King of Prussia

Resurrecting Kindercore

By Deirdre Sayre

Photos by Daniel Peiken

“All of a sudden, all of our friends had bands,” says Kindercore co-founder Ryan Lewis, remembering the state of Athens, Ga.’s scene in 1996. He and Kindercore co-founder Dan Gellar had formed their own band, Kincaid. “We were going to do a record on our own,” says Lewis, “and then said, ‘Why don’t we do a compilation?’” Soon the duo formed Kindercore Records, issuing the collection Treble Revolution, which sold out within two weeks.

Within a few years, Kindercore had put together an impressive roster of groups including Of Montreal, The Mendoza Line, Masters of the Hemisphere, The Essex Green, The Sunshine Fix and I Am the World Trade Center, garnering not only local attention but national, even being named Spin‘s “Indie Label to Watch” in 2000. Kindercore’s sound and success also attracted musicians to Athens, including the guys from King of Prussia.

“Kindercore represents all that we loved about Athens before moving here,” says King of Prussia lead singer and songwriter Brandon Hanick. “It’s a colorful label with an identity of its own and we’ve always dug what Kindercore was laying down.”

Hanick made the move to Athens soon after he completed college, but had a hard time finding other musicians to play with until new friend Trey McManus gave him his sales pitch. “One night [McManus] said, ‘Why don’t you come hang at my house and listen to some music?’ He put on the Envelopes [McManus’ band back home in Myrtle Beach]. I was just blown away by how good it was. If it hadn’t been for hearing that Envelopes record I probably wouldn’t have stayed.”

Soon the duo began playing in Beijing, Hanick playing in electronica project Touchdown on the side.

King of Prussia might have a regal name, but its beginnings were rather inauspicious, as a recording project in Hanick’s dad’s apartment’s closet, where Hanick began reworking some of the songs he’d written over the years. Once McManus joined, the project took off.

“We brought in all these people we knew and did the whole Athens music thing where everybody plays an instrument and you call someone and say, ‘Hey do you wanna come over and put this part down?’” says Hanick. “It turned into much more elaborate of a project than what was intended with 10 people playing on it [Hanick, McManus, Brian Smith, Peter Alvanos, Elizabeth Jones, Brian Hall, Nathan Troutman, A.J. Rownd, Katie Griffin and Taylor Coggin], complex arrangements and things like that.”

Everything was engineered on a portable digital eight-track machine. “It was cool because I was able to take it places,” says Hanick, transporting his study from his bedroom to wherever he fancied, including Athens’ Go Bar’s liquor storage closet so bartender Brian Smith could record bass tracks.

Hanick found the medium limiting, but in a good way, explaining, “You’re not supposed to make grandiose songs with 35 tracks. It forced us to take chances and be creative in ways that we wouldn’t otherwise if we had unlimited Pro-Tools tracks.”

Their method left an indelible mark on the album, even in regards to its name Save the Scene, which was a “weird little icon” on the eight track. The opening songs are a majestic mesh of orchestral power pop mined from the same vein as The New Pornographers, revealing British Invasion influences from The Kinks to The Cure before leading to more subdued numbers. Delayed guitars, ethereal keyboards and echoing choruses propelled by buoyant bass lines and a danceable drumbeat are layered lavishly, supporting well-crafted lyrics that capture concrete images in a few short lines, like the opener from “Cheerleaders,” a slower Americana-influenced number featuring banjo and handclaps: “I knew you were mine / When I stood in your doorway again.”

Misadventures of the “Campaign Kids” captures the hope of the campaign trail with lines like, “If we turned our reactors to the sun / Their plan would come undone” before nearing its close with disillusionment, “I wish I believed that one man makes meaningful change.” Buried halfway into the “Doctor and the Mathematicians” is one of the best anti-consumerist sing-alongs since The Kinks’ “Father Christmas.” “I’m only longing to long no more / I’m tired of giving them all my money / For new shoes, gas and shit galore.”

“The lyrics take a really long time,” says Hanick, who credits his patience to his dad, the one who initially persuaded him to begin writing songs. “He would always encourage me to say it between the lines and not be so blunt and direct.”

The success of recording Save the Scene prompted the crew to the form a live band. Since meeting Hanick, McManus’ former Envelopes bandmates A.J. Rownd and Nathan Troutman had moved to Athens joining King of Prussia as multi-instrumentalists, switching between bass, keyboards, guitar and vocals with McManus alternating between guitar and bass.

Though they’ve played great shows with established Athens bands like Casper and the Cookies, Russian Spy Camera and Ham1, the band considers itself to be underdogs in the scene, crediting King of Prussia’s involvement with Kindercore to artist/musician Brian Smith, who played all over the record. He gave it to Dan Gellar of Kindercore.

Kindercore had been on hiatus since 2003, its hibernation prompted by a bad business deal, during a time when Gellar says, “the music business was starting to nosedive and we weren’t having fun. These guys showed and convinced us to let them run the [day-to-day aspects] of the business which they did pretty well.” Until their partners tried to write Gellar and Lewis out of their label.

“Nine months later we had our day in court” says Gellar, referring to the victory in their favor. “We’d filed our lawsuit to retain the rights to our name and to our records, not so much to punish somebody,” says Lewis. Initially, the two did not plan on reforming the label. However, after hearing Save the Scene, Gellar began to get the itch. “King of Prussia was a great band that we liked with people that we liked and they wanted to be on Kindercore. Should we do it?”

“I was like, ‘No way dude,’” remembers Lewis. “We had already done it, it was fun and successful. Why go back?”

Eventually persuaded, Kindercore resolved to try new things like focusing on releasing albums primarily as downloads rather than CDs. “They’re a waste of plastic and paper and manufacturing and fuel,” says Gellar. Lewis finds the site, with its blog section, forum, and videos to be the most exciting aspect of the label. “The main thing is for the label to be more of a community as opposed to this business, to get fans music that they want and to encourage them to interact more with the band.”

On their part, King of Prussia is thrilled to be part of Kindercore’s revitalization. “It was a bummer when I moved here just a few months after the label went silent,” says Hanick. “To be the first Kindercore release since their reanimation is quite an honor.”

Kindercore is excited to add King of Prussia to a roster that will soon include Gellar project Ruby Isle and Lewis outfit The Buddy System. King of Prussia’s Save the Scene is already garnering positive reviews. “It’s great to see with King of Prussia how everyone’s reacted immediately,” says Lewis. “We got an order from Belgium 20 minutes after we posted the album to our website.”

www.myspace.com/wearekingofprussia