‘Dexter’ star Michael C. Hall returns to native Raleigh to perform with his band

While he isn’t playing a serial killer on TV, Michael C. Hall can often be found with his band performing “kaleidoscopic sound weather” music around the country.

Before forming a band in 2018 and before living a double life as the title character on “Dexter,” Hall was a kid from Raleigh attending Ravenscroft School on Falls of Neuse Road.

On July 30, Hall returns to his hometown with his band, Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum, for the final stop of their summer headline tour. The tour is in support of their 2021 debut album, “Thanks for Coming.”

The trio is made up of Hall as the lead vocalist, Matt Katz-Bohen, a keyboardist who also performs with Blondie, and Peter Yanowitz on the drums.

His role as a musician is perhaps lesser known to fans who have seen him on Broadway and on TV in “Six Feet Under,” “Dexter” and “Dexter: New Blood.” Hall has been nominated for numerous acting awards along the way, winning Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Before the release of “Thanks for Coming,” the name Princess Goes was buzzing in the indie-rock genre. The band mates met each other during the Broadway production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” which in which Hall played the title role. The three released their debut single “Ketamine” in 2019, which is also the first official single on their self-titled record.

Even though the band members say they don’t have a specific sound, Princess Goes has been characterized as a captivating mixture of David Bowie’s glam rock, ’70s disco, ’80s new wave music and electronic dance beats.

Hall and the other members of Princess Goes sat down for a virtual interview with The News & Observer to talk about their tour, their album and what fans can expect at the shows:

Q: What are you most excited about for the summer tour?

Hall: I think anytime we get a chance to share our music in new cities with new fans and give them the chance to take it in live, and get another chance to share it, I mean, it’s always exciting. Raleigh is a particularly exciting stop for me because it’s where for the most part I grew up. It’s cool to end this little stint there.

Q: Are you looking forward to anything in particular when you come to Raleigh? Are there any sites or places you want to go or take the band?

Hall: Our schedule is pretty fast and furious so I don’t know how much time I’ll have, but I do anticipate that I’ll have a good number of family members and some friends who will show up, and that’ll be a unique experience. It’s usually a room full of strangers but it’ll be familiar faces that night.

Q: Do you still come to Raleigh?

Hall: Not as much as I used to because my mom moved out of the area. ... But I do still have a lot of family in North Carolina, if not Raleigh, proper. So I get back to the state a lot but I don’t get back to Raleigh as much as I used to.

Q: Where are you from, Pete and Matt?

Yanowitz: I’m from Chicago. I moved after I was about 3 years old. But I was born in Chicago but then I grew up in Utah. We’re also hitting Chicago on this tour.

Katz-Bohen: And I’m from New York City, but I always wished I was from Raleigh.

Q: What was the inspiration behind your album “Thanks for Coming”? I know you released a lot of music when the pandemic first hit.

Hall: I think the pandemic itself was if not an inspiration, a catalyst. We had a plan to go out, and we’d played a lot of shows locally in New York City, and we had a plan to go to the West Coast and play some shows out there and do some recording out that way.

But the pandemic hit and that trip was canceled. We found ourselves with a lot of time on our hands and decided to put together the full length. We probably had at least half of it written and then started writing more songs remotely and sharing ideas. So I think the album came to being in the form that it did, probably because of the pandemic.

Q: You have been compared to other artists, but how do you define the sound for Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum?

Yanowitz: We try to avoid that because we were influenced by so many things and I think you can hear that on our full length. But we also feel like the name of the band ... it almost is a good enough sort of banner for what the music stands for. Once we had the name, all the music we’ve been making seemed to make sense to fit inside or in that name, or under than name. We sound kind of like our name, if that makes sense.

Q: How did you come up with the name?

Katz-Bohen: It was my daughter’s idea. We were hanging out with princesses and butterflies and she came up with it.

Q: Is the band already in rehearsals for the tour?

Hall: Yeah, we try to get a sense of what the set will be like, and maybe how we might be able to mix it up. We’ll likely rehearse the set in the studio where Matt is sitting right now. It’s off of Union Square in New York City. That’s basically where we recorded most everything we’ve released, and we rehearse there as well. We have been touring periodically a good amount over the past several months or year, so we won’t be reinventing the wheel or anything.

Q: You all are part of different bands or have been before and in different projects. How does juggling that, this band and the tour all work together?

Yanowitz: So far so good. We all have families and our lives, yet we always find time to make time for Princess and to keep the collaboration going. It’s not really been difficult for me personally to juggle anything, but it’s more of a choice to see these two guys and get creative with them.

Q: Does that influence your chemistry on stage?

Katz-Bohen: I think we have a pretty chill and easy chemistry that’s pretty drama-free. I’ve been in bands, Peter’s been in bands, and Mike’s been a performer forever, and you know, there’s often a lot of drama on stage and off, but we try to keep it only on stage.

Charlotte and Raleigh among slate of postponed Shawn Mendes shows

Q: Are there any projects you guys are working on outside of the band?

Katz-Bohen: We are forbidden to talk about that. But I’ve been recording with Debbie Harry and Blondie. She’s a big fan of Princess and she comes to our shows and she helps us set up and carry stuff.

Q: Will you perform one of the remixes to “Ketamine”?

Hall: For sure. I do think we have been performing both the original version and another remix that Brandon Bost, our mixer, did .. but I think we’ll probably just do one version.

Q: What do you want your fans to know about this tour?

Hall: People have seen us before and they’ve said they didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t that. So I guess I would say they should expect the unexpected.

Q: Are there any other tours planned after this one?

Hall: We have one in the works, potentially, in Europe in the middle of the fall. We’re still finalizing that. Hopefully, that’ll happen too.

Q: Is there anything else you want to add that I didn’t ask?

Yanowitz: We’re so looking forward to Raleigh and getting our there and playing this music for a new audience.

Hall: We thank everybody in advance for showing up. You’ll be glad you came.

Details

▪ Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum will perform July 30 at 8:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre in Downtown Raleigh. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 day-of show. For details, go to lincolntheatre.com.

▪ “Thanks for Coming” can be bought or streamed on any music streaming platform.