Swing on over to Seattle's Triple Door to catch the Squirrel Nut Zippers

The old, new band the Squirrel Nut Zippers formed in the early 1990s in the college town of Chapel Hill, N.C. Musicians Jim Mathus and Katharine Whalen, who were married then, started "picking around at home," said Mathus, playing with the mix of music they grew up with — swing, country, blues and folk.

The two attracted other like-minded musicians from the area and formed a band that was supposed to be a "summer art project," said Mathus, whose recently reunited group will perform two shows tonight at the Triple Door.

The Zippers' timing in the 1990s was exceptionally good. Their curiosity and affection for swing-inspired music quickly found a large audience. A new generation rediscovered swing dancing, adopting the music and affectations of the era.

The hit movie "Swingers" captured the neo-swing scene and featured the band Big Voodoo Daddy. It and other bands like the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, the Royal Crown Revue and the Squirrel Nut Zippers blended swing with rock and ska, helping feed a subculture that even found its way into a Gap television ad featuring khaki-wearing dancers doing the Lindy Hop to Louis Prima's "Jump, Jive and Wail."

Although they did not set out to do so, the Zippers rode that wave, selling millions of records and making millions of dollars, until they disbanded in 2001. The swing craze had crested and the band members, embittered by a legal battle involving royalties, were emotionally spent, drummer Chris Phillips said.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers, a reference to Southern moonshine and therefore to the band's roots, got back together in 2007, playing mostly the same music in the same spirit and manner they performed years ago, with quirky costumes and endearing stage theatrics. Without the burden of being part of a larger craze, the group's sound is fresh again.

"Fads come and go, and we were very dubious of being lumped into it," said Phillips, one of the founding members of the band. "Now we are much less sensitive about genres and labels than we used to be ... because we have the gift of history and hindsight."

Close scrutiny reveals their music to be, in fact, very difficult to define. Although the swing feel prevails, there are elements of bluegrass, punk, calypso and other tidbits that cannot quite be categorized. If you had to give the group a label, you would have to say it's a Southern band influenced most by the music of that region: country, folk and blues.

"We're just being ourselves," Phillips said. "It's a full-on stone soup. We're the funniest conglomeration of mismatched parts, and when it all gets put together, it's like a cool, abstract sculpture. We're jazz but we're also Led Zeppelin."

Asked about the timing and motivation behind the band's reunion, Phillips said, "honest to God, I really missed these people. This is the best thing I do in my life. I'm better at this than I am at anything. The band is creative and gutsy and it lets me be all the people that I am."