Interview: Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum
Interview: Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum
After bonding over a shared love of music during their time on the Broadway production of Hedwig, acclaimed actor Michael C. Hall, Blondie keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen and veteran rock drummer Peter Yanowitz formed a supergroup… Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum.
They are set to release their debut album ‘THANKS FOR COMING’ this March. Following their release of their eponymous EP last year, Philip Giouras caught up with the group to find out more...
Meet the band…
Matt Katz-Bohen
Matt Katz-Bohen has been the Keyboardist for legendary rock group Blondie for the last thirteen years, in which Debbie Harry has credited his significant contributions to their most recent material. His skills stretch much further than the keyboard though, as he’s spent time performing guitar with his spouse in their band Daddy which recieved praise from Thurston Moore. He would also later form GoonSquad and work with the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race. It was also his daughter who came up for the moniker for latest project Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum.
Michael C. Hall
Michael C. Hall is perhaps most recognible from his impressive acting credits (Dexter, Six Feet Under, Safe). However a passion for music and performance has lead to some acclaimed theatrical performances with Hedwig and the man who fell to earth himself in Bowie’s final creative output Lazarus. Hall’s most striking feature has to be his incredible vocal range that can be powerful or delicate but always captivating. This is what makes the eclectic and varied genres of Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum so compelling.
Peter Yanowitz
Peter Yanowitz was one of the founding members and the original drummer of rock group The Wallflowers. He would later to go on to work closely with Natalie Merchant on her first three albums. A master of the drumcraft Yanowitz has an extensive list of credits and collabrations after either performing or creating music with such acclaimed artists as Billy Bragg, Wilco, Allen Ginsberg, Money Mark, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Stephen Trask, Andrew W.K. and Thurston Moore.
PG: First off, can you just say your name and tell me where you’re talking to me from?
MK-B: Sure, it’s Matthew. I’m talking to you from Brooklyn. New York.
PY: Hey, it’s Peter. I’m talking to you from New York City.
MCH: And it’s Michael, I’m talking to you from Stone Ridge, New York.
PG: So, with Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum, you all met whilst working on the Hedwig production. So how did you three go from working together there to deciding you wanted to form a band and release your own material?
PY: We formed a bond doing the show, and I think it was, in the beginning, it was just an excuse to hang out with friends. Matt and I actually ended up going out on the Hedwig Tour, which went across the United States after the Broadway run finished and we were hanging out all the time and we were saying “hey, when we get back to New York let’s hang out”, you kind of say that to everybody but actually we did. We started hanging out as soon as we got home and started making music and I heard some of it and was like “Hey, you guys don’t have any vocals on there”. So, one thing led to another and we just started hanging out all three of us together, making music just for fun in it, and it has kind of morphed into being Princess.
PG: I like how you touched on fun there because when I’ve listened to the project, I’ve seen the videos and I think that’s what speaks quite clearly through all the music is. This is quite clearly a project from passion, and that you guys enjoy making music and spending time together.
MK-B: Definitely.
PG: And then you’ve been in the process of a tour before the world’s kind of now grounded to a halt And I believe you had some more shows lined up. It must be quite frustrating to break that groove when you get into the rhythm of playing shows together
MCH: Yeah, it was, I mean we love playing together. We played a dozen shows or so in clubs in New York, and we were looking forward to taking a trip out to the west coast playing in Los Angeles and playing out in the desert and doing some recording out there and you know, as it’s true for everyone that got upended but we’ve been able to remotely stay in touch creatively and we’ve actually imposed four or five songs that way since this lockdown began. Yeah, we definitely look forward to playing live, we love it and we learn a lot, we don’t have any firmed up plans to, you know, to play but I’m sure once we’re allowed well we’ll find a way to do it.
PG: You’ve mentioned you’ve had to make music remotely from three different parts of New York. So that brings its own challenges. Do you think the quarantine and the current situation has affected the music you’ve made? Even if that’s just direction or lyrics? Or even just literally down to how you have to make the tracks?
PY: Yeah, we’ve been mixing our first full length, you know, we’ve spent the last couple years playing around New York and also just hanging out and making as much music as possible. So, we have a lot of stuff that is already in the can kind of ready to be mixed and we took this time as a chance to start that mixing process and basically like Mike said we’ve been able to keep writing and sending each other tracks, keeping each other inspired and engaged. Some of these new tracks it’s strange like lyrically I mean I’ll let Mike speak to this but it feels like we were writing about this (pandemic) before it even happened and a lot of these songs that we’re mixing now feel like there for this time even though they are written like way ahead of this and it seems like we’ve and maybe we’re not alone in that maybe a lot of people are finding that their music or their art is correlating with the times but it feels uncanny how ours is resonating like a real, I don’t know, prophecy but to your question, you know, like, even on some of this new stuff Mike is Upstate and Matt’s in Brooklyn and I’m here like, not able to be in the same room at least right now and for one of the new songs Mike sang into his iPhone which we’re getting mixed and we kind of just fell in love with that take, it sounded so good, The iPhone vocal quality was fine and it fit right into the tracks that we just left it. So, on one of our new songs, it’ll have an iPhone vocal recording from upstate which is kind of cool, Matt, Mike you got anything to add to that?
MCH: I mean, as far as the lyrics being resonant, I think what’s going on right now is you know something that pushes things further, makes us, it sorts of solidifies a sense of isolation that I think everybody is feeling anyway, or a sense of corporatization or a sense of fear of the unknown menace or any of that (chuckles). If there’s anything with the vibe and the lyrics being dystopian or anything like that, I don’t think any of that was born when the coronavirus hit the scene, it was all kind of in the air. So, I think that’s why we and probably a lot of people feel like whatever it was they were expressing speak through the extremity of the current moment.
PG: Yeah, the feelings have been bubbling for quite a while before everything reached this point. And you said there about making music with your friends and how you put it together, and as you’ve all got performance backgrounds, whether it be music or theatre or other avenues, but do you still find nerves and that excitement when it comes to showing off that new material for the first time in front of people that haven’t heard these songs before.
MK-B: Yeah. Is it more exciting for people who’ve never heard the songs before? As opposed to people who’ve heard them before? Yeah, interesting. I feel like that’s exciting. It’s also kind of exciting that we’re starting to see the same faces, exceedingly beautiful faces, I might add in our crowds and they’re just kind of showing up and cheering at the beginning of certain openings of certain songs that they like, and know. So that’s been exciting to watch that build up and see people, you know, kind of appreciating what we’ve already put out there. Online and at our other shows. So yeah.
“If there’s something inherently theatrical, there ought to be because we’re on stage performing live in front of people”
PG: Speaking of the shows, there’s quite a strong visual element to your performances; I think at one point, there’s a keytar, correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s light up drum sticks and obviously Michael has the glitter, or the face make up on, where did the idea of having a visual aspect to the band come from, is that something that’s translated from your experiences in other projects?
MCH: Probably, We never, we never really talked. We never like said “Okay, let’s have a meeting and talk about how we want to look” We just, you know, just kind of developed. I had the impulse to, you know, wear what I wear on my face and my body and the same goes for Peter and Matt and I think it just evolved and we have a relationship with this guy Poe who serves as a lighting designer and he’s been able to play with us at most shows. I mean, it feels like he’s playing the lights, you know, he knows our music well, and he’s amazing at what he’s able to do in a very short amount of time. So that’s an immersive element but yeah, I mean, if there’s something inherently theatrical, there ought to be because we’re on stage performing live in front of people, you know, to stand and sort of just stare at your feet and pretend that that’s not actually happening isn’t so fun (chuckles). So yeah, I don’t know, it’s just sort of emerged organically without any kind of preconceived idea of what we want to look like or what we’re up to on that trend.
PY: And to add to that kind of like the music, I would say the same thing about how the music evolves, it just sort of came out of us and, and the sounds that are on our first EP and then our upcoming full length, just sounds that we have in our studios and things that we have laying around and it’s just sort of evolved into our sound, because that’s what we had in front of us. With the visual aspect, I think it spills out of that, like the music seems to be like the kind of music that lends itself to visuals you know, lends itself to another element to bring it too life.
PG: I definitely get that, and speaking of the EP it’s quite an eclectic mix in terms of different styles and genres, It makes me so happy to hear something that sounds so uniquely original and fresh in terms of a new project. So, I was hoping you would be able to deconstruct like some of the creative process behind some of the different tracks for me if that’s ok? You open the EP with ‘don’t’ it has a real Gothic choral sounding opening. Where was the idea to make the track such a grand entrance into the project?
MK-B: Was that a phone recording that Michael sent?
MCH: Yeah, I sang sort of four melodic lines, maybe without even a sense of which was the lead line almost like in a coral way in my bathroom, and I sent it and Matt I think just laid them one atop the other and then and it emerged from that, as far as putting it into the beginning of the EP. I think it just felt like an interesting intro. It’s like an indication of sorts and maybe there was something about the lyrics that just encourages you to just embrace mystery generally, and maybe embrace whatever mystery might be associated with whatever it is you’re about to hear.
PG: And then that then flows into ‘Vicious’ which is quite a stark change in terms of tone. And you’ve managed to make what feels like a two-and-a-half-minute song into three different tracks all at once, it layers quite well, and it moves differently compared to the other music. What were the thoughts around creating an expressive track like that rather than stick to a central rhtym for the track.
MK-B: It started off as an instrumental jam with me and Peter And when it does go to the keyboard break I think when it sounds like a completely different song, I think you still hear elements of the medieval choir that was introduced with ‘don’t’. To me, it’s a very medieval sort of Palestrina or Bach sounding chord progression and so, you know, we just sort of wanted to go sort of heavy. It’s a pretty heavy song. And it goes to that evil moment, then we just decided to throw another curveball and just go for the R&B vibe almost which sounds completely insane as I’m saying it but I like to think it works somehow. I don’t know. What do you guys think?
PG: You released the video for the same track before the pandemic and it feels a bit strange like a lifetime ago watching it now with everything that’s going on. I can’t speak for New York, but London has quite a sterile, silent and sometimes grumpy atmosphere on the public transport or underground. How do people react to you’re just having fun and your more gorilla style recording?
MK-B: I think New Yorkers tend to be a lot louder and screamier on the subway than Londoners. So, I know every time I ride the subway, someone comes in the car and just starts shouting loudly usually. (the group laughs) Sometimes it’s about God, sometimes it’s about how they want to sell, you know, candy or whatever. So, I think for us, it was just like, people kind of roll their eyes like, “Okay, here we go again, okay? They just want to frolic around, okay.”
MCH: Yeah, people are generally unfazed by that sort of thing, which was a part of the fun of it you know, we anticipated that we would get some sort of stone-faced reactions and people came through and gave them to us. Probably like 8% or 9% of the people maybe cracked a smile or enjoyed themselves or, you know, that guy at the end who gave us the thumbs up. You know, there was that element but it definitely does seem like a lifetime ago, If we had scheduled the shoot even a couple days later it probably never would have happened.
PY: Yeah, we shot it on March 5th right before the city shut down, like a week later. It was in our minds that maybe the pandemic was on the horizon but nobody was thinking it was going to happen like it did and so there’s a little bit of unease I think in the video, and we were we went down with the attitude of like, let’s just see what happens. Like that subway dancer that came on was something that we had kind of fantasized about. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if like somebody came on and did subway dancing” and then this guy came comes on and does it was pretty surreal.
PG: ‘Come Talk To Me’ It feels like a lovechild of Prince and LCD Soundsystem, quite a stark change from more of the indie rock on the EP. Where did the desire to make a more House sounding song come from?
PY: That one came from Matt’s studio, and I think we all have that side of us that just wanted to make dance music, it’s important to us and with the EP I think we wanted it to be like a combo platter of all the different styles that we’re interested in but Matt, Do you want to talk about that one?
MK-B: Yeah, I’ll just say, you know, I grew up in New York. Peter and Michael have been here for a long time. And so, you know, part of the city’s pulse I think is dance music, I think the vibe of crossing genres, you know DJs like Larry Levan, Paradise Garage, just playing a Kraftwerk song , Africa Bambaataa song or a Blondie song and that’s another band I play with a lot is Blondie so and they’ve always been able to cross genres while retaining their unique sound and their own unique identity, which is something that I admire endlessly. So, I think that we all feel that definitely as New Yorkers, and you know, I think in London we feel that too. I mean, we’ve all played in London, we’ve all loved London. We’re friends with, you know, some people who live in London. So yeah, I would say it came very natural to us to embrace that aspect.
PG: Definitely, and obviously talk of London there at the end it’s seems mad to even consider at the moment but if the world goes back to touring in a year or a year and a half, two years’ time, is it something, there will be plenty of new material, but will you be excited to kind of take that too festivals and bring the project to other countries?
MCH: Absolutely
MK-B: There’s nothing we’d rather do right now.
PY: We almost feel like our music would be maybe accepted or resonate even faster over in the UK. And we’d love to get over there. And hopefully by then we’ll have released a bunch more music so we’ll have a lot of shit too play.
Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum’s self-titled EP is available to stream and download now.
Their debut album ‘THANKS FOR COMING’ is anticipated for a digital release in February and physical in March.