Mike Butterworth and Jason Walsmith, The Nadas singer/songwriter duo, are going full time with their new jobs. Fortunately for the Ames music scene, their jobs are with The Nadas.

“A lot of people I run into ask me what I’m still doing in Ames after graduation,” Walsmith said. “They ask me if I’ve found a job yet and I’m like ‘This is my job.”

The big news for The Nadas is the hiring of booking agent Mike Beuning, who was recently featured in a Des Moines Register article on young entrepreneurs.

“He’s going to work on getting us around the Midwest,” Butterworth said. “He’s got connections in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago, Omaha; all the big cities.”

Walsmith and Butterworth spent the summer playing weekly shows as a duo act at People’s and Julio’s in Des Moines. They will be the only Nadas who will take on the job full time.

“We play the same songs as a duo, but the sound is totally opposite from the original Nadas,” Walsmith said.

“When we took on the two slots this summer, we wanted to make sure that the shows didn’t get repetitive,” Butterworth said. “We were trying to keep it interesting so we wrote a new song each week.”

Keeping in traditional Nadas fashion, the songwriters wrote separately. According to Walsmith, of the 40 originals, only two are a collaboration.

“And those we were like, ‘Here, you do this part and I’ll do this,'” he said.

With all the new songs written this summer. The Nadas are able to do an entire set of new material. The two agreed that the new songs are better.

“We are working on a demo just to tide us over until we record the next record,” Butterworth said. “It’s basically just deciding how and where we want to do it.”

“It’s like we did the first record on our own and it worked out pretty well, so do we stick with that again or try something new and risk failure?” Walsmith said.

They have ordered a second batch of 1,000 of their debut CD, Not A Sound. Butterworth said they intend on selling the discs at shows rather than retail.

The Nadas are scheduled to play People’s Sept. 4, Gunnerz in Iowa City Aug. 29 and Sept. 13; Sheffields Sept. 20; East Clair, Wis., Sept. 21 and Homecoming Sept. 27 in Ames.

“We are really going to be attacking some places,” Butterworth said about their upcoming tours. But hey, it’s tough out there as a working man.