I’ve got a problem with you and your friends: you still haven’t heard Prince Daddy & The Hyena’s I Thought You Didn’t Even Like Leaving
Last year at Pre-Fest, I got to Tequila’s (RIP) early to secure a good spot to see the band Pkew Pkew Pkew. And right before they went on, a scrappy group of four goofy-looking young adults who didn’t even look old enough to redeem a venue drink ticket played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen. A band I’ve seen 3 times since then and I’ll be seeing again at a ridiculously stacked lineup on the Saturday of Fest. A band whose hat I’m wearing right now. A band whose name makes no sense, but you learn to stop questioning eventually. That band, as you can see by how long the title of this piece is, is Prince Daddy & The Hyena.
Prince Daddy & The Hyena are from upstate New York. They seem to have formed in 2014 when the members were in college. They seem to be pretty low maintenance and obsessed with video games, weed, Weezer, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But I’m less interested in what they seem and more in what they are. And what they and their 2016 debut I Thought You Didn’t Even Like Leaving are is unassured in identity and mental health, but completely assured in musical stylings and their slacker attitude. And that contrast is what makes them one of the best and most promising bands in the entire DIY scene right now.
The band is signed to Counter-Intuitive Records, who have gotten a lot of hype in the last couple of years for bands like Mom Jeans, Retirement Party and Pictures of Vernon. This new wave of bands has been dubbed by some as “party emo” (both affectionately and pejoratively) due to its rejection of the seriousness musically and lyrically of traditional emo revival bands, favoring tongue-in-cheek melodrama and ironic pop culture and weed references. Prince Daddy is often one of the first bands mentioned in this wave, and while they do fit the requirements, there’s a lot more to them than that.
If you asked the average “party emo” band who the biggest influence on their sound is, you’re probably likely to get American Football as answer. But there’s not a single drop of open tuning on P. Daddy’s album. The band leans much farther into the realm of emo-in-spirit punk bands such as Joyce Manor, The Menzingers, Jeff Rosenstock, Donovan Wolfington, and yes, of course, Weezer. P. Daddy are just as angsty as their CI contemporaries, but their sound is far louder and more urgent.
And you don’t have to look far to get why, either: take the absolutely stunning opening 3-song massacre that starts the album. The title track opens with singer Kory Gregory’s bare, throat-shredding scream of “WHENEVER I FALL ASLEEP” before the band’s feedback seeps into the background for “I KEEP ON WAKING UP TO THE SAME GODDAMN DREAMS.” The rest of the beginning verse continues dealing with mental health and self-hatred (with a Ninja Turtles II reference to lighten the mood just a tad) before some head-spinning shredding between Gregory and guitarist Cameron Hanford. In the song’s final stretch there’s a reference to the sitcom Friends that somehow manages to be one of the most emotional moments of the entire album. “It’s not absurd to say that 10 goddamn seasons / beats the longest friendship I’ve ever had,” screams Gregory, finding comfort in the show’s consistency, particularly that of Ross and Rachel. If those two can last, maybe his feelings of isolation will dissipate and his relationships, both platonic and romantic, will do the same. For a reference to such a cheesy show, it sure does hit hard.
By the time you’ve finally got your bearings after the song’s over, I Forgot to Take My Meds Today begins to creep in. The midtempo pogo-ing feel of the song is perfectly complimented by relatable feelings of medication withdrawal, being unable to figure oneself out and allusions to feeling trapped in bubblegum when you try to move. The song is also a showcase of how good the band is at writing hooks. I often find myself singing “I can’t believe it’s only Tuuuesday” even when I did take my meds, and sometimes when it’s not even Tuesday.
The final song of this ridiculous 3-track run, however, Clever Girl, is the real star of the show. The way those first drum beats pop into the mix after the opening chords always get me (and the rest of the audience at the band’s hectic live shows) excited. After a verse shutting down dudebros looking for a fight, the song turns over to some impressive guitarwork that finds the band at their most Pinkerton-esque. And then comes the climax: “I’VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS / I FUCKING HATE YOU SINCE YOU MET ALL OF THEM.” I couldn’t even begin to count the amount of times I’ve screamed these words while driving and listening to the album. I’ve lost my fair share of friends to their newer, shittier friends influencing them the wrong way. It’s a frustrating feeling because your former friend usually did nothing wrong but fall into a bad crowd, but that doesn’t make Gregory or anyone who can relate any less angry.
If you’ve read any of the other parts of this series, you’ll notice I’ve focused in on lyrics much harder this time around. Don’t get me wrong –every member of P. Daddy is quite talented at their respective instrument, and the production courtesy of Joe Reinhart (of Hop Along and Algernon Cadwallader fame) makes it all sound crisp as hell. But Gregory is well beyond heart-on-sleeve; he’s plugged his heart straight into the mic and is spurting blood all over the audience as he screams (and they all fucking love it.) Hundo Pos, another highlight despite clocking under two minutes long, is a millennial anthem. Closing lyric “a day’s worth of not doing anything at all’s / worth a million fuckin’ bucks more than a phone call.” As an anxious millennial who can go days without socializing or doing anything productive, oftentimes on accident, I really resonate with that. Then there’s Bromeo // Always Good, which is driven by a great riff courtesy of bassist Zakariya Houacine, which deals with the need for romantic validation and the dreaded hypotheticals that come with loneliness. Did I make you mad? Are you not coming back? As ridiculous as they may seem as a response to someone simply saying goodbye, they’re questions that are all too real when you’re terrified of going back to being alone.
P. Daddy are masters of brevity, but closing track Really?, so far the band’s longest song yet (clocking in just under 5 minutes,) is constantly sprawling further and further out. The song doesn’t lose lyrical earnestness; it starts quite bluntly with “I think I’m getting depressed again / I think I’m gonna lose all my friends,” and even calls back to lyrics from the title track and Pop Song. The emotional highs and lows the album has brought the listener through are wrapped up nicely, or at least as nicely as Ben Wyatt could do before punctuating it with “do you think a depressed person could make this?” I Thought You Didn’t Like Leaving is one of the first albums in a long time that, after finishing my first listen-through, I simply pressed play and listened to again.
What’s exciting about I Thought You Didn’t Even Like Leaving is that it was made by a very young band who already has an extremely clear sense of what they want to achieve musically. And if the tracks the band released on Now That’s What I Call Music Vol. 420 and the first Death Protector tape, in addition to the new live songs they’ve been performing are any indication, they haven’t lost sight of that. When pressed about when their new album is coming out via social media, the band often humorously replies with “10–12 years.” While this might be done to kill any preconceived hype and let the album stand on its own come release day, it does seem to come from a place of anxiety on the band’s part, particularly Gregory’s. And though I should know from personal experience that people telling you to “chill out” isn’t helpful, I’d still like to remind the band that channeling said anxiety into fuzzy punk bangers is perhaps the band’s greatest appeal to their cultish fanbase, and that I’m sure the reception will be extremely positive no matter what. Also that we’re all gonna be old 10–12 years from now and I don’t want to think about that.
Prince Daddy & The Hyena play The Fest at The Wooly on 10/27 (and given the video of last year’s set, you’re not gonna want to miss them.) They’re currently on tour with TTNG and will be touring out from Fest with Rozwell Kid until mid-November. Maybe they’ll even play a few shows in December. Who knows. Rock and roll, baby.
After you’ve bought Prince Daddy and the Hyena’s entire discography, consider throwing me a few bucks for writing this piece.
