After playing a set earlier this month at the “Truth Be Told” concert in the Kent Campus Center, local band Mighty Shady has a big week coming up.

The band, which features Simpson students Jared Murphy on guitar and Joel Switchtenberg on bass, is playing three shows over the next week. On Saturday Feb. 2, they’ll be live at the Vaudeville Mews in downtown Des Moines for the Waka Winter Classic, a battle of the bands that could send the winner to the Wakarusa Music Festival in Ozark, Ark.

Whoever wins the contest would have to win another battle before going to the show, but Murphy says the band is excited by the opportunity.

In October the band recorded six songs that they hoped to have publicly available by now, Murphy said. Instead, the band has chosen to re-record the songs and add to them to hopefully have an album available to fans by the summer.

“We’re treating this one more as a demo since there’s only six songs on it anyway,” Murphy said.

On Friday night (Jan. 25), the band is playing an acoustic show at Lot 33, a bar on Ingersoll in Des Moines. Then, on Thursday, Jan. 31 the band is playing a show at The Marquis, another venue on Ingersoll with the band Madison Ray and All the Single Ladies.