PHOTO PROVIDED The Squirrel Nut Zippers will perform with Davina and The Vagabonds 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Community Arts Center, 220 W. Fourth St.

Get ready for the sounds of New Orleans, as the Squirrel Nut Zippers join forces with Davina & The Vagabonds, creating a blend of blues, jazz, and swing influences for an unforgettable musical performance, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Community Arts Center, 220 W. Fourth St.

Founded by bandleader, James “Jimbo” Mathus in 1993, the band has been making waves throughout the music industry and has been credited for playing a major role in the swing revival seen in the 1990s. With influences that include Johnny Ace, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt, Raymond Scott, Fats Waller, and Tom Waits, their indescribably unique sound has made them one of the hottest alternative bands to come out of that decade.

After a short break, the band launched a revival in 2007 and has come back stronger than ever. New fans and longtime followers are excited to see the rebirth of this iconic band. Accompanied by the soulful blues band, Davina & The Vagabonds, the show is selling out venues across the U.S. and is sure to be an amazing experience for both young and old.

Mathus hails from the deep South in Mississippi, where he grew up in a family band and started playing mandolin at the age of six. Very early on, he was exposed to a tradition of blues, country and gospel music.

“I learned the folk cannon, deep South music,” he said. “But we didn’t do it professionally — we entertained our families and friends.”

Mathus’ first memories were of Bill Monroe, the Carter family and Jimmie Rodgers. As he got older, blues pioneers like Charley Patton sparked his interest, as did another influence on him — his father, a multi-instrumentalist who played banjo, bass, piano, mandolin, harmonica, and guitar.

“I was always more interested in hanging out with the musicians who were older, like my dad, than I was with the kids,” he said. “I was drawn to it anyway, and I was encouraged at that point.”

When Mathus was five, one of his uncles left a mandolin at the house one day. But he forgot it and left it there for almost a year.

“By the time he came back to get it I learned to play it,” he said. “So, the family got together and pitched in and got me a proper mandolin. And I just went from there.”

The Squirrel Nut Zippers began their musical journey in the mid-1990s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At the time, their music was an escape from the cookie cutter world of modern rock radio. Mathus, along with drummer/percussionist Chris Phillips, formed the band as a casual musical foray among friends and family in the area. It wasn’t long before the band’s quirky mix of jazz chords, folk music, and punk rock leanings spread out of the region and attracted a national audience.

As Mathus progressed along as a musician, he became very interested in the roots of the music he was doing. When he moved up to North Carolina, he was impressed with the culture and the access to things he didn’t have in Mississippi, such as record stores, bookstores and libraries.

“I just started doing some research on where the music came from — what came before,” he said. “That’s when I started discovering the big band, jazz, vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley, and the way that was influenced by the European music — the cabaret, Klezmer and show tunes.

Once Mathus found out what they were, he started to learn how to play the chords and how they moved around. He soon became intrigued by how to play these types of music, which were a lot different from what he had grown up doing.

“Being a band leader and a person who liked to have bands and musicians around me, it just naturally evolved,” he said. “I started finding like-minded people to actually attempt to perform this early American music that was so out of fashion and out of date. With no type of encouragement or goal in mind, we just wanted to see if we could do it. We did one gig at a little French bistro, and we got a record deal after that first gig.”

Between 1995-2000, the Squirrel Nut Zippers sold over three million albums. Their watershed album “Hot” in 1996 was recorded in the heat of New Orleans, mixed with Klezmer, Blues, Americana and random bits of contemporary music that became the band’s signature style. Their breakthrough single “Hell,” with its calypso rhythm, more closely aligned the band with the neo-swing movement.

Few other bands were inhabiting this space, as the band went against the norms of what was popular at the time. The album would eventually break free of any “jazz” stereotypes and land on commercial radio, taking the band to remarkable heights for what was essentially an anti-establishment sound.

The success the band found was far beyond what they had ever thought. It never occurred to Mathus that he would be making a living from music. But he now realizes that it was his calling – what he was made to do.

“It’s made a lot of people very happy, and our music continues to be very important to a lot of people,” he said. “I’m incredibly grateful and humbled and excited. That’s one reason that made me want to record the new record — to add something to that catalogue, to where it’s not just something that happened 20 years ago. So that was a big motivation.”

After a hiatus of several years, the original band members reunited and performed in 2007, playing select dates around the U.S. and Canada.

Years later, the band has emerged from a lengthy recording hiatus, reinvigorated, reinvested and rejuvenated. In 2016, Mathus reformed the group, assembling an all-star cast of New Orleans musicians who have breathed new life into the old material, and inspired Mathus to return to the studio to reignite the band’s unique, enigmatic sound.

The result, is the first Squirrel Nut Zippers studio album in eighteen years titled “Beasts of Burgundy,” a handsome moniker referring to Burgundy Street in New Orleans. A return to form, the album embraces the city that first inspired the group.

“Beasts of Burgundy” contains 12 original new songs from the mind of Mathus and the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Inspired by the city of New Orleans, a poet he met in the city named Ron Cuccia, and a disregard for convention, the band’s latest studio release will be released on March 23, on Southern Broadcasting.

For “Beasts of Burgundy,” the band didn’t want to break the mold of what they were. With access to greater musicians with a higher skill set, Mathus was able to conceptualize a bigger collection of songs for an album.

All drawing from the same well of mystery, dark alleyways, and long forgotten potions of romance, the album weaves together true stories from New Orleans past, along with rollicking barnstormers full of all the usual twists and turns that are the hallmark of the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ sound.

“In a lot of ways, it’s identical, but just with a higher skill set and more experience,” Mathus said. “I didn’t want to lose the raw energy that we had then. It’s hard to recapture something that’s in the past that was exciting and vibrant. So that’s what we were able to do. I’m quite proud of it.”

For Mathus and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, performing is about exuberance, a sense of relief and joy. It’s the way the band approaches entertaining.

“It’s an old-fashioned ethic of entertaining, transforming the moment into something joyous and ecstatic,” he said. “Even though we have a very high skill set on stage, we still make it seem effortless and fun and joyous. I started out with social music and entertaining people, and as an entertainer I try to get people to break down their defenses and just smile and open up and have fun.”

As for the future, Mathus said he isn’t sure if he will be able to write another Zippers record, but that he at least has added to the story of the band.

“My intention right now is just to go and perform for the people,” he said. “We’re just going to buckle down and hit the road and take this music everywhere that we can.”