Firefly Bands: Throwing Balloons with Prinze George
Their sound is electronic pop but they don’t do genre labels. They used to be in a rock band until the lead singer kept destroying her voice over the deafening guitar riffs. They released their debut album this year. They are Prinze George.
How did you get started?
Kenny Grimm: All four of us were in a rock band called Kinheads.
Naomi Almquist: It’s a play on Skinheads, but we were all about diversity and “kin”. [Laughs]. I was 22. But we launched Prinze George in Brooklyn to promote it and network. After gaining connections we returned to Maryland and worked with Isabelle there.
Isabelle De Leon: It is a lot of experimentation – you just try a thing.
What is your creative process?
NA: It’s different every time. Sometimes Isabelle starts a song and I’ll write to her progression and Kenny will start production. But honestly, it is so different every time. Kenny is the production genius so he does everything. I write vocals, but you still need acoustics to give it that humanity. So Erik did all the guitars for the first album.
KG: All of us come from musically different backgrounds so it’s about trying to translate that. What we try to do is produce a live sound. And Naomi’s vocals are central now.
What did you learn from producing your debut?
IDL: This recording process was a lot different than anything I’ve ever done. Not a lot of bands just go to a place and write and stay there. We were very much creating and taking things in different directions. One thing I learned from this experience was giving that space to create and let it take you. We came in with preconceived ideas and ended up changing them.
NA: We recorded the album in our manager’s fortress, which is a huge warehouse in Minneapolis. There was an air stream (an old-school RV) that was turned into a control room and sits in the middle of the warehouse. It was crazy.
What does Prinze George bring to the Indie Pop genre?
Erik Grimm: Naomi brings some swag.
IDL: It’s not about writing indie pop. All of us have very different influences and styles so we don’t restrict ourselves to pop. It’s about being true and open to the creative process. It’s not like we approach the music as indie pop.
NA: It’s just about writing music.
KG: [In the indie pop genre], I feel like there’s always this pressure to have cool or different songs. We have balloons on stage. We want to be honest. We don’t want to try to be “cool”.
NA: If you have a real song that stands on its own then it doesn’t matter the genre.
Most interesting experience you’ve shared together as a band.
NA: When I think about the most spiritual experience, it was when we did the video for “Upswing”. It was like, what is life? We are so privileged to do this and I was so cold but I didn’t care. There were just boxes of wine and good vibes.
Dream collaboration and why (See photos).
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