Now to state the obvious: College students love beer. They flock to bars to drink on weeknights, weekends and first thing after class on Friday, maybe catching a few great live tunes in the process. So it seems fitting that a band whose very foundations have roots in alcohol-steeped soil is coming to Des Moines. Otis, whose four members call Bean Town home, will rock The Love Shack tomorrow night.

These guys, Mike Hill on guitar, Kev-O-Matic on vocals and rhythm guitar, Josh Scott on bass and Brian Strawn on the drums, met ‘n bonded in Boston through some particularly strange occurrences.

“We all individually moved there, and through weird circumstances ran into each other,” Scott explained. “I got a job at a liquor store with Kevin, and the drummer and rhythm guitar player met at AA, which was really weird ’cause we worked at a liquor store.”

Hill and Strawn were hip on getting a band together, and once O-Matic joined the troupe, the three decided to take on a neophyte musician to complete their lineup. “Mike and Brian put an ad in the paper, which Kevin answered,” Scott said, “and since I was Kevin’s roommate, they showed me how to play bass.

“We practiced for a while, for about three months, straight practice, and then we started getting shows through demo tapes.”

Once they got the ball rolling with some sturdy recordings, Otis decided to hop on the road to get the word out. Touring has since become not just the lifeblood of the band’s publicity, but also a sort of saving grace. “There’s nothing else to do,” Scott said. “If Brian and Mike sit around too long, they start drinking.”

All of this business on the road have taught Otis a few things about the music industry. One, of course, is that audience is key, and publicity is even more vital. “When people are there, they seem to like us,” Scott said. “We don’t have a hype machine like MTV or anything.”

Luckily, a group from one of Ames’ great northern neighbors opens the show for Otis. Janis Figure, who hails from Minneapolis, compliments their Boston buddies like, uh, gin and tonic. “They’re kind of like the other side of the same coin,” Scott said. “I can’t take it upon myself to describe another band.”

But he has plenty of description for his own group. Here, too, is where the booze comes in. “Loud, I guess,” Scott explained. “Mean, ornery. Like the music of drunk old men, who might be us in a few years.”

But that’s a ways into the future. Right now, Otis is concentrating on the here and now, which includes spending oodles of time in the studio, a sort of necessary evil. The crappy stuff will pay off soon, though.

They have two new releases due early in 1996: an EP, Electric Landlady, which will hit before you’ve given up your New Year’s resolutions (January or February), and an LP, Chuck Jackson, due in March, “named after a crazy guy we met in D.C. who likes to scream his own name, Chuck Jackson,” Scott said.

But once all of that studio down-time is over, Otis can get back to what they totally dig: jammin’ live and in the flesh.

“[Recording] is better than being beaten,” Scott said. “I like playing live best. I’ve always been a performer, I guess. I think it’s in my blood. My mom’s a stripper, so that could have something to do with it. Maybe it was something in her genes, or mine.”

Catch these boys (beer is a lovely complement) tomorrow night. Janis Figure and Critical Gopher are the opening acts; Otis headlines. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. at the Love Shack, located at 625 East Court Ave. Bring your ID.

For more info, please call The Shack at 280-1067.