Penguin Prison’s Chris Glover on his miscellaneous musical endeavors, influences and the difference between recording in London and New York.
| His plain-spoken demeanor may be soft, but Chris Glover — better known by his musical moniker, Penguin Prison — is having a powerhouse moment. Having grown up in New York City, Glover’s crossed paths with a variety of styles and well-known artists. Now, described as a ‘DFA-produced Prince’ and positioned as one of electro-pop’s brightest stars, he’s literally found his voice. |
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Glover’s junior high years were spent singing in the chorus — alongside a young Alicia Keyes — at the Professional Performing Arts School (not to be confused with the Professional Children’s School, another arts-centric high school in Manhattan that was the model for the movie Fame
“We had this teacher named Aziza,” Glover recalls, “and she was a really strict disciplinarian. We had choir practice every day after lunch, for like three hours a day, and she worked us really hard. That’s how I learned how to sing.”
Later on, in high-school, Glover’s tastes would veer from Aziza’s original gospel compositions towards Weezer and Green Day. He learned to play guitar and joined a punk band, performing at clubs around the city. Then, it was off to college at Bard, where a boy band-meets-rap group he started with friends, The Smartest Boys at Bard, became one of the most popular items on campus.
“We were really big in our little bubble,” he says. “My senior year, I sent a download to Q-Tip [the acclaimed hip-hop artist famous for his role in A Tribe Called Quest] and he wanted to meet me. He wanted to sign me to this label he was trying to start at the time. He set up this showcase for me and I played a show and it was just … too weird. I wasn’t ready. My music was all over the place.”
Glover would write and record an album for Interscope under his real name before the birth of Penguin Prison. The record was never released. He began hanging out with old pals like Alex Frankel of Holy Ghost! and taking a liking to their dance-pop sound.
“I was like, ‘this is what I needed to do,’ ” he says.
Glover began solidifying his own sound, or more like pulling from the diverse cornucopia of styles he had accrued over his years. He cites everyone from Michael Jackson to Hot Chip to Talking Heads as musical influences, and it’s apparent in the two tracks that caught the eye of indie label Neon Gold, which released them last year. Both songs — “Animal Animal” and “A Funny Thing” set Glover’s ultra-smooth vocals against a backdrop of groovy synths and dance beats. It’s a perfect combination of sweat funk laced with a pop sensibility.
As Penguin Prison (the name comes from an old rap line dropped by one of his friends referencing … George W. Bush), Glover has built up massive Web hype with his funky meld of music. A debut album is due soon, followed by a subsequent tour. Glover has been recording and producing the record half in New York and half in London; he’s been in the latter city working with producer Dan Grech-Marguerat, a Nigel Godrich‘s protégé who engineered Radiohead‘s In Rainbows.
Glover says that despite the similarities between the two major cities, he’s picked up on one primary difference each one lends to recording.
“In New York, when I’m working by myself with friends,” Glover says, “I’ll be sitting there and thinking for an hour, ‘what does this part mean?’ We get a couple of things done in 12 hours. But with Dan, he works fast. You get an entire song in a whole day.”