Photo courtesy of Check Raised

… this band figures the most successful way to that road is to be themselves — even if they goof off a little too much in the process.

Jordan Dau wore a t-shirt with a man in a spacesuit drowning in his own blood. His friend Derek Contreras sipped on a cup of water as he prepared to scream his lungs out. Then there is Fresno State graduate Matt O̢۪Connor and there̢۪s Bobby Taul, who works at a job he hates, just so he can get together with the guys and do one thing they all love: playing their own new school punk rock.

So when “Check Raisedâ€Â all get together to play, it’s not in a garage, or at one of their parents’ houses. They all pay to rent a room in a studio in the Tower District.

On Wednesday, the band practiced their eight song setlist for their upcoming show at Club Fred on October 9.

While “Check Raisedâ€Â has played at that bar before, they feel the turnout for the show will not be quite as big as their last one. But they are definitely looking forward to it.

“We want to play our own tour in February,â€Â lead vocalist Derek Contreras, 22, said, after a session in which he did a lot of singing, screaming and general bouncing around the studio.

“We want to book more bands to make it work,â€Â Contreras said.

Bass guitarist Bobby Taul, 25, also looks forward to the idea of going on tour with his friends.

“I’d rather be on the road scraping along with nothing than working here in the restaurant business,â€Â Taul said. Taul has worked as a food server for years and hates it so much that he wrote a vicious song about a manager he worked with.

Taul also wrote a song about how the current line-up of the band came together. Taul was hesitant to be a part of “Check Raisedâ€Â because he did not want to risk losing his friendship with the guys if things did not work out. One night after a plate of Vietnamese food, he opened up his fortune cookie which read, “Now is the time to try new things.â€Â So he joined the band and so far, it’s working.

The band already has a demo recorded and a new album that will be available by the end of the year.

“We recorded our album and sent it to the east coast to get mastered,â€Â bass guitarist Bobby Taul said. “We’re waiting on our friend to finish up the package of our new CD,â€Â he said.

While the pressures of recording and touring might hurt chemistry for young musicians, these guys are having fun with it. They admit to having some drinks the day before a show, which causes them to play one song two times in a row.

It also wouldn̢۪t be unusual for one of them to go flying through a plate-glass window, as Bobby Taul did one day when the guys dogpiled on guitarist Jordan Dau.

“You can’t take things too seriously,â€Â Taul said. “These guys won’t let you anyway.â€Â