Think of the direct antecedents to punk.
"It freaks me out that all these people getting into punk don't really know who Alice Cooper, T. Rex or the Dolls are," Brannon says. "It's like they got into music when the last Black Flag album came out or something."
Brannon's speaking from a hotel room in Cleveland. The Hyenas have just finished the third date of a 50-city tour, and the sounds of bags being packed can be heard over the phone as the band prepares for a nine-hour drive to the next show in Louisville, Kentucky. The Hyenas are touring in support of their latest disc, Hard Times, the band's third album in ten years. Brannon's no stranger to long drives on long tours, to playing for audiences who sometimes care, sometimes don't. But he figures the recent rise of all things punk may signal a change in the Hyenas' fortunes.
"I don't really even know how we fit into that whole scene," he says of the newest wave of New Wave. "You know, we're part of it, but then, we're not part of it. People now are probably more open-minded to get into things with a harder edge; you know, more crazy stuff. It's probably opened a lot of doors for people's attitudes to change."
Brannon's own musical mindset made a radical change before he launched the Hyenas. He was stomping away in a reasonably successful thrash band, Negative Approach, but became "fed up with that type of music, the whole hard-core-punk thing. It was just the same thing over and over again." Brannon's change in music tastes translated to a change in his migratory patterns at local record stores. He'd invariably end up in the "Blues" section, pawing over old Chess recordings of the usual suspects: Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker.
"That music had so much more soul," Brannon says. "Just the way those guys would sing, there was so much more raw feeling than what I'd been doing. The hard-core thing was pretty uptight. And it got pretty limited. It came, it served its purpose, it got old. I lost interest and started buying more blues records."
Brannon's disillusionment with the loud, fast rules of hard-core coincided with a similar sentiment of Larissa Strickland, a member of fellow Michigan thrash group L-Seven (not to be confused with the Los Angeles version L7). Brannon and Strickland decided to bolt their respective bands and team up for a stab at their favorite new form of music. Unfortunately, their circle of Mohawked friends didn't quite understand.
"No, they didn't. Not at all," Brannon says, chuckling. "It turned them off. They all thought we were freaks. It took a couple of years for people to catch up to what we were doing."
What Brannon and Strickland were doing was putting an old-punk spin on their newfound blues influences. The crossbreeding produced a noise that was a lot like the kind of rowdy songs Brannon remembered hearing as a kid growing up in Michigan, where bands like MC5 and the Stooges would play at local high schools. "I remember hearing about those bands coming around when I was really young," he says. "I remember growing up and watching 'em get huge."
Still, the hint of the blues in the Hyenas' bloodlines was enough to scare off the more strident underground-music types. Brannon says it still does.
"We get hassled all the time. People think we're obsessed about being black or whatever. But it's not a color thing for us. It's a feeling thing. We don't call ourselves a blues band, but some people want to put that tag on us because it's the type of music we like."
Laughing Hyenas couldn't be a true blues band if it wanted to. That's mostly because of Strickland's guitar work, which features a style and tone perfected by the Richards-Thunders reform school of plundered Chuck Berry riffs. Brannon marvels at the way Strickland avoids heavy emphasis on traditional, blues-based bar chords and other "structured stuff." It helps that Strickland, a former bassist, never played a guitar with six strings until she hooked up with Brannon.
"Yeah, she didn't know how to play, and that was really cool," Brannon says. "I'd been in other bands with real technical people who knew how to play solos and stuff, and that wasn't anywhere for me. I just wanted to do something really stripped-down and raw. She fit in really good."
Of course, one would think Strickland's technical skills would have improved after a decade of unstructured fun. "She is getting better," Brannon says. "But I wouldn't say she's getting too good in a bad way. She's just doing different things now."
Brannon's relationship with Strickland goes beyond the vagaries of guitar technique. The two were involved romantically for eight years. They eventually broke up without breaking up the band, but there's still a touch of tension between the two. Or, as Brannon likes to call it, "a real negative thread. It's like being in a business relationship with your ex-wife or something. But we try to get past that."
Indeed, Brannon and Strickland have thus far refrained from trading punches onstage. But that can't be said for Brannon's sometimes volatile vibe with past Hyenas, like with the band's former bassist and drummer, who left three years ago to form another band, Mule. Those particular ex-Hyenas had a knack for turning little differences with Brannon into full-blown tussles.
"Yeah, we used to get into it," Brannon says. He goes on to dismiss the skirmishes as "little stupid things, like when you're not feeling that good and you've just gotta let it out. We happened to get a little more violent than others, and it scared some people."
Tempers aren't quite as strained with the band's latest rhythm section, bassist Ron Sakowski and drummer Todd Swalla. They both came over from the Necros, a semilegendary Ohio thrash band. The new guys may have ushered in a new sense of calm, but Laughing Hyenas are still quick with a scowl.
"We really thrive on negative energy," says Brannon. "I think it's probably what's fueled the band for so long. I think people can see that and know it's for real."
Brannon says his manic front-man swagger's the real thing, too. "It gets pretty crazy up there, I guess," he says. "Everything becomes blank, and I just put myself into the music. It happens every night, but it's not like choreographed dance steps or something. It just comes with music."
Brannon adds that he sometimes surprises himself up there.
"Oh, yeah," he says, laughing. "I sometimes scare myself up there."
Laughing Hyenas are scheduled to perform on Tuesday, March 21, at Nile Theater in Mesa, with Sensefield, and Antietam. Showtime is 8 p.m.
