Despite the plurality of his name, Prime Birds is a one-man rock band out of Toronto, Canada. We talked about his music, some unusual sources of inspiration, his fears for the future and the indescribable honor of winning the Golden Funkbeard award.
Uncle Funkbeard: First things first. Who are you?
Prime Birds: As much as I like to think I'm special, I am a stereotypical guy in a lot of ways. I had a pretty normal childhood and went through school and got a 9-5 job which I am reasonably happy with – as happy as one can be while working for The Man – met my amazing and gorgeous wife at 19 and married at 25, and had a kid who I love dearly and collaborated with on a song earlier this year!
UF: Tell me about that!
PB: "Until The End," on SoundCloud, is a song that my then 8-year-old son completely wrote the lyrics and melody for himself, with honest-to-god no help from me. I only did the instruments.
UF: It’s a short track, but it rocks. Must have been fun to do. What’s the most fun part about making music for you?
PB: Coming up with new bits; farting around with my guitar or bass or even just tapping a rhythm with my fingers, and finding the cool ones and documenting them for later. I say “finding” them rather than writing or coming up with them because sometimes I truly feel they don't actually come from me; that they exist in the universe already, somehow, and I just happened to discover them.
In terms of pure fun? Nothing beats stumbling on the correct sequence of notes, in the correct timing, that makes something in my brain go "oh, that's cool."
UF: How would you define your sound? You’ve described yourself as “Sometimes heavy and grunge-y, sometimes light and acoustic.”
PB: The best way I can describe it is that if you liked a lot of the rock, metal and punk that was popular in the late 90's and early 00's, you will like at least something that Prime Birds does.
UF: Have you always been a solo artist?
PB: After high school and through my 20's I spent a lot of time in a band called Edgewood Grove. We didn't gain any prominence and didn't release much (though we have some demos on SoundCloud). But we practiced every week for years, and as a result, we grew tremendously as individual musicians and as a collective music-making machine. I love those guys dearly and plan to continue to play together, even if sparingly, for a long time.
I started releasing my own music at the beginning of the pandemic to prevent me from losing my mind. I had lots of songs in the bank but had to learn everything about recording and production from scratch. By 2022 I started releasing singles on the major platforms.
UF: What’s been your most popular song so far?
PB: I think probably "Can't Drive." It's not one of the heavier songs so it's sorta got more broad appeal built in, and it's got a big chorus.
Honorable mention to "The WHMIS Monster," which is less popular overall because it's not to everyone's tastes. But those who like it, like it a lot.
UF: “The WHMIS Monster” recently won the Golden Funkbeard award for your contribution to funk rock. Would you like to give a brief acceptance speech?
PB: Well, I have to start with thanking my wife. We have very little overlap in our musical tastes so my music is not necessarily her favorite stuff ever – her review of “The WHMIS Monster” was to yell “NOPE” about 15 seconds in and turn off the stereo. She is my biggest fan, supports me endlessly, and gets excited for every milestone I achieve no matter how small.
I also want to thank my son who is exactly the same, except he does seem to dig my stuff.
UF: I think it’s a great song, but I have to admit I’ve never understood the title.
PB: I used to work for a company that would send temps out to work in factories, and they had to pass a Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System quiz - WHMIS. Part of my job was to mark the multiple-choice quizzes, so I pretty quickly memorized the answers.
One day I wondered what they'd sound like as a melody, played around with the rhythm and the core of the song was born. I happened to be into writing chiptune music at the time. The video-game feel made the riff sound spooky, like going into a boss fight against a monster.
UF: Your latest song is “Until Everything is Gone.” The cover art was made by John Serrano, best known in indie circles as an amazing vocalist. How did that happen?
PB: I have no ability whatsoever when it comes to the visual arts, so I put out a call for help with my cover art and John stepped up. I really didn't give him any direction in terms of art style and I actually forgot to send him the song to capture the vibe, and yet he still came up with something that fit perfectly.
UF: The refrain goes, “I don't think that things will be better until everything is gone.” Do you think the apocalypse is on the way?
PB: On both sides of the growing political and cultural divide in the United States – and Canada to a lesser but growing extent – there are a lot of similar fears and perceptions about the people we oppose. Everyone feels the pinch, everyone feels things going downhill, even when we don't agree on why or what to do about it. Both sides can become desperate enough to arrive at the bridge: “No one seems to have a plan, no one's gonna take a stand. I've played nice as best I can, all that's left are my two hands.”
Outside of the context of this song, I don't necessarily think things have to get worse before they get better. But I wonder sometimes if that's what will wind up happening. This song is about those moments when I wonder.
UF: What other projects do you have coming up next?
PB: At some undetermined but not-too-distant point, I will release “What Was Said,” which is a heavier track with lots of chugs and a guitar solo and rants into a megaphone. I'm also slated to appear on a Jimmy Eat World compilation album, a Deftones-ish collab, at least one Nirvana cover, the collab with you, Jim Slatts and Tim Woodruff, and I'm also contributing a track to a top-secret collection that I'm not at liberty to speak about any further!
UF: What do you think about the collaborative process?
PB: What I've been accustomed to until now, other than writing on my own, is writing alongside my Edgewoood Grove bandmates. It can be incredibly fulfilling, but part of that fulfillment comes from the challenges that writing in a band can present. Anytime you have two, three, or four guys trying to speak together with one voice, the potential for friction arises. Luckily, we're pretty good at setting our egos aside for the sake of the song, but that doesn't mean that you don't sometimes have to grapple with telling the other guy you don't like what he did, or fight for an idea you think is important, and spend valuable emotional energy and time ironing that out.
With the collab you and I are involved in, as well as some others I've signed onto, there's a different vibe. The stakes are lower. Although we're working together and want to make good stuff, we are separate artists with our own unique perspectives and voices. I'm not going to be worried about how to make your voice fit my vision; I'm going to listen to it with an open mind, and try to find a way to compliment it without worrying too much about whether or not I'm fitting your vision, and hopefully at the end we can make something that's incredibly unique and cool and fun to listen to.
If there's a downside to it, maybe it's that I don't know if I'll feel as emotionally invested in the end result as I would for something I wrote in a group, or by myself. But even if I don't, if I have fun along the way, who cares?
UF: We’ve talked about the fun part of making music. What’s the most frustrating part? I know you’re mixing your newest song right now – that’s definitely something I struggle with!
PB: Yeah, I hate mixing, for a lot of reasons. It's a hard thing to get better at because a lot of the advice basically boils down to "eh, you kinda just have to do it and slowly get better at it, and you'll be bad at it for a bit." But I think an even more frustrating aspect is getting my music heard.
I've been actively marketing myself for around a year now and it's only been in the last few months that I have more than a single-digit number of “fans” who truly enjoy my work. And credit where it's due – the fact that that number is bigger now is almost entirely due to the exceptional community that has sprung up around Only the Host, for which I and others are very grateful!
Find Prime Birds’ music at https://hyperfollow.com/primebirds or follow him on Twitter.