Soapbox Amplifier practice at bandmember Nat Gaertner's house in Blacksburg. Christina O'Connor | The Roanoke Times

Given that they don’t play indie rock, pop punk, classic rock, blues, jazz, old-time or even honky tonk, Blacksburg band Soapbox Amplifier sure plays a lot of gigs.

Of course, many of the shows take place in what are politely referred to as alternative venues or in legitimate venues for alternative purposes: an anti-mountaintop-removal rally in Harrisonburg , a tsunami benefit at the Lyric Theatre or a grand opening at the new location of Oasis World Market.

With a gig coming up tonight at Homebody — a Blacksburg shop that offers free-trade gifts, sweatshop-free union-made clothing and activist slogans — the garage-y punkers share some thoughts on the politics of club booking and the benefits of playing galleries, house shows and even clothing shops and grocery stores.

How long have you been playing together?

Ali Sherbiny: We started in October of 2003, the beginning of October. And we played our first show at XYZ at the end of October. It was that football game where all the fans came downtown and tore down all those lampposts and didn’t get into any trouble.

Nat Gaertner: That was LSU.

AS: But meanwhile you have all the punk shows that get shut down when there’s no violence.

And you’re playing at Homebody tonight. What’s that store about for you guys?

Daniel Owens: There’s this great, kind of radical idea that you can look pretty good and try not to necessarily oppress anybody while you’re doing it.

NG: Basically, no one should ever go into a department store. … If you’ve ever worked in one, you never want to go in one again.

The kinds of gigs you play are not only a place for more alternative bands to play but also politically minded venues or events.

DO: We’re politically minded people, but the other thing — and this is the whole notion of punk rock — from the very beginning, it’s not necessarily about safety pins and mohawks but the idea that there’s something tragically wrong about the available culture. And essentially, to sum it up, it’s "do it yourself." To make interesting music, you shouldn’t have to depend on the venue making a good bar tab. It’s non-commercial radio taken to a live format. So the reason we play these kinds of gigs is because it’s crucial that there’s a place for ideas to be expressed that’s not dependent on currency.

NG: And I think, artistically, playing in a non-standard location gives people the opportunity to experience a band without having to deal with the crap that goes with most of the places that have bands.

Nathan Bowles: The whole mythology of having bar bands. I’m really all about getting rid of the thing where you set up musicians or acts on the high stage. Part of that is literally, these shows we’re playing, you play on the floor. It’s really all about sort of deconstructing the myth that there’s only a very select few who can be artists.

Are you talking about what happens in a normal club, where you have spotlights on the band and the crowd in the dark? Or are you talking about the kind of music that gets the privilege of playing in established clubs versus the kind of music you play, where you get alienated from those clubs?

DO: Actually one works out as an analogy for the other.

The problem is that in a town like this, if you’re too experimental, there’s no place to play.

AS: And the bands who do play in the clubs get the rep that they’re the ones who are actually doing something.

So what happens is that if only a certain kind of band gets to play and only bands who play those places get that rep of doing something, then there’s a de facto homogenization of the scene.

DO: It’s like the subculture homogeny. And I don’t mean to come off like, "Oh, we’re so oppressed we have to play at supermarkets." It gets to this idea of community. … With that breakdown between band and audience you get at those kinds of shows, we’re trying to have something with the people who are there.

A lot of bands would tell you they’re trying to do the same thing, but it seems like there’s a natural ideological connection between what you’re trying to do musically and politically and what some of these venues are trying to do. It’s a classist problem, that only the privileged kind of music gets to look like it exists, and in the same way it’s very hard for shop owners who are trying to accomplish something beyond making a buck.

NG: That kind of business needs a lot of community support. … The price you have to pay as a community for fair worker treatment is that you have to be willing to pay a slightly higher price, to support something that you feel is a necessary change in a community.

Soapbox Amplifier will perform at 8:30 tonight at Homebody, 119 N. Main St. in Blacksburg . Capacity is limited, and admission is $4. Also performing will be The Two Funerals, A Fine Line and Wrong Day to Quit.