Hotstuff

Squirrel Nut Zippers' sweet sounds

by Mark Edmonds

When the Squirrel Nut Zippers arrive in Worcester this weekend (they play the Palladium Saturday with fellow Chapel Hill'ers HOBEX), they'll pull into town with a pretty impressive history under their belts. Six years ago, they were unknown refugees from careers, jobs, and bands who'd united around a common affection for mid-'30s jazz (the so-called "hot" sound that prevailed before bop changed everything in the postwar years). Shortly after guitarist Jim Mathus and his girlfriend, Katherine Whalen, hooked up with bassist Don Raleigh and guitarist Ken Mosher, the group took the name of a peanut taffy produced by a Bay State peanut roaster. In time, others joined their little troupe as they built a small but sturdy cult following, playing coffeehouses and college haunts around Raleigh/Durham.

Signed by the indie Mammoth to a two-disc deal, their debut, The Inevitable, was a quirky collection that went nowhere by commercial standards. But then, in early '95, Hot, their second disc, surfaced with "Hell" -- a calypsified, Armageddon-might-not-be-so-bad ditty that caused all hell to break loose. The single inexplicably latched itself onto the subconscious of America's homogenized alt-rock nation, propelling the Zippers and their Depression-era thrift-store threads into a dizzying odyssey of one niters that lasted nearly two years.

Overnight, they'd gone from playing for fun to having to play under contract. "It kind of changed everything about how we thought about music," Mosher recalls. "We went into a stasis, of sorts, just to get through it. Now, I realize there are two sides to this business. There's one where for two hours everything's magic and total fun while you're on stage. And then there's another, where for 22 hours or so, you're kind of getting your ass kicked while you're traveling."

In time since the Zippers broke through the radio barrier, they've been painted as everything from retro-revivalists to a novelty act by reviewers who don't know what to make of a band of late-twentysomethings rooting themselves in the era their grandparents grew up in. They confound people more when they start tossing Mardi Gras coins from the stage.

"People who haven't seen us, or who are completely immersed in the latest trend, are never prepared for what we're doing," Mosher says with a sly laugh. "A lot of times, people who write about us don't have the vocabulary of the music to talk about us, and not all of them are ready to have something from so far out in left field as we are thrust upon them. We're not really trying to cash in on some nostalgia thing or be revialists though. We just happen to really like the sounds of the pre-war era."

The Zippers reproduce those sounds with an almost stunning accuracy. For Hot, the band used a single mic and lots of ambiance during the New Orleans sessions that produced the disc's 12 tracks. Banjos, ukeleles, gongs, and cowbells conspire with drums, electric guitars, and string bass on stomps, rags, drags, and the occasional calypso number (the Afro-Carribean form was big in the '30s) to produce a zany collection of songs that are, for the most part, heavy on the hokum. An added bonus is the startling sound of Whalen, whose singing recalls the crystilline tones of lady blues singers of the '20s.

Can Mosher explain the Zippers' popularity? "I get asked that a lot, and I consider myself the least likely candidate to answer it because I'm involved in it. But I guess that if you were to take our music and play it for a music historian, he'd say there's some musical gestures in it from every decade. There are aspects in there that were apparent in music of the '20s and '30s; they're obvious enough so people recognize them. That's why people think we're a retro kind of band. But there are other aspects too, from rock and roll from the '50s on up, that people grasp on a subconcious level. That's what, I think, helps people embrace us."

Mosher says the band's currently remixing tracks that were recorded before they were propelled into the limelight. They'll be released on an as-yet untitled third disc this fall. He predicts a few of these "new" tracks will wind up on the set list when the band play Worcester. "It's a gig to have a little fun with," he says. "That, and to keep everybody who works with us like roadies and such with food money in their pockets."

He pauses to reflect. "You know," he says, "that's another thing we never had to think about when we played for our own entertainment."

The Squirrel Nut Zippers play the Palladium at 8 p.m. on April 11. Tickets are $17.50. Call (617) 423-NEXT.