After one ring of the phone, the Waybacks guitarist Stevie Coyle answers with a chipper greeting. Although it’s nearly afternoon in Ames, out in California Coyle has had to be an early riser to grant this interview. But he doesn’t seem to mind too much.

“I’ve heard there were two 9 o’clocks every day,” he jokes. “But I haven’t seen this one in a while.”

About 18 months ago, Coyle and the rest of the Waybacks quit their jobs and made full-time gigs of playing their particular brand of traditional/acoustic/old-time/bluegrass music.

A few of the Waybacks had high-tech jobs in Silicon Valley before they, as Coyle puts it, “pink-slipped ourselves from our old jobs and made this pretty much full-time.” One was a manager for a computer firm, one a consultant for Oracle Systems and another a Web designer.

Coyle says it wasn’t strange that they left these jobs to play music typically considered antiquated.

“I’m sure that one drove us to the other,” he says. “Most of us are well into our 40s. For all of us, playing acoustic music is kind of going back to the music we grew up with. We’re getting back to it rather than coming around to it for the first time.”

In fact, there is apparently quite a community for those interested in old-time music out in an area that has become most famous for computers.

“The acoustic and bluegrass scene is just hoppin,’ ” Coyle says.

“Even before the ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ phenomenon hit a couple years ago, there was a thriving scene here of folks that are even much more traditional than we are.”

Coyle says that although the scene is supportive, he’s not sure how much longer the Waybacks will call California home.

“Part of the problem is the cost of living here in Silicon Valley is so doggone high,” he says. “What we’re making would be considered a pretty handsome living in other parts of the country.”

Regardless of where you hang your hat, the life of a professional musician is most always spent on the road. The Waybacks are no stranger to the stage and proudly have a fan base that loves to experience music live, partially due to the band’s somewhat peculiar association with bands like Phish and the Grateful Dead.

“For younger folks, they’re coming around to it through the whole jam band scene,” Coyle says. “That lineage comes through the Grateful Dead. That scene of populist improvisational music that’s all about the live thing got people turned on to live music.”

Coyle also credits the Dead with the fact that these fans are open to acoustic music and so avidly pursue it.

“Jerry Garcia and his various projects got those people turned on to acoustic music,” Coyle says.

“They’re following it back all by themselves to the turn of the century. There are some very well-educated young people coming to our shows.

“It’s surprising to us,” he continues. “With so much music being out there and being so much a part of people’s lives, they go out and do research on it. God bless the Internet because you can sit in your spare room in your underwear at 2 o’clock in the morning and learn about [bluegrass legend] Ralph Stanley.”

Coyle acknowledges that the Waybacks’ jam band affiliation can basically be credited to the fact that their music is structured more towards instrumentation and improvisation than writing a catchy pop tune.

“I don’t think we’ve gone more towards the pop end of the spectrum,” he explains.

“We’ve gone more towards the obscure and odd, which I guess is kind of a particularly strange thing to take something that’s obscure to begin with and make a strange version.”

Somehow, it makes perfect sense. Five men from the center of the United States band together to push the limits of a musical genre that has purposefully remained stagnant but has also experienced a recent resurgence. Coyle fully realizes what it takes to accomplish the task the Waybacks have set themselves to.

“It’s a of sort no-holds-barred situation,” he says. “We go thundering fearlessly into some strange realm and see what turns up. Usually it’s pretty good.”

Who: The Waybacks

Where: Maintenance Shop

When: 8 p.m. Friday

Cost: $5 students, $7 public