But what exactly are they, a wild collection of sounds from swing, jump blues, funk, jazz, punk and rock. The Daddies, Steve Perry (vocals), Dan Schmid (bass), Jason Moss (guitars), Brian West (drums), Chris Azorr (keyboards), Adrian P. Baxter (tenor sax), Brooks Brown (alto sax), Dana Heitman (trumpet, trombone), started about four years ago in Eugene, Oregon, amidst controversy surrounding not only their name, but their outrageous antics on stage that have included everything from Perry coming out on a cross to a giant penis car. Since then, they've packed away the theatrics, changed the name to the Daddies, changed it back again and are now content with letting the music do the talking.

And what a mouth it has! Perry said it started out as an idea for a play with lyrics that are like stories that empathize with people in the way he sees reality. He wants to show how a good person could have an evil side or be a hypocrite and an evil person could also possess a strange nobility. While the play never happened, the band did and the whole thing built upon itself adding horns and different styles to become what it is today. Perry considers it a marketing nightmare in that no matter what part of them may be the sound of the week, they'll still never fully fit in.

Live, the Daddies are out of control. Perry has been called everything from demented to a complete spaz, but to him, acting like an idiot is a liberating experience. Inspiration comes from films and people like Charlie Chaplin and Jerry Lewis. "it's like the movie The Nutty Professor, he drinks the potion and he's going off so hard. You laugh your head off because he's acting like a total idiot. It's over the top. After that, how could anything you do be wrong. He's the ultimate human; he's a crazy man. If we can communicate that, it would be great."

Perry's biggest influence lies in what he calls the cheesy schmaltz masters. "My political agenda has to do with Sammy Davis and Dean Martin because they have exuberance. The world used to be exuberant and now it's 'cool.' Coolness has to go. Guys like Jerry Lewis and authors like Jack Keroac and Henry Miller, what they share is that they're exuberant, they're alive. They don't worry about a style or marketing, they want to live. Today it's all pissy little cliches and that's not what it should be about."

As far as Perry is concerned, schmaltz is underrated, people tend to discredit it rather than see its validity. Elvis is the perfect example: "Everyone loves the young Elvis and everyone makes fun of the fat Elvis. But what's really important is as his audience grew older, he grew with them and always cared about them. I think Elvis was the American patriot, the every man, addressing the concerns of his audience. I don't think it discredits it, it just depends on where you're sitting. Young people maybe don't understand what it's like to be 60 years old and live in Tennessee and love your country. I think it's tremendous. I don't see schmaltz as a negative thing. The reason we can't experience schmaltz anymore is that we have tiny souls. In the old days, they would listen to these songs and their hearts were big. Our hearts have to get bigger."

He cited a recent trip to San Diego during spring break as a less than enlightening time. "It wasn't exuberant, exactly, they were living it up but it had no personality. Then the alternative people or the hip blase: they're always the same, petty, bitchy. Then the other side is just boisterous and loud as opposed to exuberant, that takes a little bit of grace!"

What it may all come down to is Perry's adamant stance against being cool, a supposed requirement in today's music scene. "Coolness must die, it's like somebody said, 'I should like this' so I should paste it on my or say it at a party. I think that's a dead end. What isn't cool is looking for something that nobody's found before to put on themselves to be cool. ...Cool is cold, that's how I see it. It started out with be-bop and a face you made to prove you were hard. To me, I like Louis Armstrong's face better. He's not cool, he's hot. With hot, you exude, you put off heat, you just exist."