soviet Reunion,” was released in 2004. It was mainly recorded by Pettipoole, before The Envy Corps developed a more permanent lineup.

“That record I pretty much did by myself,” Pettipoole said. “At the time I had been working with some guys, and they quit the band, then we got some other guys in, and they ended up quitting. So, I pretty much did that record by myself in a friend’s kind-of home studio he had set up in his house. It was a lot of nights and weekends after work, slowly chipping away at that one.”

The Envy Corps is mainly a rock influenced band, but have evolved their style and recording process as the band has matured.

“You take different approaches when you write songs,” Pettipoole said. “The first batch of Envy Corps songs were written on guitar, and then somewhere down the line we kind of got bored with guitars. We started writing on keyboards, or starting with rhythms and things like that. That changes the way you approach songwriting, and how you decide to fit the different elements together.”

The Envy Corps went on to release “Dwell” in 2008 and their most recent album, “It Culls You”, in August 2011.

“[It Culls You] came out 3 years ago,” Pettipoole said. “That record was just all of us finally getting into a room, without any necessarily preconceived songs. We were figuring out together how we arranged music as four different people, as opposed to before, which was me bringing in ideas that were mostly finished, and we were just kind of working them out.”

A live video album for “It Culls You” songs titled “Live at ARC” is the band’s current project, due out in late May.

“‘It Culls You’ was recorded for a film,” Luke said. “We went back into the same studio we did the record in and recorded a live film of it. That’s going to be released the end of May. It’s called ‘Live at ARC.’ ARC is the name of the studio, which is in Omaha.”

Pettipoole and Brandon Darner, one of the band’s guitarists, have their own production team on the side.

“The guitar player, Brandon Darner, and myself, we have a production team that we’ve started,” Pettipoole said. “We’re calling it Teenage Attorney. We’ve been working with artists from Des Moines, artists from Omaha, artists from England, producing other records.”

The Ames-rooted ensemble has played the Maintenance Shop many times over the years. Being in his hometown, Luke Pettipoole likes to provide the attendees with a special show.

“We owe a lot to the people that started listening to us 10 years ago when we didn’t really have things figured out, or maybe when we weren’t even that good. We might play some older tunes. We’re going to try and play as much as we can that night,” Pettipoole said.

Tickets are available in person at the M-Shop box office or online at midwestix.com. They are $8 for students and $10 for the public, with a $2 upcharge the day of the show.