It is a cold-ass Tuesday night. A fierce wind sends a shaft of chill straight up your spine, making the hair on the back of your neck stand like a squad of Marines on parade at a reform school for girls.

The winter darkness is filled with ominous foreboding and a strange whiff of evil. In the distance, either a coyote or a lost freshman is whooping as it hunts for a nightly meal.

All the signs are there. Evil is afoot.

At least it is in the basement where 35″ Mudder is practicing — without a doubt, the most ill practice arena in all of Ames.

Walking into the house where 35″ Mudder is already jamming, the sound comes through the floor like a chainsaw on nitro, buzzing and popping up through the floorboards like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” only funkier and nastier.

The house seems like it could have been in fine shape before these guys started practicing there, and it only became “college chic” once they started.

In a claustrophobic side room of the dingy basement, where headroom is at a premium, 35″ Mudder is hammering the kinks out of a new tune.

The impression you get when you meet the men of 35″ Mudder is different from the one you get when you see them kick it live.

While performing, they come at the crowd full force, no mercy, like a blitzkrieg. But offstage, this band is sober and professional, with a heapin’ helpin’ of humor.

They rag on each other and make fun of themselves and the medium they have chosen to work in. They take their music as serious as a heart attack and keep their eyes on the prize.

At 26, drummer Dave Egan is the “wise old man” of the group. He sits behind the drum kit in exactly the same way Yoda wouldn’t.

He is quiet, but you can tell he is the driving force behind the band — the only founding member still pounding away.

Egan came to the Midwest from New Jersey and formed 35″ Mudder three years ago. His role in the band is that of the mentor, the resident hardcore expert and professor emeritus of the underground scene.

But his self-deprecating demeanor is what shows itself as the conversation gets rolling.

“I just stay at home and try to get Mudder heavier,” Egan says.

Guitarist Brian Calek (who looks like Kwai Chang Caine on protein supplements) is quick to give “Big Eg” his due credit.

“We’ll have two or three riffs that we come to practice with, and we’ll start hammering ’em out over and over again, and Dave will kick something up on the drums and say follow me or can you play louder here,” Brian Calek says. “He kind of organizes it, and then we turn it over to Dusty or C-bone, and they fuck it up. I give Dave a bunch of riffs, and he tells me which ones I play suck and which ones don’t.”

Vocalists Dusty Feuerbach and Cory “C-bone” Brown make up Mudder’s dynamic front. Feuerbach is the hardcore side of the vocals and adds his own touch to the lyrics by digging into his personal relationships for inspiration.

“When I first started in this band, I was doing completely different than what my dad’s expectations of me were,” Feuerbach says. “And putting time in this band, I’ve kind of put other things aside … like school went down the shitter, but the band started doing really good.”

C-bone looks like a quiet guy, but once he gets started, you can’t shut him up. Luckily, he is entertaining enough that you don’t want to.

Listening to him go on about his role in the band is like tapping into the band’s future image of itself. He has a weathered kind of optimism to his personality that makes him seem like he is old and young at the same time.

In addition to screaming in the mic, C-bone’s job is adding the hip-hop flavor to the group. He talks about his younger days without a hint of irony or sarcasm, even though he looks like an 18-year-old straight out of high school.

“Growing up, I was more of a rap guy, and as I matured I got into the heavier shit,” C-bone says. “I listened to a lot of Cypress Hill and House of Pain; I really wasn’t into the heavy music until I got into Korn and shit like that. Our style of music is kind of a mix between the harder-edge stuff and the rap.”

The harder is the fire that heats “Stained,” the new 35″ Mudder record that will be celebrated Saturday night at People’s.

Bands like 35″ Mudder feed off crowds like energy-sucking vampires, and live performances are its main interest. But moving up the ziggurat requires time in the studio, where you can’t depend on crowds to pump you up.

“The studio is different from live because you got to do it over and over again until Big Eg says it’s OK,” C-bone says, taking another affectionate potshot at Egan. “Live, you just feed off the crowd. There’s times when we play in front of lots of people and go crazy, and there’s times when we play in front of not so many, and it’s hard to do the same thing, but it’s all part of the show.”

One way 35″ Mudder keeps the energy up is by playing all-ages shows where young crowds bring a festival atmosphere with them even without alcohol.

“The kids get into the music, and it’s a big event for them. They move; they have a good time,” C-bone says. “We run into a lot of 21-and-over crowds that are there to drink and are too old to mosh. They just want to sit around and bob their heads, which is all right, but we prefer the all-ages because the kids are more intense.”

Chad Calek, 35″ Mudder’s bassist, is yellow-headed, soft and fuzzy like an Easter chick but with a much louder peep and a sinister backwoods attitude, like a Freeman with a good sense of humor. He sees the alcohol and other drugs that are stereotypical of the rock life as a hindrance to a high-energy performance.

“A lot of the 21-year-old bands are drinking and playing at the same time,” Calek says. “People get pissed off if you don’t want to smoke a joint with them, they get pissed off if you don’t want to trip with ’em. ‘Sorry guys, I gotta play in five minutes — I don’t want to be seeing green monsters in the crowd … sorry!’ With our type of music, you don’t stand and play. It’s designed to move people.”

“We aren’t straight-edge, but we don’t want to be fucking losers either,” Brian Calek adds.

The future of 35″ Mudder lies in the mysterious East.

Soon, the band members will be packing up their meager belongings and, in the opposite way of their pioneer ancestors, heading east.

Big Eg’s roots are in Jersey, and the guys feel if they are to have a future in music, it will be in an area which has more to offer their style of hardcore.

Brian Calek sums up the future in his mystic way of saying a lot while saying very little: “We want to get paid. We want to make a business out of this because we love it.”

35″ Mudder will host its CD release party Saturday at People’s Bar and Grill at 5 p.m. The all-ages show is $5 at the door. Copies of “Stained” will be available.

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Song-by-Song

“Stained”

35″ Mudder

“Full Scale War”

Cory Brown: “Full Scale War” was inspired by how competitive the scene is and people talking smack about us. It was inspired by all the fucking shit that happened, and it’s pretty much saying it’s a fucking war, man; let’s go.

“Selfishness”

Dusty Feuerbach: “Selfishness” is about just taking care of yourself and saying fuck other people because they all fuck you.

“Trigger”

Brown: “Trigger” is about staying true to your beliefs to the point where people start pushing their shit on to you, and you’ll go to the extreme of pulling a gun on ’em if that’s what it takes to get ’em off your back. It’s gangsta metal.

Brian Calek: I thought it was about Roy Rogers’ horse.

Feuerbach: When we started working on it, it was more about being an influence on someone and showing people what something’s really about — triggering their thoughts and triggering their emotions.

“Fist To Fist”

Feuerbach: It’s about a friend of mine who shot himself and just about what type of person he was. A lot of the song’s about how you could barely know the guy, but if he got along with you and someone crosses your path, he’d be right behind you. He’d always have your back. He’d kick some big-ass guy’s butt just because of principle.

“Stained”

Brown: It’s pretty much a collaboration of all the fucking ex-girlfriends that I would rather spit in their face than give them a hug. You know what I mean? It’s just about being fucked over by a bitch. Everyone’s been pissed on before.

“D.O.P.”

Feuerbach: I wrote this song about when I first started in this band and how I was doing completely different than what my dad’s expectations of me were, and how the time I’ve put into this band. I’ve kind of put other things aside that aren’t as big of priority any more, like school. It’s about how school went down the shitter, but the band started doing really good.