It’s a rare thing these days to find a band whose name actually has any real significance beyond just sounding cool. Grasshopper Takeover, on the other hand, derived their name from a near-death experience.

“We were hunting up at a farm in northern Nebraska, and these birds jumped up from right underneath me and startled me. I started falling down an embankment and my gun went off and grazed my abdomen and I was knocked unconscious,” explains lead singer Curtis Grubb. “When I was waking, I wasn’t sure if I was dead or alive. The first thing I thought of when I woke up was that I was in the future a few million years and insects had taken over.”

The gunshot wound is not the only freak accident Grubb has experienced. Bob Boyce, the band’s drummer, says Grubb also had a close call involving their run-down tour van.

“Curt was driving the tour van down a hill and the brakes went out, and he drove into a lake,” Boyce says. “He couldn’t open the window because of the water pressure.”

Boyce says Curt was saved by a memory from an ’80s television show.

“He remembered some ‘MacGyver’ episode, and waited for the water to mostly fill the van so he could open it and get out,” Boyce says.

With the close calls hopefully in the past, this pop-rock trio from Omaha, Neb., will perform Wednesday night at Boheme Bistro, 2900 West St., allowing their fans, along with people who have yet to be taken over by grasshoppers, to find out what the band has been up to during the last few years.

“We’ve been recording and just playing around in Omaha for a really long time, so we’re excited to get out and play again live because it’s been a while,” says bass player James McMann.

Ames is the first stop on their Midwest tour.

“It’s taken a year or two to put this album together, so it’s nice to see that there’s a good buzz going around,” Grubb says. “It means a lot that the fans have been loyal and are really interested in the new album and tour.”

Grasshopper Takeover established a fanbase primarily through their last album, “International Dance Marathon,” which was released in 2000. The band is now promoting the sound that will be heard on their new record, which is will be released this spring.

“This album differs from [‘International Dance Marathon’] because it’s a whole. All the songs were written for this project and were more consistent and thought out and were all recorded at one studio, instead of jumping around from place to place or re-doing old stuff,” McMann says. “It sounds more like what we sound like live than our last album did.”

Boyce says the whole band is excited about the freedoms they were given on the new record.

“We really got to do it the way we always wanted to,” Boyce says. “We took some time and got to do it at our own pace without a lot of money on the line or a strict time schedule — it’s become just a straight-up rock album.”

As with any band, Grubb says the devoted listeners are the ones keeping Grasshopper Takeover alive.

“We get at least 50 e-mails a day from fans that are excited about the new music, and we work hard to respond to every one of them,” Grubb says adamantly. “[The fans are] not a peripheral element to us and they’re not something we take for granted.”

Grubb says long-time fans should look forward to some interesting surprises at the show.

“We’re just ants waiting to get out,” Grubb says. “There’s a good chance that one or more of us will be naked. Also, there might be a big sexy pop star that we’re friends with that is planning on making a guest appearance the night of the show in Ames.”

Who: Grasshopper Takeover, Frankenixon

Where: Boheme Bistro, 2900 West St.

When: 9 p.m. Wednesday

Cost: $5