DD VERNI & THE CADILLAC BAND Release High-Energy Holiday Single And Video For “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas”

DATE: DECEMBER 10, 2025

FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/MARCEE RONDAN

DD VERNI & THE CADILLAC BAND
RELEASE HIGH-ENERGY HOLIDAY SINGLE AND VIDEO FOR
“I WANT A HIPPOPOTAMUS FOR CHRISTMAS”
OUT TODAY

TRACK IS FROM THE BAND’S
‘BUCKLE UP’ ALBUM
VIA DEKO
WATCH THE NYC-FILMED CLIP HERE

Still from “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” video (Download)

DD VERNI & THE CADILLAC BAND are known for marrying rock ‘n roll’s visceral energy and succinct songwriting to suave, swinging throwback arrangements and aesthetics. Today (December 10), they’ve released a new video for “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas.” Taken from their current and second album BUCKLE UP (DEKO, 2025), the high-energy song has a red-hot arrangement with searing guitar lines, galloping rhythm, pumping horns, and infectious female backing vocals. Watch the video, which mixes vintage-inspired Claymation against live scenes filmed throughout Manhattan, HERE. “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” follows the album’s previous singles So Long” (September 19, coinciding with the album’s release), “Two Of A Kind” (August 22), and “Lucky 13” (July 18).

“Whenever you’re doing big band music, especially when it’s fused with 50’s style rock n roll, you have to consider doing a Christmas song,” the singer, songwriter, and guitarist explains about the song that was originally made famous by the 10-year-old Gayla Peevy back in 1953. “I had seen my niece do this song at a holiday concert when she was 4 or 5 years old—it was the first time I heard it and thought she was so damn cute. I got to thinking about how I could do a rockin’ big band version of it. Putting on a guitar and singing along to a new arrangement just came together quickly, and with Kingston and Greystar in the band adding female vocals, it just kind of made the whole thing make sense.”

For the recording of the song, DD did a demo mix of the song and sent it to the great Jim McMillen to create the horn arrangements. He just picked up on it very quickly and it all gelled together,” he explains. “Since he had done some Christmas songs in the past, Jim had a good feel for what types of arrangements would make it feel more like a holiday song. He had some great ideas for some of the background vocals,” adds DD. “The girls and I were screaming his name quite a bit as we were doing them. There are a ton of harmonies and in interesting spots…we had a lot of fun trying to put them together. And I mean c’mon, how can you be smiling when you’re singing you have a two-car garage to keep your hippo in ??!!”

When it came to creating the video, DD says he knew it had to be pure fun. “We wanted the spirt of NYC on the holidays, so we filmed all over Manhattan. Our video people had a great costumer, and we had our Hippo mascot (named Peevy, a tribute to Gayla Peevy who sang the song like 70 years ago) made to accompany us all around the city. We just had a night of laughter and fun. I love the holidays and having our own song and video to roll out each year as time goes on is a really cool thing.  And there is nowhere like NYC at Christmas. I have been all over the world, to all the great Christmas Markets in Europe, but NYC is still the benchmark.”

“I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” Artwork (Download)

“I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” marks the second holiday song by DD VERNI & THE CADILLAC BAND; it follows the group’s 2023 release “We’re A Couple of Misfits” (watch the video HERE). “I wanted to do a Christmas song that had not been done so many times,” DD says of the song that was featured in the 1964 Rankin/Bass Christmas special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” “At the heart of a lot of Christmas music is a blues progression on the chords which lends itself great to what we do. We had a friend come and do a rocking video for it and it’s a song we now play now at our holiday shows, so very very fun.”

“We’re A Couple of Misfits” Artwork (Download)

For DD, the holidays have always revolved around family. “I have so many wonderful Christmas memories—I have seven brothers and sisters, so growing up Christmas was a madhouse at the Verni house. Tearing open boxes, just mayhem, and we loved it.  I can remember one year when I was maybe 14 or so. We used to put albums we wanted on our Christmas list and my mom would go to Tower Records and ask the clerk and get the records we wanted.  Well, that year I put down Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Souls for Rock n Roll and Nazareth’s Expect No Mercy and got em both!  Now my mom, God rest her soul, could not have been pleased to be making those purchases, but wanted me to have a great day and so I got ‘em. With my own kids,” he adds, “I carried on so many family traditions. We did the typical things. Every year I’d take my kids to pick out a real tree and we’d stuff it in the car and bring it home. My kids are grown but we still do stockings every year.  I live at the beach now so there are different things available in a beach town rather than in the suburbs where I grew up, but it’s still pretty traditional.  Of course, there’s always a massive spread of Italian food on Christmas day.”

Connect with DD VERNI & THE CADILLAC BAND at:

WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
TikTok

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