An Interview with Tom Maxwell of Squirrel Nut Zippers

We all sat back amazed when the North Carolina Combo Squirrel Nut Zippers unleashed "Hell" onto the musical airwaves and infused Hot into the cooling trend of modern swing music. Hot forged the band into a platinum-clad sensation. But with the release of their latest album, Perennial Favorites, it is evident that the band's talent hasn't been squirrel away to please the masses and that they are emerging from "Hell" with something more otherworldly. As swing is surfacing from the nether regions to mainstream popularity, much like rap, goth, or grunge dide, an album like this may let the Squirrel Nut Zippers slip silently underground again.

Those critics who have been floundering to classify the Zippers as a "swing band" might have been more successful with their previous albums. As Tom Maxwell testifies, other, stranger forces are at work behind the creation of Perennial Favorites.

While the band was pronounced a one-hit-wonder by some cynics (with "hell"), Maxwell remains defiant. "I used to feel that way, but I don't anymore. there will always be a disparity between what I feel about the band and what other people's perceptions are. Not everyone is in this band and as thorouglyhly familiar with our potential and diversity as I am. We're dealing with a profoundly singles/trend-oriented market here as well, and pigeonholing is all that modern radio stations and radio and MTV do. It's really just a big, fat straightjacket. They have brought about a scenario in which a lot of bands pretty much play one or two songs. These two songs may be a little different but basically they're the same. Right after "hell" became a hit, people would yell out for it at concerts and we thought 'oh shit, here it comes.' But then people became Squirrel Nut Zippers fans instead of "Hell" fans and realized there was a lot more to what we were doing than just that. And people will really com to know [with Perennial Favorites] who we are and where we're coming from. Having said that, the label wanted to work 'True Macaque' as the first single, and I just said, 'Sorry that's not going to happen.'" Instead, the record company opted for "The Suits Are Picking Up the Bill," a song that keeps the Zippers safely swinging.

Musical styles will inevitably be in a constant state of flux. But when the tempo changes, Squirrel Nut Zippers will not stumble and come crashing from the vertiginous heights of popularity. they are simultaneously able to be flexible yet remain deeply rooted in the bedrock of jazz. From this, a new sound flourishes. It is something perennial in the cyclical seasons of musical styles. "Some guy that was interviewing us sais that he had a 78 of Ellington's Cotton Club Band playing 'East St. Louis Toodle-oo' (which was quintessential Hot music). A friend of his was over and he asked, 'Is that the Zippers?'" Enough said.

The band remains faithful to its musical predacessors. They have succeeded in breaking the constraints of time, paying homage to their musical peers as well as giving something fresh and original to the contemporary generation. "I have no words to express the meeting with Al Casey," Maxwell says, "who I adored. And even better, becoming friends with him. The nicest thing that was ever said to me was by this guy George Avakian, who produced Armstrong's All-Stars back in the 1950s: 'I wish that Louis could meet you guys -- he would really get a kick out of you.' I'm just trying to give something back to Al. The opening riff to that song is an Al Casey lick. He used it to open his signature song 'Buck Jumpin.' Fats Waller's Rhythm was one of the finest units of all time. Also check out his pipe organ solo recordings from the 1920s. Terrifying. Here's a guy that did what Ray Charles did thirty years later: he took the sacred and the profane and made them his own. If someone listens to us and goes out and buys the Hot Fives, or Waller, they can only benefit. Somebody said that 'once a mind is streched to a new idea, it can never go back to its old form.' And the new album is filled with novel ideas."

Many of the most dedicated SNZ fans may believe that "Trou Macacq" is a parody on "hell" (and the band's success). Simply put, the calypso monkey is something Maxwell can't shake, and the calypso misical form is really where the similarity ends between the two songs. As opposed to the sprightly prophetic visions described in "Hell," "Trou Macacq," says Maxwell "is a complaint, which was what a lof of calypso was. The song is really a parable of life on the road. I saw the whole experience as being comparable to a monkey track, or a racecourse. You never get anywhere. And then I go and talk about the illusion of self-determination. The lyric 'we had a chamber on the moon' meand working under an illusion. The song really is basically about life on the road and me and the band members being sick as hell in the back of a touring van."

Perennial Favorites pushes swing and jazz to their limits. THe ghosts of musical eras past have bestowed upon the Squirrel Nut Zippers the ability to draw from different musical backgrounds and blend them seamlessly. Whether it's the Indian apreggios that conjure "The Ghost of Stephen Foster," the haunting downward spiral that introduces "My Drag," or the Chinese instruments that urge the drunken glee club to the lounge in "It's Over," the novel instruments meld to create a new kind of sophistication to the Zipper's home-grown jazz appeal.

With the integation of calypso, Maxwell has argumented the band's multicultural allure. "Calypso, especially from the '20s and '30s is a kind of musical analogy to bles and jazz in the sense that the guys were working with a very structured type of musical progression. But it was up to the entertainer to put his own stamp on it with his musical style, lyrics, and personality. The musical progression (called the paseo progression) which I use in 'Trou Macacq' differs from that of 'Hell.' The Paseo progression can be traced back to Bach. It's a renaissance structure, really, played by black Trinidadians -- and that's what so great about calypso. It's a synthesis of many different musical styles, traditions, and cultures. in trinidad, the cultural synthesis that came out as calypso came out as jazz in America. But people don't hear the difference. They think it's 'Hell' revisited because both songs are written in D minor. But it's not. I wanted to write calypsos in the traditional form, and so I picked the most traditional progressions and changes that apply to that. But if you get reissues of some of these old calypsonians, you'll quickly understand how often the paseo progression was used and how it lent itself to different interpretations."

The usage of swing, klezmer, Hot Jazz, exotic Eastern-European and South American music, as well as 2,000-year-old Chinese poetry has everything to do with the seamless blending of influences that give Perennial Favorites that dreamy, pseudo-psychedelic momentum. But diversity is what interests Maxwell. "There are a lot of ways that music has come together. The introduction to 'The Ghost of Stephen Foster' is more or less based on Eastern Indian changes and intervals. Then as you get into the song, it's klezmer. But these kinds of things have a lot in common. It's incredibly delightful and interesting to explore that. We like to ride that edge or sit on that fence. It's like, it's not swing, it's not klezmer, and it's not Eastern Indian, but it's all those things. It's the Zippers going insane again! I believe that the strength of this band thrives on diversity. I also believe the the strength of culture thrives on diversity."

The band will never deny their admiration for certain musicians of earlier generations. Maxwell's introduction to "Pallin' with Al" begins with a lick lifted directly from Fats Waller guitar entrepreneur Al Casey. Many of the revered influences, however, have become no more than frolicking shadows on the new album, eclipsed by the Zippers' own quirkiness. Catherine Whalen's Billie Holiday-esque voice has become earthier and heartier on some of the songs she sings, resembling Ethel Waters doing June Christy.

Maxwell will be the first to testify that, despite admiration for past musicians, Squirrel Nut Zippers are not nostalgists. "I hope people realize we are not re-creationists. We are the opposite. We are trying to make viscreal and emotive music. We are completely a product of our time, ike bands like X and the Beatles and the Clash. We know this music, we love it, and it inevitable becomes what we do, and it is the more obscure gestures we get across that are the most noticeable. And all this rock and roll we do is just too obvious to comment on."

Hot is, arguably, the most successful swing/Hot Jazz recording to emerge from the dawn of this decade. The popularity of its hit single, "Hell," has been attributed both to Maxwell's Tasmanian Devil aggression ("I scream my balls off at the end, which is something James Brown taught me") and the usage of instruments alien to modern rock (like baritone ukulele). With a new release out, the Zippers, to their credit, are not interesting in topping any sales records. "The new album really satisfies the requirement for success. We don't determine ourselvs as far as bettering ourselves. The songwriting is better on this album; the singing is better; the arrangements and the production is better. Therefore, in comparison to Hot it's a better album. records are, inevitably, a snapshot of where a band is at any given point in time. And you're always doing your best when making a good record -- hopefully always doing better down the road. When we recorded Hot we didn't have a lot of money, so we cut it in six days. it was basically all cut live, and it was a pretty good representation of who we were at the time as a band. The new album is more sublime and more complex to me. Perennial favorites is an album in its truest Beatles sense of the word. Back in the day, from the '20s to about the '60s, especially when 78s were recorded, the record was cut as the song was made. So no matter how long the bands played when they jammed, you could not reflect the entire emotion in the recording medium. Moreover, there was no concept of an 'album' until the '60s. By then, when entire albums were recorded at once, an album was no longer a collection of songs. It could have a theme or a narrative structure, like a novella. And bands like the Beatles triumphed doing that -- and all of us in this group are totally a product of that. And that's reflected on Perennial Favorites.

"Now as far as the new album's success is concerned, I don't think that there's been a single as reactive as 'Hell.' I feel we've established ourselves and people know where we're coming from. Out label has been beefed up considerably because they've been able to put more resources into it. But it was such a trap thinking about how the thing was going to do or meeting our goals about selling as many units. If this album doesn't do as well ad Hot, I can't say that I won't be disappointed. But on the other hand, I shouldn't because I feel this album is another step on the road we're on."

While the Zippers' music may take unexpected zigs and zags, weaving in and out of different musical styles, Maxwell is clear about their general direction. "The best bands in their infancy -- bands like the Stones and the Beatles -- covered other guys. The Rolling Stones doing Howlin' Wolf are never going to touch Howlin' Wolf. Never. Same with Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and those guys. For us, paying tribute to Al Casey, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong as well as the calypsonians is like sitting at the feet of the Buddah. You don't obtain Nirvana just by doing that.But you do recognize the beauty of how far you've come and how far you have to go. The Beatles and the Stones had to understand in order to play what they liked so much. But when the Stones did Beggars Banquet or the Beatles did Revolver they started to find their own voices. And I think that's what we're doing with Perennial Favorites. I like the idea of raising the bar a notch by integrating East Indian Chords, Chinese instrumentation, and calypso, for ourselves and for our listeners. It can be a little daunting thinking, 'fuck -- how are we going to top an album like Hot?' But hopefully we'll continue to do so until we die in a fiery plane crash."

Simply inecitable.

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