For the Poison Control Center, any amount of recognition should seem like a lot, considering the circumstances under which the band was formed.

“We didn’t really think we would be a band when we started out,” says Patrick Fleming of the Ames area band. “PCC started in about 2000 – we were kind of just a bunch of friends recording songs for fun.”

Though the fun remains in the band, the group is now more than just a bunch of friends. Since its formation, the members have managed to turn the Poison Control Center into a touring outfit that has played across the country and has even been selected to play this year’s CMJ Music Festival in New York this September.

“It’s a festival that over 5,000 bands try to get into. We’d never tried before; we submitted some stuff and we got asked to play,” says Fleming, a guitarist and vocalist for the band. “It’s always been a dream of mine to play it, so it’s pretty cool that it’s happening.”

This dream for the band was not an easy one to turn into a reality, either. At the band’s formation, it was uncertain whether it would even be able to play live.

“We had dozens of people play on our first record,” Fleming says. “We didn’t ever intend to play live, but then people started asking us to – so we did.”

“Our first shows where absolute chaos. I think we had 18 people on stage at one time. Someone would yell out ‘this song is in the key of D’ but half of the performers wouldn’t even know what the key of D was,” he recalls.

The number of band members continually dropped until the band became what it is today, an indie power-pop quartet that can claim to have fans in states all over the nation. Like many bands, the band holds the Internet at least partially responsible.

“We’ve definitely taken advantage of the Internet as a distribution tool,” guitarist and vocalist Devin Frank says. “It’s really cool when you show up to play in a town and people have actually heard your music.”

In addition to the Internet, the band also has gained fans the old-fashioned way – through touring, something it had the chance to do this summer.

“We played a huge variety of shows during the tour,” says Ephraim Curtis, PCC’s drummer.

Fleming recalls one show that stood out above the rest.

“We played in this college professor’s living room. We took up half the room with our gear, but the show was awesome” he says.

“Yeah, that show was great,” Curtis adds.

In recent years, PCC has had its share of national recognition. The group had songs charted on national college radio, and was were featured as an artist of the month on NPR’s Todd Mundt Show and even had Max Weinberg, drummer for Bruce Sprinsteen and “The Conan O’Brian Show,” fill in on drums for a show.

In light of all this, the band says it would love to be known for it’s music.

“I guess we definitely don’t want to get famous, but we would definitely like to put out a quality album,” Fleming says.