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Tom Maxwell, half of the SNZ songwriting duo and the man that penned the 1997 radio smash "Hell," leans back in his chair at the Pittsboro, North Carolina, General Store and considers the question.

"I call it 'Squirrel Nut Zippers music,' but that's kind of a cop-out," he says.

Also, it's four words. He keeps thinking.

Maxwell is his own person, much like SNZ is its own band. He wears a t-shirt, sweats and Chuck Taylors, a fashion coup in this old Southern town of brick facades and pick-up trucks. His hair is long enough on top to be gelled back into a slick 1940s Johnny 'do, but instead it skies high like the wall of a thunderhead.

"People used to think we were a lounge band and we weren't. Now people think we're a swing band and we're not," he says. "There are elements of swing in what we do, but there are as much elements of Dixieland, or Harlem hot music, or calypso or blues or string band music or rock 'n' roll."

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"Our goal is to grow as musicians and songwriters, not find the one song that is the most popular and continually rewrite it."
-- Tom Maxwell, Squirrel Nut Zippers

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Much, much too many words, and it soon becomes apparent that there isn't a catchphrase -- like grunge rock, or punk rock, or pop, or Motown or swing or jazz -- to neatly encapsulate this end-of-the-century band, stamp them and ship them off to the music factory.

As "Perennial Favorites" attests, their sound continues to be defined with each note they play.

"I think the best music is made as a result of a synthesis of disparate cultures," says Maxwell. "Our goal is to grow as musicians and songwriters, not find the one song that is the most popular and continually rewrite it."

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