Despite losing a rhythm guitarist to Nashville’s music haven, ATO Groove Project is still kickin’ back and relaxing, playing the blues and doing the jam-band thing.

The four-fifths of the band that is crammed on the furniture around the coffee table in the spacious Presidents room of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity are laid-back, carefree guys, which they say helps them appeal to the jam-band niche.

Lead guitarist Christopher Hatch says the band members started playing together about three years ago.

“We’re a jam band/rock-funk,” says Hatch, senior in marketing. “If you’re looking for the sort of covers we do, we cover classic rock, like old blues songs – like Muddy Waters.”

Hatch says the band usually plays cover songs as they were done by the original artists, and jam out during its originals.

He and Andrew Portwood, the band’s former rhythm guitarist, share songwriting duties.

“It used to be me and P-Wood, the other rhythm guitarist,” Hatch says.

“I’ll probably write about half the music.”

Hatch says the band is confused about the song lyrics because lyric-writing is handled solely by lead vocalist Jeremy White.

“I think some of it is personal past experiences,” says bassist Adam Prins, senior in communication studies.

“But then I think a lot of the stuff he just kind of makes up on the fly. But then we have others songs about women and things like that of our past.”

White says the songs are pretty laid back, and his lyrics only get specific on occasion.

“Half of it’s like partying. There’s a song we have called ‘Kingdom Come’ and it’s basically just this king, who is like a warlord over his kingdom,” White says.

“And this one day, he is like, ‘Screw it, I’m done! The people are free.’ And that’s basically kind of the gist of that one. It’s, like, basically the people are all just trying to figure out, ‘Well, why did he do it?'”

Drummer Brian Petraitis, senior in accounting, says ATO Groove Project’s main fan base tends to consist of their fraternity brothers, who are very supportive of their musical endeavors, and others within the greek community.

He says the brothers at the fraternity have been cool with the band practicing at the house.

“We have a pretty large greek following – like a lot of girls,” says Petraitis.

“A lot of sororities come.”

Petraitis says People’s Bar and Grill, 2428 Lincoln Way, is the band’s favorite venue because its experience performing there has always been fun, especially when ATO Groove Project has opened for fellow Ames jam-band, Twistin’ Trees.

Petraitis says he was very impressed with the attitudes of Twistin’ Trees’ members.

Prins says he feels bad because of an incident at People’s where he became violently ill before a show.

“I desecrated People’s stairs,” he says.

“I ate an enchilada or something before we played and then, I downed a Maker’s Mark, and I just had an upset stomach. Then I started getting really nervous right before we went on ’cause the house was just packed. I started puking. And Chris comes up to me and he was like, ‘Are you alright?’ I’m like ‘No, play the first song without me or something.”