RENEE ANITPUESTO - [X]PRESS 2.0 La Plebe perform one of their songs at The Gilman on Saturday, June 27th.

"It sounds hippy-ish, but we reestablish bonds," says Antonio Cuellar, trombonist.

La Plebe plays punk rock with horns. At a recent show at Berkeley's 924 Gilman on June 27, La Plebe stepped on stage and the crowd went wild. The space in front of the stage suddenly filled with people. Arms grabbed at the band's feet, heads banged, people shoved each other, and one man jumped up on the stage, grabbing bassist Lupe Bravo's microphone to sing along.

Millie Chan, 18, was pressed against the stage, head banging with her friends. "It gives a lot of other people, like, a taste, you know, of Latino music mixed with ska and reggae and punk," she says.

That's La Plebe. The name, the Spanish term for "the working class" or "common people," fits these men perfectly. Everyone in the band works a 9-to-5 job, from tax accounting and youth counseling to working for a marine biology center and digitizing Mexican music from the early 1900s. They hope that the band will one day pay for itself, but they never imagine quitting the workforce. "We're working-class till the day we die," Bravo says.

By night, the band members squeeze into their smoke-filled studio to work on their new album. Sometimes, they never practice. Instead, they use the time to connect and tell stories. Pointing to a cardboard sign with San Francisco scrawled across it, trumpeter Alberto Cuellar tells of a time they drove an anarchist hitchhiker from Ocean City to Oakland -- and kept his sign. This leads to memories of a boy named Pepe, who they helped cross the border from Mexico to San Diego. "I think that's probably the biggest risk we've ever taken," the trumpeter says.

In 2006, stranded in Macedonia on tour, Alberto played surrogate father for the woman hosting them. "I knew the sex of the baby before her husband did," he says. The father of the baby asked Cuellar to escort his wife to doctor's appointments. "I didn't mind at all," he says, turning to his band mates. "The only thing I minded was when I left that one time and you guys got all loaded."

"Yeah, that was a lot of fun," Bravo says.

"We ended up watching four hours of soccer while my brother was at the doctor's appointment ... we just got really drunk," trombonist Antonio Cuellar says.

"The thing that sucked about it was that the clinic that I went to was less than a block away, so I could see the window they were at, having a good old time," Alberto says.

"Wasted!" Bravo adds.

The band formed in 2001 when Bravo and a childhood friend, the previous guitarist for the band, started playing together. Alberto Cuellar later joined them. They posted an ad on Craigslist for a drummer, and only Mark Harris responded. When Antonio joined his brothers' band, they became known as La Plebe. Eventually, the old guitarist left the band. Another ad was posted on Craigslist, but this time, more people responded. Adam Paganini responded, saying that he was the new guitarist. He was invited to be scolded, but they liked him so much he stayed. "We still haven't told him that he's in the band yet," Alberto jokes.

This will be the first summer since the band formed that they won't tour. Instead, they will be spending the time working on songs for their next album.

"A lot of times, it takes us a while to get our albums out. We all want to make sure it's something everyone feels good about," Bravo says. "Each song is a process, and everyone contributes to it."

After their next album, they are planning a 2010 tour to Macedonia, except this time, Harris will be the surrogate father.