If it were up to 35″ Mudder drummer Dave Eagan, all of their shows would be all ages.

“I guess you could say we’re targeted toward more of a younger audience,” he said from his Ames home.”Our shit is pretty heavy and tense and kids have more energy to handle it.”

“All-ages shows have a different vibe. Kids are up movin’ and stage divin’ and shit. They’ll buy tapes or stickers instead of beer, ya know. We don’t want to be background music for drinkin’ and pickin’ up chicks,” he said.

Eagan, along with singer/rapper Shawn McCourt, bassist Jay McBurney and guitarist Tim Van Haston, has been playing the Ames clubs since their formation a year ago.

Taking no time in building a fan base, the quartet soon found themselves opening up for such national acts as Goldfinger and The Urge, whom they will be playing with again tonight.

“It was phat,” Eagan said about the band’s first show with The Urge. “We had just put out a demo of a live show and a bunch of kids showed up and knew a lot of the songs. I would say it was probably our best show.”

Eagan has been playing drums for four years and guitar for much longer.

He made the switch after realizing that guitar players were much easier to come by.

“My dad plays drums so I always messed around on his kit,” he said. “I started auditioning drummers and I was like, dude I can play better then this guy.”

Although he denies it, members of 35″ Mudder claim Eagan as the leader of the band.

“I just take care of all the shit when we’re not on stage,” Eagan claimed. “It’s not like on stage. I’m the drummer, I’m in the back .”

It was Eagan, .along with McBurney, who founded 35″ Mudder. The two met at a local record store after finding out they shared similar music tastes.

“We scored Tim a couple months later,” Eagan explained. “But it took a long time before we found Shawn.”

The then trio tried out several singing styles, from pure melodies to screaming. But Eagan knew from the start that rapping would go better with the band’s style.

The only problem was finding someone to pull it off, that was until Eagan bumped into McCourt at an area bar.

“I’m from Jersey and he’s from Philly so we started talking about music from that area,” Eagan said.

“I was telling him that we were jammin’ and looking for someone to lay down some hip-hop lyrics. And he said he could do it,” he said.

McCourt’s style worked and 35″ Mudder went into full force. With three of the four original members being able to play guitar, writing the music came naturally.

McCourt, who remains the sole lyricist for the band, pounded into the writing, which Eagan describes as “on the political tip.”

Sporting dark dread-locks, the singer is often compared to Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine.

“It’s a total complement to be compared to Rage,” Eagan said. “But I don’t really agree.”

“People here aren’t really exposed to that kind of music a lot so any time they hear rapping and metal they thing of Rage. We don’t do all of the weird noises and shit. We’re more straight forward and heavy.”

Eagan went on to list some other influences, such as Downset and Dog Eat Dog.

“Heavier shit goes over way better out there,” he said about the New Jersey scene.

“Even on the radio, everything’s more heavy. There’s also a big underground scene, people trading demos and stuff. And there’s none of that around here.”

Although Eagan and his band hold nothing against Ames, they have already talked about moving either east or west once they graduate.

One frequent problem they won’t miss about the college music scene, is losing members to graduation. 35″ Mudder’s original bassist did just that, and has since moved to Omaha.

They were quick to find a replacement in Seasons Calling bassist Chad Calek.

“It’s just something you gotta deal with,” Eagan said. “People have their priorities. Luckily, everybody’s pretty set on the band now.”

35″ Mudder plays at People’s Bar and Grill tonight with Ames’ Great Big Freak and the St. Louis ska-punk quartet, The Urge.

The Urge makes it back to Ames this semester after a sold-out show with Fragile Porcelain Mice at People’s last semester.

They also opened up for 311 in Des Moines last semester.