In Kansas City and Lawrence, Kan., The Factory Workers are becoming a hot commodity. Armed with a blues rock arsenal that draws from The Raconteurs, The Black Keys and even Led Zeppelin, Justin Brooks and Alheim Amador have people taking notice. The band will be playing at 10 p.m. tonight at The Rendezvous.

The two men took some time to answer a few questions about the show and tell us a little about themselves.

Shea: For those who haven't heard The Factory Workers before, how would you describe your sound?

Brooks: I might use words like "raw," "dirty" and "stripped down." We love the mixture of blues, power, rock and funkiness.

Shea: Justin, I heard you're from St. Joe. How long did you live here? Did you ever play in any bands while you lived in St. Joe?

Brooks: I was born in Springfield and moved to St. Joe when I was still tiny. I did the old Coleman Elementary, then Bode Middle School and the Central High route ... I never played in a band here. I didn't know how to play drums until Al asked me if I wanted to try playing with him.

Shea: How did you come up with the name The Factory Workers?

Amador: I used to go down to my basement and make crappy recordings of me playing all the instruments: Drums, guitar and vocals. After driving endless times by a factory nearby, I started seeing myself as someone working there at the factory. I'd be doing drums, then move to guitar, then vocals, then mixing everything, then listening - like a product going through all those machines and workers until it's all done. Justin came along and we made The Factory Workers.

Shea: Who writes the songs? When writing the lyrics, what do you draw from?

Amador: (Laughs) It's like me pushing this giant rock into our practice space and we both start hitting it with sledge hammers until it takes form. When it comes to songwriting, I do all of it and I basically follow the line, "Stick to what you know." Writing bluesy tunes works well for me since my baby left me, I'm a long ways from home and I'm broke.

Shea: What is it about that blues rock sound that you like so much?

Amador: I'm a huge fun of that raw, stripped-down Memphis Blues. I love how simple, repetitive, yet hypnotizing it can be. But when you bring rock and all of our different influences into the mix, it takes it to another level. Having a two-piece band can be easy and challenging at the same time. Easy because the chemistry is tighter (and) challenging because having only two guys up on stage, they'd better do something good making up for everything missing, everything most people are used to anyways.

Brooks: The thing I like is that it gives me an excuse to get pretty wild. We aren't exactly traditional blues. There is a lot of other influences in our music. And having only two people gives us another chance to get wild. If you aren't a little wild, you can get pretty boring with only two people. I just said wild a lot. Wild!

Shea: What can you tell me about your new self-titled EP? How long did it take to record? What was that process like?

Brooks: Well, I wish I had an amazing story of obsessive producers and hipster sound technicians with beautiful people all around. But in reality it was in a dark basement with Josh from our other band, High Diving Ponies, minimal mics, hacked recording/editing software, a tour-tattered 1972 Ludwig set with only 8 of the sixteen lugs on the bass drum and a Fender DeLuxe Amp from a little hole-in-the-wall music shop. But that's what we require and that's what we prefer. No frills.