By Christopher David<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Throughout history, trying times have often led to explosions of creativity in the arts; certainly, we can look at the upheaval of Covid and how lockdowns, quarantines, and a sudden change in social interaction as having been the catalyst for art, music, and writing.<\/p>\n
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Art-rock trio Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum is certainly one of the more welcome surprises to come out of this unique, creative time.\u00a0 An organic, enriching partnership consisting of Actor\/musician Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under<\/em>) drummer Peter Yanowitz, and keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen, the band sat down with In the Loop\u2019s Christopher David to discuss how their unique working relationship\u2014and their stellar 2021 record Thanks for Coming<\/em>\u2014came to pass.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (And check out their upcoming show at Metro on July 24th – one of only a few U.S. dates!)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In The Loop (Christopher David):<\/strong>\u00a0 So tell us how you ended up getting together – how did this come about?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Peter Yanowitz: <\/strong>Well, it all goes back to this show we did together on Broadway called Hedwig and the Angry Inch<\/em>.\u00a0 I was the drummer, Michael was one of the Hedwigs, and we met during the show, got the feel of hanging out and being in a fake band together, had fun, stayed friends.\u00a0 Matt was also a part of that as a sub on the Broadway run, and we did a tour after the show closed on Broadway.\u00a0 When we came back to New York, Matt and I started making music together, some instrumental stuff, and when Michael heard some of the tracks, he offered to sing on some, write some lyrics on the subway ride down, and that started this beautiful collaboration between the three of us.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t even planned on starting a band, but we realized that we had about a dozen songs.\u00a0 Matt\u2019s daughter gave us that great name, and after a while, we thought, well, we should play a show and share these songs with people.\u00a0 Everything sort of played catch-up to this energy that just proved bigger than the three of us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ITL<\/strong>: It sounds very organic, which is always a great thing.\u00a0 So Thanks for Coming<\/em> was recorded during the pandemic?\u00a0 A lot of bands seemed to have taken the lockdown as an opportunity for creating new music.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Michael C. Hall<\/strong>: I think that\u2019s true in our case.\u00a0 We had plans to go out to the west coast, do some recording, do some shows out there, but that would have been in April, 2020, so that got cancelled.\u00a0 We regrouped and realized that we had a lot of material and decided to just focus on getting a full-length record together.\u00a0 I would say probably half the songs were, if not fully realized, close to that, and then the other half that made it on the record were composed over the course of that first bit of the pandemic.\u00a0 We would share files, I\u2019d sing stuff into my phone\u2014there are even recordings of me singing into my iPhone in my garage that made it on the record.\u00a0 Then we\u2019d come together in the studio to finalize stuff.\u00a0 It turned out to be a real lifeline for us during the pandemic, and the lockdown was kind of a catalyst.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ITL<\/strong>: In speaking with other bands, it does seem that everyone was working with what they had during the pandemic.\u00a0 When you\u2019re forced into a corner, you have to figure out how to make things work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MCH<\/strong>: The mother of invention.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ITL<\/strong>: Definitely.\u00a0 Did your writing processes\u2014Michael, from a lyrical perspective, and Matt, from an instrumental perspective\u2014change at all as you solidified your focus into that of a band?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MCH<\/strong>: I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve really changed our approach.\u00a0 Our approach has been to just allow things to happen as they happen\u2014we don\u2019t have a set way of writing songs or initiating ideas.\u00a0 When that was going on, that was sort of the magic of the band sort of materializing in spite of our intentions, so we\u2019ve tried to hold on to that and not codify or make our way of working more rigid.\u00a0 We\u2019ve tried to hold on to the sense of letting go, if that makes sense?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PY<\/strong>: We do write songs in all different ways.\u00a0 Sometimes we start with lyrics, sometimes instrumentals, sometimes just the three of us sending ideas to each other on our phones.\u00a0 I think we established that early on in our first EP (XXX) and then Thanks for Coming<\/em> – we have a new record coming in 2023 that has the same sort of energy to it, just any way of getting the song out.\u00a0 We try to stay open.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ITL<\/strong>: Awesome to hear that there\u2019s more material coming!\u00a0 I think a lot of the more interesting bands out there follow some version of that approach.\u00a0 What would you say some of your individual influences are, as musicians?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PY<\/strong>: That\u2019s a wide-open question!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt Katz-Bohen<\/strong>: There are so many.\u00a0 The New York City subway system\u2014a lot of maniacal brilliance there.\u00a0 Everything we\u2019ve heard has probably influenced us in some way.\u00a0 There are certainly touchstones, but I\u2019m almost hesitant to name names.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MCH<\/strong>: Yeah, the artists or bands people have likened us to usually make sense to us, but we never had a conversation about how we wanted to sound or who wanted to sound like.\u00a0 We\u2019re all around the same age, and I think we probably came of age around the same time, so there\u2019s a certain era of music that\u2019s embedded in our collective sensibility.\u00a0 If you say you can hear influences but that we don\u2019t sound like anybody else, I\u2019m inclined to say\u2026good!<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n ITL<\/strong>: So now that you\u2019re able to tour again, what can fans expect in terms of your live show?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MKB<\/strong>: Complete and total transcendence of your physical body.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PY<\/strong>: Fire and ice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n MCH<\/strong>: Hopefully, there\u2019s some sense of being taken on a ride that you didn\u2019t quite know you were gonna go on.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Christopher David Throughout history, trying times have often led to explosions of creativity in the arts; 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