Aren’t all brass players weird? I asked Dan Haywood, guitarist of the ska band Do It Kappa, this question over happy hour beers at The Dock a few weeks ago. “Yes, at least 100% of the time,” he replied, without a second of hesitation. “But everyone in the band is weird.”

Dan’s friends at work think he’s in a fraternity and is constantly sending them invites to frat events, usually titled something like “Do It [insert name of Greek letter] at [insert venue in Montana].” This phrase has nothing to do with Greek life, nor the soccer brand of a similar name. “Why on earth would you call your band ‘Do It Kappa’?” I asked him. He told me it has to do with a Danny Boyle movie that I’ve never heard of called “Sunshine” that was released in 2007.

Dan said the movie was the “epitome of cheese” and involves a group of astronauts reigniting the sun before it burns out. I cross-referenced what he told me with IMDb (where the movie is given a 7.3 out of 10 rating). The main character, a cheesy and dramatic, yet less-creepy-than-normal Cillian Murphy is “Robert Capa.” As Capa is saving the world by sacrificing himself to the sun (or something like that, I only watched a short clip and didn’t understand any of the back story), a fellow astronaut cries out to him, “do it, Capa!” The band was named on this scene, albeit with a tragic misspelling that would forever lead to a bunch of awkward band geeks appearing to be in a fraternity with annoying and pervasive events.

“Are you guys ska-hipsters?” I asked Dan, after he told me they pick up cases of PBR for shows (and will drink well whiskey if it’s free). “We try to be,” he said. Recently their singer, who plays left-handed guitar and occasionally wears plaid, was off-stage at a local venue when he heard a customer disgustedly look at him and say “[expletive] hipster.” “We are all band geeks,” says Dan, although the drummer, who is one of the loudest drummers around — he plays his drums so forcefully he’s broken the metal brackets that hold his snare — manages to run five miles a day while still playing in other bands and ensembles and going snowboarding quite frequently.

Most bands are formed the same way and that story gets old, but not so with Do It Kappa. “No, no, it’s actually really interesting how we were formed, you should write about this,” he replied. The band was approved in the music program at Montana State University as an ensemble, which gave the band structure and forced the members to “hunker down and learn.” The band was formed out of the ashes of Helena ska band “Audible and the Mean Gorillas,” picking up many former members and even performing reorganized versions of their songs. Although Do It Kappa occasionally play shows where there are “more people in the band [nine] than in the audience,” Dan thinks that they are a “breath of fresh air for people,” as one of the few ska bands in Montana. This would explain their inexplicable popularity in particular venues around the state.

And they work hard to be a breath of fresh air. The band is finishing up a six-song album called “Brains,” which they hope to release before the semester is over. They’ve been slowly working on the album for about a year, self-recording the tracks and even enlisting a comic book artist for the album artwork. “Never once has money meant anything to us,” Dan said, before he told me how the band members hand make tie-dyed shirts to sell at shows for only a few measly bucks, even though almost no one will wear tie-dyed shirts in public.

If a bunch of brass instruments and weird band geeks performing in public sounds like a good time, see this awkwardly named non-fraternity based band in concert. Do It Kappa will be playing shows at the Haufbrau on April 4th, with Arms Aloft, and April 6th, with Panther Car, as well as participating in an 80’s tribute show at the Filling Station on April 7th and opening for the Dub Sultan and David Dalla G dual album release party at the Zebra on April 14th. You can also check out the band online at Facebook (facebook.com/doitkappa), ReverbNation (reverbnation.com/doitkappa), or SoundCloud (soundcloud.com/do-it-kappa). They’re worth a listen. They can “play the s—“ out of “Tequila,” not to mention another hour and half of mostly original tunes that will get you dancing and buying tie-dyed shirts.

Mike Tarrant has entered the real world after graduating in Music Technology and Economics from Montana State University in 2011. He can be reached at mtarrant24@gmail.com