Pink Royal

Pink Royal
Taps

Silly Goose Records

Lawrence-based experimental groove-pop quintet Pink Royal declares summer in full swing with its breezy, sexy and infectious debut from Silly Goose Records, Taps. It packs all that summer brings — from late nights to new love — into 12 bright, groove-worthy, entrancing tracks. The crowd-funded effort transcends music genres to create a beach-fueled escape where anything is possible and the cold shoulder of fall is far behind. Standout tracks are the harmonious funk-laced “I Know You Know,” and “Please, Please, Please.” A stolen dance with a newfound love on a balmy summer night, “Please Please Please” is irresistible with its warm horn section and sultry delivery. When lead singer Dylan James Guthrie begs in his soulful voice reminiscent of Incubus’ Brandon Boyd not to wait until we’re older, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an excuse to not abandon all care and take to the dance floor.

Catch Pink Royal live on Aug. 29 at The Bottleneck. Taps is available at pinkroyalmusic.com. - 435 Magazine

Pink Royal is just too cute
Posted on May 5, 2015 by admin
We’ve found your feel-good band of the summer.

Pink Royal is really just too adorable. Coming hot off of a recent album release, the Lawrence band played the Mixmaster event at the Bottleneck on Saturday. This is the type of music that is just delightfully danceable. Nothing you’d bust a move to, but would certainly have you grooving and scooting around your kitchen on a sunny Sunday morning while whipping up a batch of your famous pancakes.

There are too many alluring aspects to count with this band, but by far and wide the exuberant frontman takes the cake. This charismatic cutie bewitched the crowd. With arms outstretched for the high notes (almost like he was giving you a hug!), he is more graceful than Celine Dion and more enthusiastic than Roberto Benigni. Yes, life is beautiful when this fella takes the stage in his hot pink kitty shirt. Kittens! On his shirt!

The rest of the band members are all smiles, stealing glances from each other while always enjoying– nay, LOVING– their craft. Sometimes the frontman graces them with his winning personality for a little bandmate-to-bandmate nuzzle before climbing on top of a speaker or boogying across the stage.

Pink Royal is a barrel of sunshine and should play all the summer festivals this year.

Words and photos by Fally Afani - I Heart Local Music

The breezy, soulful pop of Pink Royal is gorgeously delivered and produced on two singles from their debut record Taps. Both tracks embody a summer night. The ecstasy of leaving the heat for the air conditioning of a bar and discovering all your friends and a cold drink are waiting for you. And who is that across the bar, but the next love of your life. The one you want to be with.

“Give Me Something Real” hits a note of melodrama that never becomes cheesy, because the sound is so genuine. The track begins a summer romance that could end come August, but you want it so badly you are willing to focus only on the here and now and the eventual pain of loss. That “something real” is all over the gorgeous keys and gentle guitars, a steady beat from the percussion gives this passion a foundation, and the smooth vocals tug your heart right out of your chest. The highlight coming when the vocals match “oohs” with the lead guitar. We all want that something real. Even only for brief moments.

“I Know, You Know” is a perfect companion to the lead single; the next step in the relationship. Things are going well, but they will inevitably go their own ways. This song is the catchiest damn heartbreaker you’ve ever heard. From the snapping tempo set at the beginning to the singalong chorus (which will be in your head for days and weeks) to the shimmering guitar to close out the vocals (who hit a crisp falsetto). A cool, beautiful wave that crashes into you and washes away just as quick. Two great tracks that build a massive anticipation up for Taps. - I Heart Local Music

You can call Pink Royal a pop band; its five members won’t take offense.

“It’s pop, but it’s not Top 40 pop,” said Dylan Guthrie, Pink Royal’s lead singer. “We’ve created a term for our music: experimental groove pop. We try to make our music accessible but artful.”

That’s an apt description of the music that fills “Taps,” the full-length album Pink Royal released in April. It’s a collection of soulful pop songs with shifting time signatures and thoughtful chord progressions that sustain their cheery melodies and steady grooves. Much of it is embroidered in colorful guitar filigrees or keyboard lines.

Pink Royal didn’t arrive at this sound quickly. The band formed years ago in Lawrence, a loose collective of KU students who jammed at places like the Jazzhaus, where they were regulars at Speakeasy Sundays. The inaugural lineup lost a few members, including its drummer. That’s when Alex Hartmann stepped in.

“I was friends with the bassist back then, John (Killeen),” he said. “He and I studied abroad one summer. When we got back, he said he’d been playing with this band, and they didn’t really have a lot going right then, but I should play with them. They’d been playing with this drummer, Henry Burling, a great cat, but he was moving back to the U.K.”

After other departures and new arrivals, the band settled into a steady lineup about three years ago: Hartmann, Guthrie, guitarist Steven LaCour, guitarist Josh Dorrell and bassist/keyboardist Nick Carswell, who also fronts his own band, Carswell and Hope.

Each brings a different perspective on music, which is why their songs are typically multifaceted.

“I’m pretty traditionally taught,” Hartmann said. “As I got older, I focused more on blues and funk, which is a reflection of how I was taught. If your teacher has you working on blues charts or jazz scores, that’s going to be your influence. So I ran with that.”

“I’m really into soul music,” Guthrie said. “My biggest inspirations are Stevie Wonder and James Brown. I’m really into Lake Street Dive, too. Steven is very into theory. He listened to a lot of prog-rock, so you hear some of those time signatures. Steve and I are into jazz, too, so that gets into our sound.

“You’d be pressed to find a chord progression that is straight 1-3-5 structure. Almost all have a seventh or ninth chord or some interesting element to keep the song engaging but also listenable. There’s always a light, poppy feel and, if you’re interested, you can dance around or move to it.”

“We are so diverse,” Hartmann said, “Steven played in an instrumental prog-math band called Catharsis of a Mute. Insanely mathy, like Coheed and Cambria. Very highly technical. I’m the complete opposite. Dylan is kind of more similar to me. He really gets his kicks off soul.

“You definitely hear all that in our music. Very technical guitar lines. There’s lots of math going on. We’re definitely not scared to play around with time signatures or integrated rhythms, which is something most pop bands don’t do all that often.”

That sound has been embellished by the recent addition of Zak Pischnotte, a doctoral student in saxophone at KU.

“We brought him in to lay down some sax, and he joined the band after that,” Guthrie said.

“Taps” was recorded with producer Jim Barnes, a sound engineer and drummer for the band Hembree. It was one step toward giving the band the attention and commitment everyone agreed it needed.

“In 2014, we decided that we wanted to take our roles as musicians and performers a lot more seriously,” Guthrie said. “So we took a bunch of tunes we’d recorded on GarageBand and went into the studio with Jim Barnes, a great producer.”

More than half the songs on “Taps” were written by LaCour and the original version of the band, the rest with the new lineup. Guthrie writes the lyrics; the rest of the music is a collaboration.

“Steven comes up with the basic, harmonic structure, then we organically jam, whether it’s me and Steven or the full band,” Guthrie said. “We’ll come up with a melody and the hook and refine it as we go.”

Saturday night, at its show at the Riot Room, Pink Royal will unveil a new song, one that takes the band in yet another direction.

“It’s definitely different,” Guthrie said. “It has a Motown sound, more Motown soul.”

“We’re different from a lot of pop bands,” Hartmann said. “Dylan doesn’t have your standard pop voice. He croons, which isn’t something you expect from an indie-pop act. That’s what I love about this band. We can hit on so many cylinders.”

Timothy Finn: 816-234-4781, @phinnagain

SATURDAY
Pink Royal performs Saturday night at the Riot Room, 4048 Broadway. Reptar, Breathers and RLT are also on the bill. Showtime is 8:30 p.m. Admission is $12.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/back-to-rockville/article45347313.html#storylink=cpy - Kansas City Star

Well written albums can take time to sink in, as they tend to gracefully stray away from a majority of the current musical trends that our ears are consistently conditioned to listen for. Taps by Pink Royal is one of those albums. At its core, it’s a feel-good album that you can put on whenever, regardless of your environment or company, as it has something for everyone to enjoy. Dancy synth lines? Check. Funky bass lines? Check. Dynamic melodies and harmonies that burrow themselves into your subconscious? Check. Sexy saxophone lines? Check. Drums that enhance the songs musical idea and don’t distract? Check. Plus, who doesn’t like flamencos? – AE - Demencha