An interview with Prince Daddy and the Hyena's Kory Gregory
The punkness of getting better at what makes you happy
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Prince Daddy and the Hyena: Punk is getting better at what you love
Change is difficult. As I write this, I am in a half-unpacked room from my recent move across town. It's difficult to concentrate. I lose track of valuable tools like hard drives and microphones. While talking with vocalist Kory Gregory of the band Prince Daddy and the Hyena (P-Daddy), I am reminded of how much has changed in the world since the year 2019. That was the year P-Daddy released their critically acclaimed album Cosmic Thrill Seekers (CST). The DIY band from Albany, New York who previously was playing in basements and art studios was now on top of the proverbial emo-world, rubbing elbows with scene giants like Mom Jeans, Real Friends and Oso Oso.
The success was far from overnight. In 2018, Kory wrote CST which marked a major shift from the band's early work about smoking weed and eating pizza to a more mature album still worried about mental health but in a more serious and conceptual way. He started writing the album as early as 2015, capturing the band’s coming-of-age. Growing up is traumatic. Car accidents are too. At the end of 2018, after writing CST and in the middle of a winter tour, the band crashed their tour van during a snowstorm. They survived but members were hurt badly and Kory was shaken up to the point that he would later have to spend a month in a mental hospital. P-Daddy’s new self-titled album is largely inspired by the wreck and the events that followed. In it, Kory explores his fear of dying, morality and religious faith.
The track, “A Random Exercise in Impermanence,” directly references the wreck but the album’s sharp and rough transitions between songs give the best idea of how the wreck felt. Fast songs whiplash into slow songs. Chugging spore clouds like on “Hollow, As You Figured,” lead into a mellow, clean lullaby with “Curly Q.” Even comparing CST to the self-titled album, there is a stark contrast in the way each album’s concepts are executed. CST flows with direction. The self-titled spikes without warning. Prince Daddy had found new life.
All of this is without mentioning the pandemic. Everyone came face to face with death and our own mortality in some way or another because of COVID-19. Now it’s just the mundane and the new life we’ve found since the before times. Bands are touring again. Music and movies are back in full swing. It almost feels like 2019 again, just the upside-down version.
P-Daddy has been touring with scene friends Macseal, Insignificant Other and California Cousins. I saw them perform Saturday, May 14 in New Orleans and it was like a traveling party. The show reminded me that change doesn’t stop and things never go back to the way they were. But that’s okay as long as we make it out in one piece.
Read my interview below with Kory Gregory to learn more about the creation of songs like “Curly Q”, the weird serendipity of the DIY scene and why being good at what you love is punk af.
The following is edited for clarity:
At the show, I could tell you and your tourmates are really close. What's the connection between you and Macseal?
Really just playing shows and, I should have a better choice of a word, I feel like this whole entire circle of people is very incestual. I played in Oso Oso for a second, Cole and Frankie from Macseal played in Oso Oso for a second, Jade from Oso Oso played in my solo project Jophus. Our first tour we ever did was with Oso Oso, Just Friends, and Pictures of Vernon. And now the drummer of Pictures of Vernon is now our drummer. The circle isn’t small but it is so tightly knit and comfortable that it’s kinda hard to be in the same circle and not at the very least be acquainted with one another. All of my best friends are people who I’ve met through touring honestly.
I feel like Insignificant Other attracts a lot of people because of the line up right now. It's four different people from different bands.
Yeah, it’s For Your Health, Insignificant Other, Woolbright, awakebutstillinbed. It's just a bunch of front people in that band right now, which is cool as hell.
Where's the connection between you and Insignificant Other?
Back when Sim from Insignificant Other lived in Florida, they used to help out with shows, and always played as a local when we played Florida. We stayed with them once and played Super Smash Brothers with Sim, like six years ago. We've only been a band for like seven years and Shannon from awakebutstillinbed, we've known from whenever we play California. We'd play with Just Friends and Mom Jeans and bands like that. And I think she was kind of tight with them, so she would always roll through. It was just like crossing paths enough times to be like we're homies. It's all these different paths we’ve taken all intersecting in unpredictable places, you know?
You said you all used to tour with California Cousins in the early days?
Oh yeah. Like probably one of our first tours ever was with them. And then we kind of made it a yearly tradition where every December we toured with them. They're like some of the first friends we ever made from music, honestly. The last time we toured with them, we definitely were playing rooms a quarter of the size of this. We were playing basements and kitchens and little tiny art spaces and stuff, just very DIY shows. This is the first time we've toured together in probably like four years. We still see each other because they're from Rochester and we're from Albany. We're close enough friends to the point of literally having sleepovers and stuff. Nothing music-related or anything.
They don't get tired of all the sleepovers you do while touring?
Not, not at all. Honestly, the sleepovers are one of the more fun parts. But yeah, they're not like strangers to me. I see them all the time and hang out. But as far as an actual, obviously I hate to say it like this, but a business-like interaction, as far as that it's been a while. It's kind of cool to be playing big rooms with stages and sound checks with a band that we've been touring with since I was 19 years old, you know?
You seem seriously trained in music theory. Is that true?
If I'm being real with you, the pandemic was the first time I introduced myself to actually learning music. This is the first record I wrote where I even knew what chords I was playing. I didn't even know what a C-chord was up until the beginning of the pandemic.
After all that time, what made you want to learn?
The beginning of the pandemic was the start of a tour that would have been the start of me making music my full-time job. It was like Oso Oso, Just Friends, kind of like a triple headliner thing. So going into the pandemic, it was interesting to me but I guess it was “responsible” of me to get better at my craft and it's fun. So, I have time. Why not do that? It's good for me in every possible way, you know? I took vocal lessons. I learned how to orchestrate music, like for an orchestra. I just tried to learn as much as I could about the broader concept of music because I enjoy it.
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I noticed on the Prince Daddy TikTok that you were talking a little bit about your vocal warmups and coach. Is that a part of your music education?
100%. That started prior to the pandemic when we realized that Prince Daddy was a real thing, rather than just a really cool thing we get to do on the side. So, I was like, “You know what, maybe I should take care of my voice a little bit.” If I'm just gonna be screaming for money every night, losing my voice for a living, maybe I should start being responsible. It used to be like going to work was work and then the tour was the party. But now it's like, going on tour is kind of both the fun and the work now.
I've read multiple articles where they call you a slacker band. Do you feel like you are slackers?
No. The thing is that's not something where I would ever fight back on because to be fair, our first record was literally like staying home and smoking weed, forgetting to take your meds and stuff like that. That kind of is the subject matter that we set as the base of where we were at the time, which was the base of where we were at the time. I wrote that record during my last couple months of high school. I still stand by it being sincere. But hopefully everyone understands that if you were my age listening to that when it came out then and now you're my age listening to this (new album) when it came out, that we're all kind of growing together. If I wrote that early record again, that would not be sincere. So I don't really think we are a slacker band now. But we still play songs from those old records where that's what we're singing about, you know? So I guess I would never really fight back on that even though I don't entirely agree.
For a lot of punk bands, it's kind of cool to not know your instruments and be winging it every night. Do you ever feel like you are losing edge?
Hell no. I think my edge gets sharper the more I learn about how to write a song. I don't think there's anything not punk about getting better at what you love. I don't think there's anything like not punk about spending time doing what you love. And the more you spend time doing something, you're gonna get good at it. I feel like there's faster and heavier songs on the new record than we've ever had on a record before. And I feel like our consideration for “expectations” is even less at this point and we just kind of want to do what we wanna do. I think the mindset is the same as it was in 2016 when we were playing basements. We're better at what we do. Obviously that's subjective. That is an opinion. But we like the songs we write now more or else we wouldn't write them. We like being comfortable and having people to play to. It's funny because growing up, I definitely would be a witness to those conversations too, like the punkers and punk conversations and like sellout, poser, those words. I feel like they just lost their relevance entirely. Once people realize, “Damn, you know what, maybe you can still be punk and have the same wants and needs as a normal human. Maybe that's actually possible?”
I remember reading that “Curly Q” was a song you wrote trying to be more aligned with music theory. Can you tell me a little about “Curly Q” and how that song came about musically?
As far as the music side of things, the first two records before this was me playing what sounded good because I didn't really know what a major scale was or what chord is “right” or “wrong” or anything. But then the more I learned, the more scared I got. I was like, “I hope I don't get to a point when the knowledge is more of a barrier.” When the knowledge is like a floodgate closing rather than opening. I'd rather use those to help me expand doing stuff rather than limit them to an even smaller place than they were before. My favorite thing about learning theory so far is knowing how to break the rules rather than follow them. So, I just figured I’d write one song where I'm not breaking the rules of a major scale or breaking out of key. I don't want to talk music-music with you because that's boring. But it was kind of a challenge. Writing an interesting song where you don't break out of key, there's no wrong chords in it, but you still make it colorful and exciting with just what belongs. Once I finished Curly Q, that was that experiment, and that was also to me, the most unpredictable, the most Prince Daddy song on the record. If there's a normal song, that's kind of weird. The predictability of the song adds to the unpredictability of the Prince Daddy record. So in the context of that record hearing that it's kind of like, “Damn, that's the one that sounds wrong.” And that was really exciting to me because that's actually the only one that's right.
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“Curly Q” is about your nephew, right?
Yeah. It was written when my nephew was turning two. It's weird driving around the country, drinking and sleeping on floors and then going home and seeing your brother have a kid. Obviously, I loved it. I love him and I love being an uncle, but it's kind of overwhelming to witness a kid grow up in front of you.
Is there any reason why “Curly Q”, a musically proper song, is written about your nephew?
I guess the connection would be that in my head I was going for a nursery rhyme or a lullaby. That was the vibe I was aiming for and to try to limit myself to what's diatonically proper. Like the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or the “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” you know? Something like that, except it's actually the darkest song we’ve ever written probably because it's about my nephew growing up and burning. It's really the darkest song I ever wrote, but I thought that would be kind of cool, trying to capture the energy of a lullaby.
It’s a very dark album. You use imagery like “The black rat chewing on my liver” and stuff. Was there a specific reason for the imagery, like the rats or the bugs or black mold?
The record is very transparently about the concept of death. It's kind of about the fear of dying and the realization of whatever kind of impermanence comes along with being a human and becoming an adult. And I just feel like a lot of the language I would pull from in order to get those points across— whereas like on the last record I would do like a lot of imagery from Wizard of Oz. On this record, I feel like my thing was the more macabre, thinking of a cemetery or a rundown abandoned house or something. I like to write records like that to keep things cohesive. I draw my inspiration from the same little pool of vocabulary and concepts. I feel like “Hollow as You Figured” is a good example. I guess Halloween themes. Using anything that could possibly be gray, if that makes sense. That's why the original picture on the cover is a fully colored picture, but we made that black and white for the sake of the record.
About the new record, why did you decide to make this your self-titled release?
I guess really it had to do with my confidence in the songs and I guess my confidence in the fact that the feeling of going from one song to another on this record is kind of what I want Prince Daddy as a whole to feel like going from record to record as well, if that makes sense. Just kind of like a mission statement of, this is gonna sound kind of bratty but, we're probably just gonna keep doing what we want. Like as far what songs we write and not really have consideration of any expectations or any kind of questions of like what a P-Daddy song or album should sound like. We kind of are done with thinking of that. That's an irrelevant thought at this point to us.
I feel like this record does a good job of like making it very clear it’s the opposite of Cosmic Thrill Seekers (CTS), which is like not me sh*iting on that record because I love that record, but it's just the concept of that record was very tightly knit, every song was flowing into each other. It was very calculated and specific. And this one is kind of more broad. Every song feels like a car accident going into one another because there is nothing really sounding alike. And it's intentionally a big mess and unorganized. And I feel like going from CTS to this, which is like the polar opposite, is the mission statement. Hopefully, what we do, you end up liking more than what you thought you wanted from us, ideally.
The first single you released for the new album was “Curly Q.” Was that part of the transition?
Yeah. Like listening to the first song we released after CST, I wanted that to be the feeling you expect from Prince Daddy, not the sound you expect, but just the feeling of like “What the F*ck?” And when that song came out, there was a lot of people saying, “I really hope this P-Daddy record doesn't sound like this.” There was a lot more of that than there was of like, “Oh, this P-Daddy song slaps.” There was a lot of “What the hell?” which in my opinion is kind of cool. Like, what is this? And not even in a good way. But I feel like now, those same people probably come to a show and sing along and because in the context of the record that literally makes no sense, it makes a little bit more sense, you know?
Tell me about “Black Mold” a little bit.
That song was kind of the result of me not listening to music, probably. I was in a depressive state and not listening to literally any music for fun, which I am not hyping that up as something cool to do. I am back on my music listening game and I'm happy to be there, but there was a period of time during the pandemic where I was really struggling to find the motivation to listen to music and I wasn't finding the same fun out of it I do now. And did for my whole life. But “Black Mold” was definitely one of the few songs I wrote during that period when I was just figuring out what it meant to write a song.
I think that happens to everybody at some point. How did you get through it?
I still wanted to write and create music just as much as I ever did, if not significantly more, but I, this is gonna sound mad annoying and cocky, but I'm not even saying I liked it more, but I was more invested in what I wrote at the time. I feel like I was very confident, there are plenty of people writing better songs than me, even from my friends. But at the time, I'd rather put that energy towards writing my own songs. Now, I have that balance back because I'm on the road all the time. Like in the van, I'm gonna listen to music on tour, like at shows, I'm watching my friends play some of my favorite songs every night. It's awesome. And I am back to that point, but there's a period of time where it was just like, I wanna do music stuff right now. And I feel like “Black Mold” was kind of like my shining star of that little period of songwriting for me. And probably the only thing that came out of that little period.
What was it that sparked your interest back into listening for fun again?
Probably finishing writing the record to be honest. When I sat back and heard all my demos in a satisfying order, all right next to each other. I have a record that I am happy with right now. So I don't feel any sort of outside pressure. I hold myself to things like that, like just complete internal pressure. And I felt like once I heard those demos, in succession, that was a half-hour of music that kept my attention after hearing it a million times. The job could be done right now if you wanted it to be done, you know? And it wasn't, and I definitely wrote more and there’s songs that got cut. But like the realization that like, if I wanted to be done, I could be done. I think I subconsciously let myself enjoy music again.
I never stopped enjoying listening to music either. I just lost the drive to do it. I wouldn't be losing sleep over how excited I am to throw in my headphones and listen to a Lana Del Rey record, whereas now I will go to sleep like downloading records that I'm excited to take a walk and listen to the next day.
READ MORE:
Album review on Prince Daddy and the Hyena’s self-titled album
EMO TOP 10
Orbiting Punk Playlist #6
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