Tulsa's The Daddyo's brings a new lineup to Norman Music Festival

Editor’s note: Oklahoma Gazette is featuring Norman Music Festival performers each week leading up to its 10th anniversary event April 27-29 in Norman.

Some people will talk about the importance of being well-rounded in one’s pursuits. There are advantages to picking up multiple hobbies and dabbling in many fields to find the passion that best suits them.

Then again, when someone finds a calling, who’s to say they shouldn’t go all in? The Daddyo’s guitarist Kylie Slabby is all in on music.

“I love playing music,” she said. “It’s all I want to do.”

Slabby founded the dreamy, Tulsa-based garage rock act with best friend Kylie Hastings in 2013. The Daddyo’s almost immediately developed a sizable following after releasing its debut, It’s a tough world out there for a lonely girl, in 2014, in part because of its status as an all-female outfit and also because the young musicians (then age 21) displayed impressive playing chops.

The Daddyo’s, featuring an expanded lineup with drummer John Atkins and bassist Chris Rusk, is scheduled to perform 3 p.m. April 29 at Norman Music Festival.

The free fest runs April 27-29 in downtown Norman. The act has gigged at prior NMF events, but this year marks its main stage debut.

Slabby said The Daddyo’s like to perform in Norman as often as possible. In some ways, it feels like Tulsa act has assembled a more fervent following in college town than at home.

“There’s a really big punk scene in Tulsa,” Slabby said. “Some people don’t take well to the type of music we’re playing. I just feel like people are more into garage rock in Norman.”

Slabby started playing guitar when she was 8 years old. She said it’s hard to explain where her early attraction to musicmaking began. Neither of her parents are musicians, but they did support her desire to learn and perform.

Her parents bought her first electric guitar when Slabby was in sixth grade, around the same time she met Hastings, who soon became one of her closest friends. Hastings, encouraged by Slabby’s dedication to the guitar, learned to play, too.

“Four or five years ago, we were like, ‘Umm, we could actually be a real band,’” Slabby said.

In December, The Daddyo’s released its EP Or Worse. The new year opened a new chapter for the band with the addition of Atkins and Rusk, Slabby said. They also held off booking gigs so far this year as the quartet focuses on preparing new tunes and working out the mechanics of a more layered sound.

Sometime this spring, Slabby hopes to release the first project featuring the new lineup. Until then, the band is gearing up for its NMF gig and finding ways to adapt the bass to The Daddyo’s sound for the first time.

“We weren’t planning on adding a bass player,” Slabby said. “We were just going to stay as a three-piece, but since we’re all friends, we just thought, ‘Why not add bass?’ So we’re coming back with a fuller sound.”

Visit thedaddyos.bandcamp.com.

Print headline: No patriarchs, Tulsa garage rock band The Daddyo’s brings an updated lineup to its Norman Music Festival main stage debut.

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