Thirteen years of playing in bands shows commitment. Or love. Or maybe just a drive to be creative. But to Dan Hutchison, it means it’s time to make a decision.

“If I’m going to do this [be in a band], I’ve got to do something serious with this,” says Hutchison, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for Why Make Clocks. “I’ve got to do this before it’s too late [and] I don’t know what too late is.”

Hutchison; Brian Wiksell, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter; Karl Seimers, guitarist; Daily reporter Boonie, bassist; and Lee Bissmeyer, drummer, now have the chance to make something of Why Make Clocks. About two weeks ago, New York based indie label Rubric Records (Mary Lou Lord, Scorched Earth) agreed to put out Why Make Clocks’ album “15 Feet and 20 Degrees,” with a tentative release date of October 1.

“One of the best things will be the distribution, to actually have your record out in stores,” Wiksell says. “They’re really well-distributed out here in the Midwest.”

A friend of the band passed the album to the president of the label, who apparently liked what he heard.

“I think it’s going to help us focus,” Wiksell adds. “It’s more of a kick in the butt for us, get things organized in the band, figure out what we’re doing.”

About four months ago the band started shopping “15 Feet and 20 Degrees” to labels, after recording the album last summer in Lincoln, Neb. at a studio owned by two of the members of Bright Eyes. Some of the songs are older than the band itself; Hutchison and Wiksell were writing what would become Why Make Clocks material back in ’97.

“Brian and I have known what this album was going to sound like for years,” Hutchison says. “It was just getting it all rehearsed to the point where we felt comfortable.”

He and Wiksell played in the punk band Going to Grandma’s until their tastes began to change.

“We both realized we were starting to listen to music that there was no way it could fit into the punk realm,” Hutchison says.

Members joined and left until the band came to the current lineup and had written more than 50 songs, 10 of which ended up on the album.

Listeners have labeled the band Americana and alt-country, but Hutchison feels there is more to Why Make Clocks than that.

“I hear it in a few songs here and there,” Hutchison says. “I know what the fifty songs we have sound like, and I know there’s a lot more than that.”

With the help of Rubric Records, music fans around the nation will have the chance to decide for themselves about music.

“The way I understand it, their distributor takes two- to three-hundred copies of it and sends it around for press, and then they send another two- or three-hundred to college stations to get some airplay,” Hutchison says.

He pauses briefly, somewhat amused.

“It kind of seems funny. What song would fit on the radio from our album?”

Hutchison says he tries to come up with a mood more than anything else when writing songs.

“They’re kind of musician-friendly songs,” he explains. “There’s a lot of bands where the crowd might not understand what you’re doing, but musicians that are there might come up and be like, `That arrangement was great.'”

And Hutchison believes this is conveyed on the record.

“We tried to make an album like we would have, like we would own or want to listen to,” he says. “You’re not just skipping through the hit songs.”

But with the added promotion from Rubric Records, Why Make Clocks is ready to make it happen, whatever “it” is.

“I’m really excited about it,” Wiksell says. “It’s really an opportunity for us to work harder.”

And work means shows.

“If you’re going to have an album that’s out there coming with promotion, you’ve got to play a lot more shows too, and not just in your little local area,” Hutchison says. “Because if you don’t, it’s kind of worthless to [put out the record].”

So the band is building up its touring schedule, planning more dates in more cities to support an album that’s not exactly the happiest of fare.

“A lot of these are about a breaking point you would have in a situation, something where it was really bad and it was a point where you were like, `All right, this is as much as I’m going to take of this,'” Hutchison says.

“I’ve heard it described as being a little bit of a downer, but I don’t really think of it that way because I think it’s like you’re not down anymore,” he continues. “You’re past being down about that.”

With national distribution and a determination to succeed, Why Make Clocks doesn’t seem to have much to be down about any longer.

“If we can write songs that we’re proud of when we’re done, that’s what I hope for us,” Hutchison says. “If we can sell some records and mean something to somebody else, then that’s great.”

Along with his humility, though, Hutchison reveals some final hope.

“It’d be great if we recorded an album that meant as much to somebody else in their relation to their life as much as some of the albums that are important to me,” he says. “That’s a big goal, but what the hell, you just gotta get it to the right person.”