The Nadas' 30-year milestone at Hoyt Sherman Place may feel like the end. They say it's not.

Sometime in the late 1990s, thousands of fans of Iowa’s treasured band The Nadas received news about the band via a physical newsletter.

It cost the band several thousand dollars. Naturally, these mailed newsletters ceased to exist when emails could be sent to multiple inboxes, said Jason Walsmith, a founding member and singer and guitarist of the band.

It’s just one of countless pieces of history that comes with The Nadas’ three decades of existence.

The folk-Americana quintet is celebrating that 30th anniversary this year, and will continue that celebration, and the release of their album “Come Along for the Ride,” at Hoyt Sherman Place on Oct. 27.

“I wonder if people have a concept of how important they are to us as well,” Walsmith said after he and fellow founding member, singer and guitarist Mike Butterworth, were asked by the Des Moines Register about being part of people’s lives for 30 years.

“So I feel like it's a very mutual relationship actually. And I know that’s a weird thing to say about tens of thousands of people, but everywhere we go, there are very important people in our lives that have started as fans that have become friends.”

The Nadas garner a national audience

The folk-rock act that originated in Ames added new identifiers to their name in the years since their start — The “Dancing Lucinda” and “Walk Away” singers; openers for Bon Jovi; Iowa Rock N Roll Hall of Famers after their 2018 induction; and perhaps most simply, an Iowa favorite.

And, per a spread in Playboy magazine in 2001, “The best college band you’ve never heard of,” by Alison Lundgren, according to a Register article that same year.

The author joined The Nadas for a week as they toured, Butterworth recalled.

“I remember when it came out, I had told my parents, who had told my grandmother, but had I told them a week early, and so my grandmother, in her 80s at the time, was driving around to every convenience store in our small town asking to buy Playboy,” Butterworth said. “She couldn’t find one but she tried real hard.”

At the time the Playboy article published, The Nadas were already playing across the country and knew they’d amassed a national audience.

“We knew it was like this momentum was building and it was definitely at that moment, right on the edge of what felt like was going to be just exploding into the mainstream,” Walsmith said.

Whatever path toward mainstream success The Nadas were on — and it was more than just a feeling if evident by skyrocketing pageviews on their website and major label record presidents expected to be in attendance for a show — was derailed by 9/11, the duo explained.

Walsmith and Butterworth are not upset by this, nor are they holding on to that time.

It’s just another piece of history that is part of The Nadas.

New album passes the torch to the next generation

Rounding out The Nadas are bassist Brian Duffey, drummer Brandon Stone, and Perry Ross on keys.

Listeners of “Come Along for the Ride” might catch the nostalgia that’s imbued in the album.

But the album is also about thinking forward more, Walsmith said.

“We both have children who are making music, writing songs and playing for people and so I feel like there's some messaging in this record, not only to them specifically, but to the next generation of musicians who are doing their own thing,” he said.

Take “Smashing the Squiers,” for example. It’s a song about The Nadas gigging five, seven nights a week and despite how rough that is, the good in the experience outweighs anything else, Butterworth explained.

Or “This Mess is My Masterpiece,” what Walsmith feels encapsulates the theme of the record.

The Nadas sound has evolved because Walsmith and Butterworth are fans of music first, listening that leads to new ideas. They are stronger writers now, too, Walsmith said.

“We both had this where we wake up and write something down, play it on the guitar and that song is done in almost the time that it takes to sing it,” Butterworth said of the duo when they were younger. “We have songs that we slug away at for months until they're right.”

No longer are they anxious they won’t be able to write another song, as if they’ve ran out of things to say, Walsmith added.

You can say 31 years of The Nadas

Earlier this year, Stone, the drummer for The Nadas, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Butterworth said Stone is doing “amazing,” in spite of his serious illness and hadn’t missed a show.

“He would say that he loved playing even when he felt bad,” Walsmith said, clarifying these are Stone’s words. “That period of time when he’s playing is one of the only times he didn’t feel sick.”

Fans can support Stone and his family by donating to a GoFundMe fundraiser that is $20,000 short of its goal.

Fans should also know that The Nadas’ concert at Hoyt Sherman Place is a “big deal” for the band, Butterworth said.

Now that The Nadas have retired their annual holiday show, this is the big performance that people should want to get out for, he said.

“It's the homecoming for this tour,” Walsmith said. “It's the wrapping up of the new release tour and it's a big celebration. But while all that stuff lends itself to feel like this is sort of an end, we're not going anywhere. We're going to keep making music and keep playing shows.”

Tickets for The Nadas at Hoyt Sherman Place

The concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $28 and can be purchased on Hoyt Sherman Place's website.

Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at PBarraza@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: The Nadas concert at Hoyt Sherman Place for new album and anniversary