WE’RE up too early,” croaks saxophonist Muggsy West. “It’s nearly noon, and we’ve still barely recovered from last night’s exploits. Note to self: do not mix your drinks.”

So begins another day for Oxford’s Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band.

“The band is in fine fettle,” he goes on. “Four of us have hangovers to rival F Scott Fitzgerald, and the other three have been competing in the Ernest Hemmingway Sweepstakes. We look like a George Romero fans convention. Except our bass player Buzz, who always looks like a character in one those Louvre paintings that you could steal and retire on.

“However, our trademark suits and hats give the illusion of sophistication.”

Sophistication may be thin on the ground for the Oxford jazz band, but excitement is not.

This explosive seven-piece describe themselves as “the undisputed heavyweight champions of Chav Jazz!”

Starting life about four years ago as a washboard, banjo and harmonica ‘spasm’ ensemble by singer Stu ‘Baron’ Macbeth and guitarist ‘the Rev’ Tommy Costello, the band has evolved, with the addition of Muggsy, trumpter ‘Bunny’ Eros, trombonist ‘King’ Martin, bassman ‘Buzz’ Booker, and drummer ‘Baby’ Nickerson, into a 14-legged, swinging jazz, jump-jive, and red hot rhythm and blues monster.

“It started as a proper spasm band,” says Muggsy, referring to the old Mississippi Delta term for an improvised low-tech band using homemade instruments.

“You know, with a one-stringed guitar, a washtub and broom handle for a bass, stuff like that.”

Since then they have polished their performance and filled out their ranks, so that they now hit you with the force of a Louisiana hurricane. Anyone who witnessed their headlining performance at the Cellar for this year’s Oxford Punt will have been left in no doubt that the future sounds like jazz.

“We are trying to make jazz popular,” an inebriated Muggsy – aka Westy – goes on, while taking things easy in his East Oxford garden alongside Bunny, who has also clearly partaken of a gin or two.

“Jazz has been taken over by a lot of high-brow types who enjoy the maths. But you lose the meaning when it becomes elitist so it becomes unpopular.”

Bunny chimes in: “As Miles Davis said, jazz isn’t dying – it just sounds that way!”

While most of the band come from Oxfordshire, Bunny is the exception. Though now living off Cowley Road, he is originally from tiny Sioux Lookout – a remote town surrounded by thousands of miles of lakes and forests in Ontario, Canada.

Oh, and drummer Lucky, a product of Corpus Christi, Oxford, hails from Hampshire. Having spent all of two months in the band, he holds a prestigious position as the band’s longest serving sticksman.

“We’ve had more drummers than Spinal Tap,” laughs Muggsy. “There have been eight in the past seven months.”

A hard working band, the guys admit to practically living on their ‘tour bus’ – the Oxford Bus Company’s X90 London ‘Espress’. They next play the city as guests of the Carnival in the Park, on Sunday, July 5.

So what do they sound like? “We sound like a band of people performing songs really well – but nothing like the way they were supposed to be performed.”

Muggsy grins.

“We are rediscovering a lot of music and playing it in a modern context. Those people at our Punt gig might not have realised it, but they were dancing to stuff written in the 1800s – yet the kids were jumping off the walls. What more can you say?

“We have a lot of enthusiasm. After all, if you’re not enthusiastic, you can be sure your audience won’t be. It’s fun music with great tunes – and lots of space to pump in energy.

“We have a solid jazz beat but with a punk edge,” adds Bunny.

“After all, we are not doing tea dances! People think of jazz as cute music played by gentle people with bow ties, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

And he proceeds to reel off a long list of ‘bad boy’ jazz artists, whose exploits make even the wildest of today’s rock bands look like choirboys.

“People will always find a way to misbehave,” explains Muggsy. “Which is why I’m writing to whisky manufacturers to try and find a sponsor.”

“And why I’m speaking to gin companies,” chirps in Bunny. "My namesake, the American jazz trumpeter Bunny Berigan drank himself to death at the age of 33. And I’ve just turned 33 now, so I have some catching up to do.”

So have you got to live wild to play jazz? I ask.

“You’ve got to live wild to have a life,” growls Muggsy. “There’s no money in jazz. It does help with the bar bills, but that’s about it. It’s a labour of love.”

The band play the Carnival in the Park in South Park, on July 5; Truck Festival, at Hill Farm, Steventon (July 25-26); the Marlborough Jazz Festival (July 10-11); and Bestival on the Isle of Wight (September 11-13).