Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum is a trio comprised of vocalist,
lyricist, musician, and Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning
and Emmy-nominated actor Michael C. Hall (Dexter, Six Feet Under, Hedwig
and the Angry Inch), keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen (Blondie), and drummer
Peter Yanowitz (The Wallflowers, Morningwood).

A theatrical sensibility is part of the trio’s DNA, especially in live shows, having
met several years ago on Broadway during the production of Hedwig and the
Angry Inch.

Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum eschews traditional rock
instrumentation in favor of a stripped-down synthesizer-and-drum attack,
heard on their debut full-length album THANKS FOR COMING (released
earlier this year), which follows their 2020 self-titled EP. Both have drawn
praise from Paper, Alternative Press, Associated Press, Consequence of
Sound, People, American Songwriter, Magnet, FLOOD, Forbes, Huffington
Post, NME, Line of Best Fit, The Independent, Entertainment Tonight and
more. A wealth of disparate influences flow into Princess Goes to the Butterfly
Museum’s songs – the glam, experimental, ambient music of David
Bowie, Giorgio Moroder’s ‘70s disco productions for Donna Summer, ‘80s new
wave dance music, contemporary electronic dance acts like Justice, and the
roster of France’s Ed Banger label.

Princess Goes To The Butterfly Museum’s album Thanks For Coming was released in February 2021.

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“We never set out to start a band,” says Peter Yanowitz, one third of the avant-indie trio Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum. “It feels more like the band started us.”

Recorded spontaneously for the sheer joy of creation and collaboration, Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum’s captivating self-titled debut showcases the magic that can happen when three consummate artists commit themselves to fully inhabiting the present, to following their muse without boundaries or restrictions. The songs here are adventurous, with bold, experimental arrangements that incorporate everything from distorted synth rock and ethereal electronics to dreamy folk and R&B. It’s an intoxicating mix, one that transcends genre as it draws equal strength from the remarkably disparate backgrounds of its progenitors.

“We all bring something unique to the project,” says vocalist Michael C. Hall. “We’re a three-legged stool; we couldn’t stand up without all of us working together.”

While Hall may be the most recognizable face in the band—he was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the HBO drama Six Feet Under, won both a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the acclaimed Showtime series Dexter, and was selected by David Bowie to star in his musical, Lazarus)—his bandmates boast similarly prodigious resumes. Yanowitz began his career playing drums in The Wallflowers before going on to co-found indie stalwarts Morningwood and work with artists as varied as Natalie Merchant, Yoko Ono, Andrew W.K., Allen Ginsberg, and Billy Bragg & Wilco, who enlisted him to perform on their seminal ‘Mermaid Avenue’ collaboration. Keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen, meanwhile, spent the last decade touring and recording with Blondie, in addition to working with the likes of Boy George and Cindy Lauper.

The trio’s collaboration began innocently enough, with a series of late-night studio hangs fueled by a shared love of pushing art into uncharted territories. Taking their name from a phrase suggested by Katz-Bohen’s daughter, the group constructed an entire world for their music, imagining the Butterfly Museum as a physical space brought to life with the help of legendary mixer Tom Elmhirst (Adele, The xx). Delivered with dense harmonies atop a solemn organ pad, EP opener “Don’t” represents both an atmospheric invitation into the museum’s shimmering halls and an ideal introduction to a band that delights in toying with expectation. “Vicious,” for instance, begins as an explosive dose of heavy rock before dissolving into a classically-inspired interlude, while the hypnotic “Ketamine” builds from hushed intimacy to frenetic energy, and the sleek “Come and Talk to Me” blends pulsating house production with sparkling falsetto vocals. Keyboards frequently fill the role of guitars on the EP, but closing track “Sweet and Low” offers yet another twist, starting off with just a strummed acoustic. It’s a rare organic moment, one designed to gently usher you out of the museum and back into the real world.

“I came into the studio with fully formed lyrics for that song,” says Hall, “and the guys discovered the chord structure that would work underneath as I sang it. The first time we played it, it sounded exactly how I imagined it would. It was a magical moment.”

For Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum, it was just the first of many magical moments to come.