The zoot suit riot may have been quelled, but the Cherry Poppin' Daddies are still leading the charge to the dance floor.

More than three years after the release of their double-platinum album "Zoot Suit Riot," Eugene's favorite rude boy swingers are back with a rockin' new CD and a fall tour. The Daddies close down the Eugene Celebration with a homecoming performance at 5 p.m. Sunday on the Fifth Avenue Stage.

"We've been wanting to play locally for a long time," says frontman Steve Perry, who figures the band's last Eugene gig was an August 1998 show at the Cuthbert Amphitheater. "It's gotten a lot tougher to go down to the corner bar and just whip out a Daddies set."

The Daddies' long-overdue return comes at a time when pork pie hats and hoop skirts are no longer trendy, but Perry says there's still room for the swing that existed before Gap commercials, the movie "Swingers" and the discovery of the martini glass by twentysomethings with disposable incomes. A believer in musical hybrids, Perry laments the fact that many bands who rode the swing craze of the late 1990s were more interested in recycling the music than reinventing it.

"I wanted to mix swing with a punk-rock sensibility and create a new feeling, but no one really went that way," Perry said. "A lot of people just went for nostalgia. ... They just saw dollar signs."

There's no arguing that the Daddies profited from the swing craze. The "Riot" album sent the band around the world; their music was heard on the soundtracks of several films; they played the WARPED tour; and they were even honored with a Weird Al Yankovic parody ("Grapefruit Diet") of their signature hit "Zoot Suit Riot."

Now that swing has been deemed deader than disco, the Daddies have changed their tune a bit on "Soul Caddy" (Mojo Records), scheduled for release on Oct. 10. The group's signature swing-meets-ska sound can still be heard, but the songs on the new album are more polished, more soulful and, in some cases, more modern.

"It's more of a cross of our various influences. It's just a different thing for us," Perry said. "We're prepared to play a lot of stuff from our old record, but the pressure is off to play swing all night long."

The Daddies take a Motown turn on tunes like "Stay, Don't Just Stay" and the title track, an old-fashioned ode to women and cars. The song "Irish Whiskey" is a punked-up ska tune, and the first single off the album, "Diamond Light Boogie," is a modern rock-infused swing dance for the 21st century. Like "Zoot Suit Riot," "Soul Caddy" is a shuffled deck that goes from swing to ska to punk to funk at the push of the skip button.

More than two years in the making, "Soul Caddy" was set to be released much sooner. Perry recalls working on the album in February 1998 when the single "Zoot Suit Riot" first exploded and forced the band to ditch the studio in favor of the road.

"I kept getting calls that people were playing it," Perry said. "I asked them not to call me, but finally they called and said, 'They're playing it on K-Rock and you're going to get out of the studio and tour behind this record.'"

The Daddies' "endless tour" lasted a year and a half and went around the world. By the time the group returned to the studio, many of the songs from the earlier session had lost their luster and Perry the songwriter began to look inward instead of outward.

"I always complained about other people being ironic and coy and trying to shine the bright light away from themselves," Perry said. "I decided I'd rather risk sentimentality and say something truthful about myself and the world in general than be a really hip jackass."

Formed in 1989, the band released its first album, "Ferociously Stoned," in 1990, following that in 1994 with "Rapid City Muscle" and in 1996 with "Kids on the Street."

Having built a small following in the Northwest, the Daddies had a base audience and impeccable timing when they released "Zoot Suit Riot," a compilation of new and old swing, in March 1997. Mojo Records re-released the album in July 1997, and the fun began. Despite the album's explosive success, Perry says the band has managed to keep a level head through it all.

"It's a total cliche, but it doesn't make you happy. There's a lot missing," Perry said. "Success has given people the right to yell at me on the street, but I don't really feel like it's given me any dignity."

Uncertain of what the Daddies might encounter in a post-swing millennium, Perry is optimistic but nonspecific about the band's future. Invigorated by a new album and a new sound and by the return of keyboardist Dustin Lanker, the eight-piece band seems closer to where they were before the explosion of swing.

"I'd like to reach as many people as possible with this record, but I'm not worried," Perry said. "I think if the record is good, it will speak volumes about you - and it is."