When disaster strikes, people often sit back and wonder if they can do anything to help.

For one Des Moines band, it was instinctive to take action and give what it could to make a difference.

“It’s a natural response as a musician to help people through music,” says Brandon Foley of three-piece rock band Mondo Cane. “Whatever skills you have, you should use them to help.”

Much of the band’s lyrical content deals with the ugliness in life being the price paid for the beauty of experience, Foley says.

“This [hurricane] is as ugly as it gets,” he says.

Foley says it is interesting that Mondo Cane’s theme fits right in with the devastation caused by nature, a normally beautiful and vital thing. This parallel was one of the reasons Foley said he decided to organize the benefit show. “It might be something that charges me to help,” Foley says.

Another driving factor behind the benefit concert is what Foley calls a fascination with New Orleans.

“It always seemed like a different country to me,” he says. “It’s so unique compared to other major cities.”

Foley says he feels New Orleans is a place that celebrates differences and fosters support of the jazz and blues music scenes.

Foley and his band, however, are not the only local musicians who wanted to help the relief effort. Ames pop-punk band Stuck With Arthur jumped on board for the show, seeing it as a way to offer substantial help.

“It’s a really easy way for us and for anyone to help,” says drummer Chris Ford, junior in electrical engineering.

Ford says he is worried something like Hurricane Katrina can be really easy to ignore, especially, he feels, if people don’t pay attention to the news.

“This is so horrible,” he says. “We can’t ignore it.”

Ford says things such as the price of gas remind him that sometimes he can be isolated from the world.

“I go out two weeks later and it’s, like, 50 cents more,” he says.

The drummer attributes the fundraising opportunity of Pop Save New Orleans to the success Stuck With Arthur has had.

“You can really do a lot of cool stuff and you don’t really have to be that special,” he says.

A lot of bands submit to not doing anything because they think they can’t, but Stuck With Arthur has overcome that, Ford says.

“When we started in the fall of 2001 we were just terrible; we really were,” he says.

Friday night’s earnings will go directly to the Red Cross, and beyond the cover charge, there will be an opportunity to donate more at the door. Foley wants to ensure that people recognize why they are doing this and that they give for the right reasons.

“This is not some fad to guilt people into giving,” Foley says. “Give because you love.”

Who: Pop Save New Orleans

What: Benefit Concert w/ Mondo Cane, Stuck With Arthur and Poison Control Center

Where: Vaudeville Mews, 212 4th St. in Des Moines

When: 10 p.m. Friday

Cost: Donations, with a $5 minimum