MODE: So how long have you been doing swing and how did you first get into it?

PERRY: We started in 1989. There’s no mysterious way we got into it, it was just an idea I had to mix swing and punk rock, and give the swing more of an edge. I wrote a few songs and got some people together to play. It was one of those things, and then we said, let’s put on a show. People really liked us, so we just sort of went one gig to another.

MODE: So there was no defining moment that said "Swing," just your own interest?

PERRY: I don’t know, you always hear these eureka statements from people, but it wasn’t like that for me, it slowly crept in on me. I found it was easy to write. As a songwriter some things are harder to write than others, and swing was just a natural to me. It felt right and it was easy to make it work and seem valid, while if I wrote a pop song it would be a lot more hackneyed and hard to do.

MODE: I’m sure you get asked this regularly, but what are your thoughts on the current swing phenomenon?

MOSS: I think it’s cool. It’s nice that you hear big band stuff on the radio after hearing so much that sounds really homogenous. It’s adding some variety. There’s different cultural values in swing, and people are just starting to realize that it’s a different set of values from a lot of today’s music. And that’s what culture is about, the clashing of different value systems. Swing is adding a opinion that has not been there for a long time. During the ten years of grunge music, the whole concept of positivity was not enforced. Not that our music is that positive, but swing has a sense of refinement to it, along with a sense of fashion that goes along with it. There’s a sense that when you get dressed up and wear a tie that you have more manners. That’s not true, but it sounds good.

MODE: Do you play standards as well or just originals?

PERRY: We play just originals. We started out as a swing band, but since we have played all ages shows most of our career, we have been influenced by different bands like the third wave ska bands. We came up through that and we were influenced by that, so we have a certain percentage of ska tunes in our set.

MODE: Is your swing influenced by jazz or r&b from the 50’s?

PERRY: It’s more jazzy. Most of our tunes have long instrumental sections that are charted, as opposed to 12-bar blues with tenor solos. That’s where we differ from a lot of other swing bands that play jump blues. We do have a few jump blues numbers, because I have always liked boogie-woogie piano.

MODE: Have you been playing in many of the swing clubs that are popping up in metropolitan areas?

PERRY: We’ve played in a few, but in the beginning we tried to minimize playing swing clubs because we wanted to play more diverse venues. Besides the swing clubs tend to be more like martini and cigar bars full of yuppies. There it’s all about picking up and getting laid.