felt alienated by fame

During the height of the Daddies’ popularity, Perry found the band’s mainstream notoriety was causing an alienating effect on his personal life, claiming it to have negatively changed his relationships with friends and even subjected him to occasional heckling from strangers who recognized him in public. He would later recall, “It’s a total cliché, but [fame] doesn’t make you happy. There’s a lot missing. Success has given people the right to yell at me on the street, but I don’t really feel like it’s given me any dignity”. Already feeling burnt out from the Daddies’ constant touring, Perry’s frustration was only exacerbated by the media’s persistent dismissal of the Daddies as a retro novelty act, though he later claimed to have felt pressured to maintain the image due to audience and media expectations. When the band began to face criticism and accusations of selling out from their Northwest fanbase, the Daddies fought to further push themselves away from their mainstream typecasting: in a 1999 interview, responding to their place in the swing scene, Perry retorted “[we’ll] unapologetically play ska right in the face of people who want to hear swing”.