It’s been 1o years since Tom Maxwell, former frontman of the retro-tastic Squirrel Nut Zippers, released new music. His new outfit, Tom Maxwell And The Minor Drag, is about to release its debut album, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from the man behind the Zippers’ 1996 hit “Hell”: hot jazz, jump blues, and a swinging sense of backward-glancing style, as heard on the sizzling new song “Blow Wolf,” which is being debuted here. Maxwell is also releasing a memoir titled Hell: My Life In The Squirrel Nut Zippers. Says Maxwell, “I wrote the book because I wanted to reveal the ‘before’ side of the story, because most people know the ‘after.’ I wanted to show how hilarious and heartbreaking the whole thing was, how improbable and inevitable.”
Tom Maxwell And The Minor Drag and Hell: My Life In The Squirrel Nut Zippers will both be released on August 26.