6240 is one pissed-off band. But at least it is one of the few bands representing the Midwest during the 11th annual South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas next week.

“We’re just a pissed-off band and that’s the way we play,” 6240 bassist Joe Bramhall said.

Bramhall said that the main reason Ames-based 6240 is perturbed is from the lack of rock music in the world. “There is not enough rocking going on in America and too much whining and too much ballad-singing.”

“There’s not many rock bands left, and sometimes that makes it tough to get a gig,” Bramhall said.

6240 must be an exception with SXSW officials who’ve invited the band to come back for its second year in a row.

“We were very excited when we found out,” Bramhall said. He said making a good impression last year helped them get accepted again.

“They like to see that you’re doing things. We’ve let them know that we’ve been touring…so they’d know that we’re not just sitting around.”

6240 is also preparing to release Bring Your Army, the band’s second album on Journey West Records.

Brent Grulke, creative director of SXSW and one of the people who is responsible for the huge task of weeding thousands of bands down to a list of 600, said there were 4500 submissions to be judged this year.

“It is a very time-consuming process that we spend most of the fall doing,” he said.

Grulke said the process of choosing which bands to invite involves listening to CDs, offering comments and listening to them again, over and over.

“We always try to make sure we give special emphasis to artists outside of the media capitals,” Grulke said.

Bramhall said attending SXSW was a big confidence-builder for the band. “We had been touring around the Midwest pretty extensively and getting kind of frustrated. It opened up the world to us.”

After last year’s convention, 6240 saw its touring opportunities expand to the East Coast. “We got a really good response when we played. The really big thing that happened was just from people saying, ‘you guys should come out to Boston and play, you should come here and play.'”

Lee Bellon, vocalist and guitarist for Grain USA, a Des Moines band that played in last year’s conference, said playing in SXSW was a fun time.

Grain USA will not be participating in this year’s conference, however. “It is quite an ordeal to go down there,” Bellon said.

Brian Buhman, bassist for Grain USA, is a student at Iowa State, and Bellon works full time in Des Moines.

Bellon said there is a common misconception about SXSW. “You have all these cute little bands play and all of these A&R reps go around and sign bands, when actually it is one big party. All of the music company folk are there to just party and watch the well-established bands.”

Bellon said that he went to Austin more with the intention of seeing other bands. “The last thing we were thinking about was our actual slot that we were playing. We went because there were a lot of our favorite bands there that we wanted to see.”

Erik Walter, singer and guitar player for The TwistOffs, said his band played SXSW in 1994. “It is one of the special things that you can’t do every year,” Walter said.

The TwistOffs were accepted its first year of applying, but have been turned down the last three years. He said that attending SXSW got The TwistOffs a lot of shows all over the country, including Wyoming and Boston.

Walter said that a band’s success depends a lot on what people have done for them before the convention. “I’d go just for fun. Even if it’s a bust, you can still have a blast.”

For bands that have been turned down, Grulke has some advice: “They should keep doing it. The thing to realize is that if these bands work on writing songs, performing and concentrating on those elements, that that is the best way to further their career and grow as musicians and grow creatively.

“Certainly it is the best way of ensuring they may have a place in SXSW. SXSW is one tool they could possibly use to help themselves.”