MONROE — Wisconsin polka musicians Jason and Adam Rowe will bring Hank’s Polka Boys to Monroe on Friday, Sept. 18, performing at Cactus Booze & Bites during Cheese Days weekend.

For the brothers, the performance is more than another polka engagement. It is part of an effort to carry a family musical tradition forward while adding something new to Wisconsin’s polka songbook.

Jason Rowe began performing polka at age 10 and is now marking approximately 40 years as a musician.

Over the course of their musical lives, Jason and Adam have performed with or alongside notable polka musicians including Grammy-nominated Gordon Hartmann, multiple Grammy Award winner Frank Yankovic, Roger Bright, Steve Meisner and Verne Meisner. Jason’s musical travels have also taken him overseas, including time performing and busking in Sweden and England.

The name Hank’s Polka Boys reaches back another generation.

Hank was Jason and Adam’s grandfather, a Wisconsin farmer, accordionist and lifelong musician who performed under the Hank’s Polka Boys name. Following Hank’s passing and a period during which the brothers stepped away from performing, Jason and Adam eventually revived their grandfather’s band name as a way of continuing the family tradition.

But their goal isn’t simply to recreate the past.

“I love traditional polka, but one of my frustrations is hearing the same songs recorded over and over again,” Jason Rowe said. “Those songs deserve to be preserved, but if polka is going to remain living music, we also have to keep writing new songs for it.”

Hank’s Polka Boys are currently recording an album of original material inspired by polka, beer and Wisconsin tavern culture, the carnival, and the Rowe brothers’ offbeat sense of humor. The project aims to respect the music they grew up with while pushing it into some decidedly less traditional territory.

The band has already released “The Chimp Grinder’s Wind Piano,” a short, fast-moving introduction to that direction. Additional original material is being recorded for a full-length album planned for next year.

Hank’s Polka Boys will perform Friday, Sept. 18, at Cactus Booze & Bites in Monroe during Cheese Days weekend.

More information and currently released music from Hank’s Polka Boys is available through the band’s online music and social media pages.