Often times the Chicago-based band oh my god is labeled as an “art-rock” band. Maybe it’s because they have an organist, maybe it’s because they don’t have a guitar player or maybe it’s because of their smart and clever lyrics. Organ player Iguana believes that the rock part is right, and as for the art — who cares as long as people are paying attention?

“I’m bored with genres and definitions. We didn’t say we are an art-rock band; people started calling us that,” Iguana says during a break from afternoon rehearsal. “People usually ask ‘what are you, a rock band?’ and we say ‘yeah, we are a rock band’ but I guess you have to classify everything.”

The band’s music sweeps across a wide spectrum of sounds. At times the band has a hard-driving classic-rock vibe and other times it slows things down for piano-guided ballads. On songs like “Action” from its latest release, “The Action Album!” the band even dives into its quirky ’80s new-wave pop roots.

“I grew up during the ’80s, so I listened to a lot of Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk and The Cure,” Iguana says. “With ‘Action’ I just discovered this tone and started playing a few notes and it did have that ’80s sound and it started out almost as a joke.”

Singer Billy O’Neill attributes the band’s ability to capture so many different styles of music and harness them into one particular sound to its love of pop music in general.

“Pop is not a dirty word,” O’Neill says over the sound of Iguana playing in the background. “My definition of pop music is broad. Hell, Radiohead is pop music — intensive, brilliant and really cool pop music. Pop, rock, whatever.”

Another musical banner that you might hear as a descriptor of oh my god is punk. It’s probably pretty hard to imagine a voice-organ-drum (and occasional bass guitar) trio being all that punk, but according to O’Neill, it’s not necessarily in the music, but in the attitude of the band.

“My definition of punk is something that says ‘Hey, here it is — we’re going to hang our balls out and it’s going to be the real shit,’ ” O’Neill explains. “It’s just going to try and be real honest and often fiery and a very unique voice which is what I was attracted to in Iguana’s playing.”

“It’s a curious sound. It’s not necessarily something that everyone warms to on the first listening. But I do believe that if people do in fact try and listen they will hear an artist who is doing something wholly original.”

Fortunately for the band, its unique sound has been accepted more than it hasn’t across the country. The band is scheduled to play about 110 shows this year and O’Neill says that it often times gets a great reception from fans, especially in the bigger markets like Los Angeles and New York. He does mention one particular show in Oklahoma, though, where the fans just didn’t understand what the band was trying to do.

“They just totally didn’t get us and they were really these complete … fools, who were offended by the strangeness of our music. They were frightened by it and their reaction by being frightened was to try and be aggressive with us,” O’Neill explains. “I was more than happy to just totally tell the guy to get a life. I don’t want to insult the state of Oklahoma, though, because there were three other guys that came up and rose to the deceit.”

One place where the band is definitely getting a good reception is Iowa and the Maintenance Shop in particular. The group played the Boheme earlier this semester and this weekend will be a “Iowa Extravaganza,” as Iguana calls it, when the group plays Hairy Mary’s in Des Moines on Friday and the M-Shop Saturday.

“The M-Shop is definitely one of our favorite places to come; we’ve always had good shows there,” Iguana says. “It’s not like a party crowd. People go there to check out the bands and listen to the music. It makes you feel extra inspired to dig in and do everything you can to tap into the emotion of the tune. The places that want pool tables, chicken wings and football games are the worst.”