amuZnet: How did the Cherry Poppin' Daddies come to exist?
Perry: Well, we started in the late '80s. We had been in bands like punk-rock bands, power-pop, punk-rock kind of bands before Cherry Poppin' Daddies and I guess I was listening to... I guess I just wanted to do something different at that point, because all my friends were starting to play alternative rock type of stuff. I just thought that it would be... I actually bought this small jazz banjo and I started listening to a lot of jazz at that point, and I just started picking it up and I started writing songs on it and I had a friend who was a good saxophone player. I showed him the songs and we put it together and had a few rehearsals and somebody heard us rehearsing and said, "Hey, you should come down and play this show and be on the bill." So we needed a name and we grasped about it and we were drinking in the living room one time -- one of our friends said, "You should call yourselves the Cherry Poppin' Daddies." And so we said okay and we called ourselves the Cherry Poppin' Daddies -- and people unexpectedly liked it and that led to another gig, which led me here.

amuZnet: Who are the eight musicians who comprise your band and what are their respective instruments?
Perry: That's a tough one. I'm Steve, I'm the singer; Jason Moss is the guitar player; Dan Schmid is the bass player; the drums is Tim Donahue; the keyboard player is Dustin Lanker; tenor sax is Sean Flannery; alto sax is Ian Early; and Trumpet is Dana Heitman. [takes a deep breath] Whoa, I did it!

amuZnet: With that many musicians, how does the song-writing process work? Do you all collaborate well together?
Perry: I pretty much write the songs in the band and then we bring them into the studio space and try to hack them out and try to correct... Whatever I think, if I thought a sax could play that note and they can't play that note, they tell me that quickly. It's because there's so many people -- it's sort of a representative democracy. I have to bring in the songs mostly done, and everybody puts their special signature on them. We just don't get in a room and jam. That would be total cacophony -- you can imagine what a three-piece band would be like, so you can imagine that an eight-piece band with horns it wouldn't work unless somebody has an idea of what they want to do to begin with.

amuZnet: How many albums have you guys released?
Perry: Well, let's see, this would be our fifth record.

amuZnet: Tell me a little bit about your new release, Soul Caddy, and how you came up with some of the new eclectic sounds and genres that you've fused into this album?
Perry: Well, Zoot Suit Riot was a collection of all our swing songs on our records -- a lot of people at that point had really liked our swing music and they would come up to our merch table and ask for the album that had the most swing on them. Each one of the albums had about the same amount, and the guy who ran our merch table said, "Jesus, if you guys could put all your swing songs together, I'd be able to make a fortune here at the table, because all of your records have very different things on them and none of them are all swing." So we put them all together on Zoot Suit Riot and consequently that became our giant big hit record. As a band, we've always been very diverse and wrote songs and thought out of the box you know... Actually, before you called, I was listening to Cheap Trick. You know, it's funny, we're a lot like Cheap Trick in a way because they didn't make sense because they were to poppy for the heavy metal people and too weird for the heavy metal people and they were just a really weird band. In the pop vein, they did really weird shit like play '50s rock like "All Shook Up" and stuff like that. I guess we're like that -- we do stuff like that where we make no sense. All the songs have their own taste -- all of our records thus far except for Zoot Suit Riot have been quasi-concept records and Soul Caddy is no different. What holds the songs together of the various genres is the lyrics and there is like five or six ideas going through the record. But the surfaces of the songs are not the same. We don't repeat the same songs over and over again -- I'm sure a lot of bands say they don't but we REALLY don't! We sound like very different bands from song to song.

amuZnet: Going back to the first time that you ever performed, did you feel anxious?
Perry: Yeah, I think I felt anxious. I'm a very, very shy person so it's like one of those things where the "scared-er" I am, the better the show is. If I feel sick, then usually the show is going to be good. Over the years, I very rarely feel anxious. I wish I did more.

amuZnet: No more butterflies floating around in your stomach?
Perry: Yeah, I don't get butterflies much anymore, but I try to, I try to scare myself you know. I try to be as good as I can. It gives me the energy to get up there and realize that I am being a fool -- the foolishness makes me feel embarrassed, and the embarrassment gives me more energy, so I can-- by realizing how fucking stupid being a guy up on stage pulls more stupidity out of you. And people like it, you know.

amuZnet: Do you prefer to tour or being in the studio?
Perry: I don't know, I really don't. They are equal, I like touring, I think we are a really good live band and I like touring because of that. For me personally, I think I'm basically at root I am a song writer and that takes place by myself, and I'm very fond of the studio, so I guess I don't know. I really couldn't say. I do like touring, but it gets old quick though, you know. On Zoot Suit Riot, in a year we did 265 days. We didn't have much time off, in that one year.

amuZnet: So you guys have pretty extensive touring plans coming up, to support the new album.
Perry: Yeah, I know we are going through the end of the year here and in about 10 to 12 days, we are going to start -- and then after that I don't know when or where. We probably will do another one in the winter, too, and keep going.

amuZnet: All within the States?
Perry: I doubt it. I think we will go overseas with this one, too. It's just because of the way the record is. I don't know -- we kind of didn't get to hit as much. We did go overseas with Zoot Suit but not as extensively. We were going to go to Japan and Asia because we had really good response on Zoot Suit Riot, but it was during the economic crisis over there, and it was kind of crappy for the promoters and they didn't want to take chances and all this kind of stuff, and we ended up not going, but we will probably go this time.

amuZnet: Is it difficult to leave your friends and loved ones behind when you guys are on the road?
Perry: It is what I have done for years and years, so not really. It's just a pain in the ass. You have to put your stuff somewhere and get someone to take care of your stuff while you are gone -- it's a lifestyle, you get used to it. I don't know any other life, really, so I don't know. I like going away, I'm ready to go out. I've been here for a while now, just working on the record, preparing, so now it's time to go out there and make a fool of myself for a year.

amuZnet: What is the single strangest thing you have seen or experienced on tour.
Perry: Well, it definitely has to be one of the dudes getting out of their bunk in the bus and marveling at how underwear can do that! That's the thing I must marvel at.

amuZnet: The great twisted underwear phenomenon?
Perry: Yeah, but more like, it's kind of hard to explain. The feeling is you are standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, where you are kind of dizzy and sick. Most amazing.

amuZnet: That is sick.
Perry: Unfortunately, you have to see that.

amuZnet: If you could choose any artist to go on tour with from past or present, who would be in your line-up?
Perry: Oh, wow, there are so many. I would love to go on tour with, probably the best would be the Stones in the early '70s. That would have to be the best. If you have seen that movie, Cocksucker Blues [1972], and all that stuff, it was pretty much a den of iniquity and I think it would be real funny too. 'Cause, Jesus, that was the zenith of rock decadence -- not that we are like that at all, but to see it up just super-interesting, up close and personal. We don't do that. We are clean-cut, relatively. We are insane but we're not dangerous.

amuZnet: What were you doing before Cherry Poppin' Daddies?
Perry: I had a video store.

amuZnet: Your own video store?
Perry: Yeah, my own video store. It was like an alternative and kind of b-movie and all sorts of weird... We lived in a college town and had a group of people who would rent crazy films from me. I made an intensely small living during that.

amuZnet: So are you an entrepreneur yet?
Perry: Yeah, I've always been an entrepreneur. My mother tried to force me to do that. I've had jobs since I was little selling Foxy Lady T-shirts in the '70s, way back then. It was whatever I could make. I don't like working for other people.

amuZnet: Where do you envision the band in the next five years?
Perry: That's a good question. The music business has changed so much and this big Generation Y thing is taking it somewhere else right now. I don 't know what's going to happen with the kind of music that we do. Or with the kind of music that I'm interested in, even. This has always been the case -- I've always been interested in the stuff that no one else is into. I' ll probably be making some sort of music that makes no sense, still. But I don't know if that will coincide with any sort of zeitgeist or any sort of signs of the times. It never has, except for one small period in time where it just embraced us. I really don't like hip-hop that much and those boy bands really aren't interesting to me. I certainly won't be doing that. I don't know. I'll be doing something else.

amuZnet: So you're not going to be dancing in sparkly costumes and singing a cappella, then?
Perry: Well, we'll be dancing in sparkly costumes, but it will be a different kind of thing.

amuZnet: What is the title of your autobiography?
Perry: Oh, that's a hard one. You know that's a really hard one. Maybe I should say that: "That's a Really Hard One."

amuZnet: And finally, where can fans go online to find more information on Cherry Poppin' Daddies?
Perry: They can go to our website, www.daddies.com.