The Old-Time Art Of Squirrel Nut Zippers

Enlivening is something the music world has needed since grunge was declared dead and ranks of soulless electronica tracks hit the airwaves. Although this Chapel Hill, NC, sextet has remained one of Mammoth Records' best-kept secrets since their debut, The Inevitable, was released in 1995, audiences nationwide are raving about a band that, well, their grandparents would listen to.

"We live in 1997, but [we've] listened to old music for 10 or 15 years," Mathus says. "That's what initially got us started, was just the desire to sound that way, very old and something you never hear anybody sounding like anymore."

In 1993, Mathus fled Chapel Hill with his wife, Katharine Whalen, in favor of a rural Carolina farmhouse where the duo could relax, craft puppets and listen to old jazz records. Mathus worked on his guitar chops and taught Whalen to play banjo. Soon enough they began inviting friends over to feast on good Southern cooking and jam late into the night. "When we started out we were playing this gut-bucket, barrelhouse blues," the diminutive Mathus says. "Then we started getting into hot jazz and swing."

By then, the Zippers had a pretty strong lineup -- Mathus covered about half the vocals, guitar and trombone; Ken Mosher took the drum kit; Don Raleigh plucked his formidable stand-up bass; Tom Maxwell lent his bellowing vocal, as well as a line of saxophones and guitars; Chris Phillips added percussion and Whalen's trademark voice, equal parts Billie Holiday and Betty Boop, slunk through some numbers while her banjo strumming bounced through others.

When The Inevitable appeared, critics and listeners alike were brimming with praise, but the industry at large was slow to catch on. The Zippers didn't mind; Success was the last thing on their minds. "Somebody called us a month after The Inevitable came out from a club in San Francisco and said 'if you ever come out here...'" Mathus recalls. "And we thought 'We'll never be out there, man. It's too far!"

Hot was finished just a year later, and the group began to amass a loyal following -- and not just among jazz enthusiasts. "I don't know exactly why it is that we can get inspiration from [jazz] and sell it to people who wouldn't normally like that kind of music," Mathus says. Whatever they're doing, it's working -- their audience ranges in age from 17-year-olds to septagenarians. Younger crowds even dress the role in three-piece suits, fedoras and evening gowns, dancing gracefully to the Zippers' infectious, swinging sounds. It's almost enough to strike five years of torn flannel and mosh pits from the collective memory.

Whalen speculates, "Maybe people were ready to listen to something different. I don't think we're out there changing anybody's minds about anything. I think people just connect with it and they like it and enjoy themselves at our shows."

The band has been touring incessantly since Hot came out, hitting major cities near and far three or four times over. Their lineup has changed slightly since the early days; Phillips has taken over fulltime at the drums while Mosher's contribution has turned to his considerable talents on tenor and baritone sax. Je Widenhouse blows trumpet each night, kicking the pants off every ska trumpeter from Miami to Malibu. Raleigh was recently replaced by Stewart Cole at the bass.

But it wasn't until early this year, when alternative stations and MTV began playing the single for "Hell," that things really began to heat up for the Zippers. The Maxwell-penned tune, taken from a book about the Devil's playground, is set to a video full of naughty folk committing Deadly Sins as the band, clad perfectly in 1930s suits a la Glenn Miller, provide the soundtrack. "In the afterlife you'll be headed for some serious strife," Maxwell warns. "Got to make the scene all day, but tomorrow there'll be hell to pay."

So unexpected was all this airplay that the Zippers had already completed their third record when "Hell" took off -- leading Hot to become a certified gold record practically overnight. Mammoth shelved the new album and sent the band back out on the road.

"I knew we had a good thing, but I'm surprised that we have a gold record," Whalen says. Despite the joy of success, Whalen admits there are drawbacks. "I don't like to tour as much as all the boys," she says. "And more success seems to lead to more touring, or more fighting about touring, which is tiring -- almost as tiring as touring."

Constant touring, Whalen says, can take its toll, especially given that she's the only woman on a bus full of men. "It's hard sometimes. They're all real nice and we got along really well, but it's hard to not have women to talk to. The language barrier between men and women can be real extreme, and under stressful conditions it can be more extreme. And it's pretty hard to have a marriage on the road, but [Jimbo and I] manage."

The Zippers can probably expect more success to come, as they've just finished filming a video for their second single from Hot, "Put a Lid On It." For this tune Whalen takes the microphone in a call-and-response shuffle; Whalen extolls the notion to "Grab your drink and clear a space/I think it's time to torch this place!" during a barroom fight while the male singers of the band encourage her to "Put a lid on it/Save it for another night." There's little doubt that audiences will eat up the roughhouse horn melody and Whalen's enchanting warble.

To keep listeners excited about new music from the Zippers, they plan to release an EP of unreleased tracks, available at performances and through the band's mailing list. "It's a great little thing," Mathus explains, his Mississippi drawl dipping gaily. "It's a lot of stuff from the old days of ours, and some new stuff that's comin' on the third CD, live versions of some stuff off of Hot, and some wacky shit we sometimes pull off. Like playing "La Grippe" [from The Inevitable] with a nine-piece salsa band."

Mathus also hints that a fourth album is already in the works. Writing songs, he says, comes easily for him and the other members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers. "Songwriting is something I could do my whole life. Just like playing music. I think any songwriter is gonna tell you the same thing. It's just a habit they get into, like brushing your teeth." Currently the group has some 40 original songs, plus the occasional cover tune, from which to choose for its live performances.

When asked if he's ever gotten flak for playing a genre founded by black musicians, Mathus shakes his head. "We're a white band playing black people's music, you know, and that's the bottom line," he says. "And ... no one in the band would presume to play it with the mastery of the people who we preach about. We are no more than emulators."

After a moment of thought, Mathus continues with a statement that hits at the root of the Zippers' inexplicable popularity. "I think something that we have is a chemistry and a spirit. And it creates an experience similar to one that you might have found in [old-time jazz] groups, in the chemistry and enthusiasm and irreverence and all these other things that we put into it."

Thankfully, the media have been kind toward the band's enthusiasm. "The critics haven't put us under a microscope too much. I'm grateful for that. The jazz critics, by and large, all say it's wonderful what we're doing, and it's about time someone was able to do this," Mathus says humbly. "Somebody could give us flak... but nobody really has."

Mathus says he's not sure what path the Zippers might follow in the future. They already made the jump from barrelhouse blues to hot jazz; but what's next? "Who knows, maybe in two years we'll be doing stuff that sounds like Charles Mingus," he says. "It's almost like we're evolving, but on a really quick scale, evolving up the evolutionary tree of jazz." He's glad to see other performers taking cues from jazz as well: "Beck, and the rap music takes jazz for its riffs and incorporates it. I think that's great."

Still, he's concerned with reviving the old, great traditions of jazz and swing, bringing them to audiences at the end of the century. "I don't want to be the type of person who wants to destroy and then create something brand new. I like working in the traditions, and that's what we've based our whole group on," he says purposefully. "It's still relevant -- that's the thing we get out of it, the relevance of what it still is and what it was when they created it. It's a masterpiece. It's an art. That's the way we feel about it."

This article was originally published in Addicted to Noise.