Welcome to the future. Feel free to shake your booty.

This is the message Ames’ self-described “indiesurfdance” band, 7-inch Wave, has to deliver.

“Basically, all we do is exercise our entertainment protocol,” says Dan Wilcox, of 7-inch Wave.

Wilcox is a senior in computer engineering at Iowa State, but he insists on being called a sonic engineer with an emphasis in discordant tonalities. Even when listing basic information about the instruments he plays in the band, Wilcox turns to the band’s robotic rhetoric.

“We don’t play instruments. We play sonic weapons,” he says. “I utilize the six-string guitar and imitate vocal circuitry.”

Although many bands must be interrogated at length to find what makes them unique, 7-inch Wave makes it easy by staying in character. Wilcox has no shortage of verbal communication to add into the conversation, but the other two components — Grant Adams, or “Grantbot,” senior in mechanical engineering, and Karl Svec, or “Karltron” — don’t limit themselves to Wilcox’s robotic language.

“Grant and I have adopted human idioms much better than Dan has,” says Svec, junior in electrical engineering.

“I am 4.6 astroseconds behind them in human communication,” Wilcox says. “But I am eight astroseconds ahead in dance skills.”

Karltron and Grantbot agree they are envious of their counterpart, “Danomatika,” for having reached a more advanced level of dance. In the world of 7-inch Wave, to dance is human. To booty-shake is divine, or, in their case, robotic.

The three members, as well as passersby who have heard their music, agree that humans can’t help but shake their booties when the band is playing.

“If we could make booties shake all over the world, we would,” Wilcox says.

Armed with electronic drums, an electric guitar and a bass, the band says it creates tonal amplitude and frequency modulation. Remember, the members are all engineers.

Though the band says it has strategically chosen to build a grass-roots populace of booty-shakers in Ames before going into the rest of the world, it has already met some opposition. For one, the members wear identical, futuristic costumes when they play, and this has been knocked by some.

Another way the band has tried to present visually compelling entertainment is through the use of MPlayer, a computer program for the Linux operating system that can convert a video stream into colored text. 7-inch Wave has projected the 1982 movie “Tron” onto a screen with this technology while performing, and members seem satisfied with the results.

“When people come to a show, they’re there to watch something, so we’d might as well give them something to watch,” Svec says. “A lot of people say what we do is gimmicky and that performances should just be about the music, but we think that’s just artsy-fartsy bullshit.”

The robotic trio says bands are often too worried about looking cooler than the audience, so 7-inch Wave has responded by appealing to the geekiness within everyone.

“If people see us and we look stupid and are having fun, then they can be comfortable themselves and have more fun,” Svec says.

At this point, it was late on a Saturday night and 7-inch Wave needed to end its transmission of imitated vocal circuitry. There were booties that needed shaking.

Random ramblings with 7-inch Wave

What are your costumes supposed to be tonight? (The three wore black suits and hollowed-out, red computer monitors on their heads.)

Space ranger robots from the future

— Grant Adams

What is the coolest thing about the future?

The cool helmets.

— Karl Svec

And the best thing about the present?

The women. In the future, women are all metallic, unfeeling and don’t have breasts.

— Dan Wilcox

What is sex known as in the future?

Interfacing.

—- Dan Wilcox

How does it feel to be the bastard sons of Slipknot?

It feels good because we kick their asses!

— Dan Wilcox