That Swing You Do: A Chat with CPD

The Cherry Poppin' Daddies are a swing-oriented band from Seattle, currently riding high on the success of their latest album, a compilation titled Zoot Suit Riot: The Swingin' Hits of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Before their show at the Roxy last Friday night, The Crimson got the chance to talk with Jason Moss, the band's guitarist.

THC: First off, let's get this out of the way: Why do you think swing is so popular now?

JM: I think it's the Seattle Explosion of the early '90s, this whole alternative rock thing that's come to dominate radio. It dictated what record labels were paying attention to such a degree that you had this one kind of sound on the radio for several years. And then in the last couple of years it kind of died out and it really opened up a lot of space for other types of music to come through. Ska was something that was happening and that kind of blew up there, for a while...and then swing was kind of the next step. It has more horns, it's dance music...and I think also, it's kind of the antidote to grunge. It's a very different sensibility; it's musically very sophisticated, generally pretty positive, more of an exuberant vibe to it, without the self-absorption of grunge.

THC: Whose idea was it to put all the swing songs from your previous albums and compile them on Zoot Suit Riot?

JM: That was actually our manager's idea. At the time, he was the guy who sold the merchandise at the shows, and he used to complain that at every gig someone would come up to him and ask him, "Which album is the swing album?" So he had this idea to take all the swing tunes of the other three records and put them onto one, so we did that, and then added four new songs--one of which was "Zoot Suit Riot." And we actually put that out ourselves--this was before we got signed, and the whole swing thing blew up--and it was selling really well, and right around then Mojo [Records, our current label] became interested. What we ended up doing was selling them the license to the album as is. So it's kind of a misconception that this is our first record, culled from our three independent albums.

THC: Was the success of Zoot Suit Riot a surprise?

JM: Yeah, it was a huge surprise. At the time we wrote and recorded Zoot Suit Riot, the kind of bands on the radio were Bush and Smashing Pumpkins. Swing was the farthest thing from what seemed to be happening in pop music. We never thought this style of music would get the kind of coverage that it is.

THC: Earlier on, there seemed to be more of a rock or ska tone to your albums. What changed?

JM: It was always really crazy and diverse. The first album has punk songs, and swing songs, and I think it was kind of the whole philosophy of the band was to just do whatever, whatever the band felt like doing, and Steve [Perry, the lead singer and songwriter] has really eclectic musical tastes; he's the kind of songwriter that wants to write in different genres. "Well, I'm going to try to write a swing song," or "I'm going to try to write a country song." So the band billed itself as this whole spectrum of music, which always threw off records labels who would come to see us. They'd say, "You guys are great, but what are you? Are you a rock band? Are you a swing band?" So I think over time, partly out of necessity and partly out of taste, we got tired of some the other stuff and started to focus more on ska and swing.

THC: What gave you guys the idea to do Harry Belafonte's "Jump in the Line" for the Baseketball soundtrack?

JM: It was basically just something that was offered to us, and we thought it would be fun. It was a real stretch for us to play, in that style; we just did it for fun, basically.

THC: It sounds really close to the original--really well done.

JM: Yeah, that was pretty much how we ended up doing it. At first we kind of said, "We'll do it in Daddies style," but we don't really play that kind of music.

[Trumpeter Dana Heitman interrupts to state that the Daddies do not take credit for the steel drums on the track.]

THC: Those aren't yours?

JM: No, the steel drum part was added by the producers.

THC: Do you guys know any other swing bands? The Squirrel Nut Zippers were here [at the Roxy] a few weeks ago.

JM: We haven't met them, but we're very aware of them. We met Royal Crown Revue in '92, when I first joined. We went down to L.A. and played at this club called Palomino, we opened for them, and that was the first band I remember seeing, other than us, that was playing swing. And even back then they were really into the look, and being more of a "purist" swing kind of sound. I think they're great, and their guitarist is the real virtuoso of the new swing scene. We've also done shows with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Indigo Swing.

THC: Any plans for a new album?

JM: Well, the latest projection is next fall. We touring behind Zoot Suit until March of next year.