Cherry Poppin' Daddies frontman Steve Perry is somewhat of a misfit. He romanticizes the life of bloody gladiators in one breath, and admits to dreams of swinging with socialites in the next. He's both a self proclaimed recluse and a casual conversationalist, chatting easily about everything from his recent trip to Cuba to how corporations sold out the '90s.

Musically, it's just as difficult to pin Perry into a corner. Although the Daddies scored big in 1997 with a collection of swing songs on the multi-platinum Zoot Suit Riot, they're not a swing band. They mix horns and bouncy beats on many of their tracks, but they're not a ska band. And they may have started out on in the Pacific Northwest in the late '80s, but they're not a grunge band. Their secret is mixing styles and decades into upbeat, nostalgic American pop records. Perry says the common themes between songs tie their records together. On their new release, Soul Caddy, the theme is loneliness and relationships.

"Overall, people don't consider us consistent," says Perry. "If you're going to hear a Cherry Poppin' Daddies record, chances are you'll find a song you'll like, but chances are you'll also find a song you don't like." Whether you like it or not is inconsequential to Perry, who, at 37, says he doesn't care what direction the rest of the world wants him to work towards. As a kid, he spent years sleeping on the cold basement floor to toughen himself up after reading a book on stoicism. "I was trying to face hardship without being a baby," he says, "because I hate it when I'm a baby. It's embarrassing."

drDrew.com recently spent Five Minutes With Perry to chat about his days stealing library books and shuffling boxes in Hell.

drDrew.com: What's your favorite thing to do when no one else is around?

Steve Perry: I'm a bit of a loner, so there's no one else around most of the time. My favorite thing to do is talk to myself. When people are around, I start to clam up, and then after they leave I have the conversation. Usually I just crack myself up.

drDrew.com: What's your greatest fear?

SP: That I'm going to end up alone. I used to live in this big apartment building and it was all old people and me. There was so much loneliness in this building that when the door shut the loneliness made a sound. It was so palpable. We tend to think that there's somebody for everybody, but I realized that's not true. Everyone is so damn selfish and no one wants to make a commitment, so I think a lot of us are going to end up completely alone.

drDrew.com: What is one thing you would change about yourself?

SP: I would be more adventurous in my personal life. I don't reach out to people so I've become somewhat of a misanthrope. I think I should give people a break and become part of the human race. That's a lot of what [Soul Caddy] is about, struggling with both hating people and wanting to be part of the human condition. Every time I go out and talk to people, though, I just end up bored, depressed and disillusioned and it makes me want to stay home more.

drDrew.com: What was your worst day job?

SP: When I was in high school I worked at a loading dock. I was just chucking boxes all day long. Once, an old lady who worked on the conveyor belt--she must've been around sixty years old and she was smoking a big cigarette, she looked like a big, cancerous soccer ball--came up to me and said, "Do you believe in hell?" And I said no. So she said, "Hell is right here on this earth," and she walked away. It was fucking horrible.

drDrew.com: What's your idea of perfect happiness?

SP: To be constantly in motion. The less I dwell on stuff the happier I am. I've always felt the big time clock ticking, and I worry that I'm not going to be able to do everything I want before this life's over.

drDrew.com: What's your favorite album for a night of steamy monkey love?

SP: Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges. That's the ultimate sex album, especially the song "Penetration." I'm not a Barry White kind of guy, that's not sexy for me.

drDrew.com: What album inspired you to get into music?

SP: The Wipers. There was one record in particular called Over the Edge that reminds me so much of the '80s and what it was like to live in the Pacific Northwest. It's an "us against them" sort of record. Kurt Cobain liked them a ton and rightly so. They were just awesome.

drDrew.com: What was your most memorable celebrity encounter?

SP: When I was a kid, I was walking down the street with my dad in New York City and saw [boxer] Floyd Patterson. I just happened to have his biography upstairs, which I stole from the library, so I ran up and tore out the little card to try and hide that I stole it. When I ran back down he was still there. He was the nicest, sweetest man ever and he was very excited that I had his biography. This was my first brush with a celebrity and I was a very sensitive kid, so if he had been an asshole it would have scarred me.

drDrew.com: Who would you want to come back as and why?

SP: On [Soul Caddy], I allude as coming back in Antiquity, back in the Homeric times, during the wars in the Iliad. I would love to be in the Odyssey or the Iliad, back when civilization was just dawning. That was a time of heroes, where death actually meant something and things weren't so numbingly boring. I don't like the feeling of modern life very much. I imagine life must have seemed like a stronger cup of coffee back then, even if it was a shorter, more brutal life. I would rather come back in a rawer world.

drDrew.com: Who would you like to trade places with and why?

SP: Not anyone specific, but I'd love to trade places with a New York sophisticate, someone who had a really good education and a lot of smart friends and talked about art. I fantasize about that so much. I live in Eugene, OR, not exactly the hotbed of culture, and I never finished college. I wonder if I would have a better life if I had smart, erudite, sophisticated, cultured friends. Would I be happier or would I think they were just a total bunch of schmucks?

drDrew.com: Finish this line: "If we can send a man to the moon then why...?"

SP: Then why do I have to listen to this stuff on the radio? It's fucking horrible right now.