PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Prima Donna‘s Kevin Preston fondly remembers being an MTV kid of the early ’90s. At around 10 years old, this San Fernando Valley native could usually be found watching endless videos of Nirvana, Weezer, Green Day and other bands of the era that dominated the channel, and playing along to albums like Dookie on his very first guitar.
There was never a question of whether or not Preston was destined to pursue a career in music. In fact, by high school, he was helping one of the first punk bands of Los Angeles enjoy new life. Ever since, Preston has been a staple of the Valley music scene and beyond, launching his own rock and roll band Prima Donna, joining Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong in two of his side projects (Foxboro Hot Tubs and The Longshot), and serving as a touring guitarist on Green Day’s recent The Saviors Tour.
All the while, Preston is embracing dad life as the father of 8-month-old Eddie, and blending his two biggest passions — music and horror — with an all-new spooky season single and ever-growing record collection of Halloween-inspired tracks.
PopHorror had the recent pleasure of chatting in-depth with Preston via Zoom about those early years jamming in his bedroom (and the full circle moment of playing those same songs to sold out stadiums), his “old school” vision for Prima Donna, the joys of fatherhood, and his most-recommended horror films and tunes.
PopHorror: It’s great to speak with you! All of your Halloween posts on Instagram started popping up, so I was hoping you’d be down to chat about all-things Halloween and music.
Kevin Preston: That’s so cool! Yeah, I’m really stoked. I never know who sees anything. So honestly, it’s just fun to do, but I’m stoked that it got to you. That’s cool.
PopHorror: To start, I’d love to talk about the new single “Trick or Treat” with Josie Cotton. It’s such a cute song. How did that all come to be?
Kevin Preston: I’ve been a longtime Josie Cotton fan. She was in a movie called Valley Girl in the ’80s. I live in the Valley, I’m born and raised in the Valley where the movie is set, and yeah, I’ve just always been a fan. And throughout the years we’ve become close, and we’ve recorded some music together. We found out a few years ago that our voices go really well together, and I’ve always been looking for more opportunities to do more singing with her. And then Chuck Berry’s got this song called “Trick or Treat,” and it’s buried on this live record, this Chucky Berry Live on Stage record, and it just sounded like something we would do naturally. It took, like, an hour of us recording the vocals before it was just completely finished. I just thought it would be really fun, the song kind of sounds like us singing already.
PopHorror: Nice! In addition to the single, you’ve been posting a lot of Halloween stuff, you had a countdown going for a while with a song a day. Are you a big fan of the season?
Kevin Preston: Oh, big time! And I see you are, too. *notices Chucky dolls in the background*
PopHorror: Oh, yeah, I got the crew back there! They freak out maintenance everytime they come in.
Kevin Preston: Oh, man, that’s awesome! Geez, that’s so cool! Yeah, I’m a big fan. I love DJing dark wave and goth music and just all the classic, spooky tunes. It’s fun. It’s the best time of the year. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
PopHorror: Is this your first Halloween as a dad?
Kevin Preston: Yeah, first one!
PopHorror: Do you have costumes or anything planned yet?
Kevin Preston: He’s been in costumes pretty much since he came out of the womb, but yeah, we’ve got a bunch of things. And all his little onesies this whole month have been Halloween. My mom, his grandmom keeps bringing him little things to wear. He’s gonna be a little alien and we’ll be astronauts, me and his mom.
PopHorror: I always tell people, I want one so that I can dress them up like Chucky.
Kevin Preston: [laughs] It’s too perfect.
PopHorror: Obviously you’re into the music of the season, are you into horror movies as well? If so, do you have a favorite?
Kevin Preston: For some reason, I gravitated toward all the Friday the 13th movies. I’m just a sucker for them. And I know it makes no sense that he grew up big and strong after he drowned in the lake. I can just forget about all that. I love those movies, and I love those soundtracks. They’re great. One of my favorite tunes to spin around Halloween is this song by Pseudo Echo, it’s in Friday the 13th part five, there’s a goth girl dancing in the bedroom and he goes and kills her.
PopHorror: Any musician that I speak with, I always love to learn the backstory of how and when you took an interest in the industry, and when you realized you were good at music and could make a career out of it. Can you tell me about that?
Kevin Preston: I was an MTV junkie when I was a little kid. It was a bunch of bands but really, if I could pinpoint it to a couple, it was Nirvana, Green Day and Weezer were just on MTV constantly. That’s when I picked up a guitar. I always think of 1994 the way older musicians talk about The Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964. So MTV 1994, that was my time. I wanted a guitar really bad, and I got one on my 10th birthday. I’ve played in bands since then. I immediately found a couple of friends in school that also liked rock music and we had a little tribe, and then a few of us started a band. One of those guys, I still play with to this day.
The big breakthrough was in high school, my sister’s friend’s dad was the singer of a punk band called The Skulls, and they were one of the first LA punk bands. The played The Masque, which was our legendary punk club, and they played with the Germs and The Go-Go’s and all the old punk bands. I met him and we brought The Skulls back together, and The Skulls toured all over. When I was in high school, we started touring and we put out a couple of records. In about a three-year span, we toured the US, Europe, and we put out two LPs and a ton of 7 inch records. So it was a crash course in punk rock. I learned how to tour, I learned how to record, and then it just kept going from there.
PopHorror: And did that eventually lead into Prima Donna?
Kevin Preston: After The Skulls, I wanted to sing in my own band. I just wanted to have a rock and roll band with a saxophone, play with my friends and play old school rock and roll, old school punk rock. I was really, really into UK glitter rock, like Bowie, T. Rex, the Sweet, Slade, and I wanted to have a band that was a combination of all those things. Coming out of The Skulls, I was ready. I knew how to do everything I wanted to do. I knew how to book tours, survive tours, make records. We just got right into it.
PopHorror: Is there anything new happening with that band?
Kevin Preston: Yeah, actually, we’ve got a show coming up in December. Things have gotten busy on my end, and the other guys keep really busy as well, but we’re still a band. We’ve been writing new music and, hopefully, you’ll hear some of that next year.
PopHorror: I always love when people can do their own thing but come back together.
Kevin Preston: Thank you! Me too, I love it. We all live in the Valley, we all live basically down the street from each other, so we still get together as much as we can. The magic is still there, I love those guys. We got together to record a song earlier this year before I left on tour to benefit Jesse Malin. It’s not out yet, but my friend Jesse Malin wrote this song when he was a teenager. Actually, I think he was preteen, he was like 12 years old. We didn’t practice it. We just all learned it, we got together in the recording studio, and it just clicked. And that’s what I have with those guys. It’s just rock and roll magic still, 20 years later.
PopHorror: Is there anything you can share about Prima Donna‘s upcoming new music in 2025?
Kevin Preston: The evolution, Prima Donna to me is just, we started when we were kids, really, and we’ve grown up and gotten better at our instruments. There’s still blaring sax. I just wanted to play guitar solos on every song, so that’s still there. It’s just constantly getting louder. The funny thing about most bands, it works for our band, but we’re always competing to be louder than each other. With our band, I think that always works in our favor. A lot of bands fight over it, we’re always like, “Yeah, OK, let’s turn the guitar up, let’s turn the bass up, let’s turn the drums up, too.”
PopHorror: And then before COVID, you were doing The Longshot, as well. That was such a good band. I’ve been listening to Green Day for decades and The Longshot had such a unique sound, that classic rock and roll. What was it like being part of that group?
Kevin Preston: Oh, man, it was a dream. Billie Joe called me and he had some ideas for some songs that he was recording, and he asked me and David S. Field, who drums in Prima Donna, if we’d be in the band, and I didn’t have to think about that. Like, yeah, just let me know when! And Jeff Matika played bass in that band. It was crazy, we got together in early 2018, and it clicked from the instant we all got in the jam room. Immediately, the chemistry was like we’d been playing for years already. Billie grew up playing with his teenage friends, and I did the same, and I think when you come from sort of a common ground like that, there’s just a lot of unspoken chemistry that’s just there already.
But I’ve been jamming with Billie Joe since, the first band I played in with him was Foxboro Hot Tubs, which started in 2008. It’s crazy, I’ve been playing in bands with Billie Joe since 2008. That’s 16 years. It blows my mind! We thought it was crazy when we started playing in The Longshot. At that point, Foxboro Hot Tubs was 10 years old, and that blew my mind. But now, that’s 16 years ago, it’s really crazy.
PopHorror: Time flies! I feel like all I do anymore is Google people’s ages and then get depressed.
Kevin Preston: Isn’t it crazy when you Google someone’s name, the first thing in the common search is age? The passage of time is insane, and the older we get, the more it’s just — I don’t like thinking about it.
PopHorror: But yeah, The Longshot was awesome. My friend and I saw you guys, it was in the basement of a church in Philadelphia in the dead of summer, and it had no air conditioner. I was like, “I don’t know how they’re not keeling over right now.”
Kevin Preston: I fell down that night! I slipped and fell. It was the First Unitarian Church, right?
PopHorror: Yes!
Kevin Preston: It was the hottest show I’ve played in my life. At first, it felt like just a European club show because they don’t use air conditioning in a lot of those clubs, and I’m like, “I got this.” Usually on tour, I’ll wear a leather jacket the whole show, and it was not one of those nights. We got on stage and immediately, I slipped and fell, I think we had to stop the show. We couldn’t breathe. They had wet vacs. We got great videos after the show. It looked like there had been a flood, there was so much sweat on the ground, it was crazy. Yeah, they had to come through and wet vac everything. By far the hottest show I’ve done in my life.
PopHorror: And then it was downpouring after.
Kevin Preston: That’s right! I’m glad you saw that show. That comes up often. I’ve done the coldest show in my life with Billie Joe, and the hottest show of my life. That was the hottest, and then the coldest, we went up to do the Grey Cup, which is like the Canadian Super Bowl, about a year ago. We played outside and it was the coldest I think we’ve all been in our lives, it was insane.
PopHorror: Speaking of hot, how was your summer touring on The Saviors Tour?
Kevin Preston: It’s really hard to not keep saying “magical” when it comes to a lot of these things that happen in my career, but that was the best tour I’ve been on in my life. You asked about how I started, and I started playing guitar, I had the tablature book for Dookie and just listening and playing along to those songs, it’s really how I learned to play guitar. And flash forward 30 years, and now I’m playing those songs in front of stadiums. I had to keep reminding myself, “Just keep your feet planted on the floor and play the tunes.” A lot of times when I was playing the songs, I could picture myself back in my bedroom when I was 10 playing along to the songs with my little boombox. I could put myself there, and it was really crazy.
But yeah, the tour was incredible. We went to Europe and then we did North America with Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid. I mean, that’s rock radio when I was a kid, that’s everything that shaped me. It was insane, really. Did you see any of those shows?
PopHorror: Yeah, I did the Philly show and then I went to the rescheduled Hershey date, my friend and I made a Hersheypark weekend out of it.
Kevin Preston: Oh, cool!
PopHorror: It was awesome. I was about 10 years old when American Idiot came out, so to hear the whole album live was just so special.
Kevin Preston: Those songs, you just wanna service the songs. When we play those songs, I feel like we’re an orchestra. There’s so many layers and textures, and it was just really an honor. I just felt like Billie Joe’s the conductor, and we’re behind him just servicing, like it’s an opera. I might as well have had a cello or something, that’s how I felt playing those songs.
PopHorror: And I feel like Billie Joe and the whole band, you all have so much energy on stage!
Kevin Preston: Oh, man, I’m so happy you say that. That’s one of those situations where I didn’t even feel the time passing. And then when you get down the setlist, some nights we were doing up to 38 songs because we were doing Dookie, American Idiot, and then we’re fitting in as much of Saviors as we could get away with, and a couple others, too. But I was bummed everytime it would get close to the end. And so I didn’t feel the time passing, I never felt tired. And then half the time, I’m completely oblivious to all this pyro and all these crazy things happening right behind me. That’s how beautiful it was to play all those songs. I have the best seat in the house. I’m standing right next to Tré [Cool], I’ve got all the guys right in front of me, to the side of me, and then I could see all the smiling faces in front, and it’s surreal. It truly is surreal.
PopHorror: What is tour life like in general? You’re going to all these amazing places, do you have time to go out and explore at all?
Kevin Preston: Yes! Well, there’s not a lot of time. But I’ve been touring for 20 years. Actually, 22 years, I’m looking at, what you can’t see are all these tour posters on the other side of me and it’s reminding me that I’ve been touring since 2002, I was still in high school. There are a lot of tours, especially the early punk rock tours, you’re in a van — if you’re lucky you get a bus — but you’re in a van and basically, you’re playing every night. You’re driving up to the venue, you’re getting out, sound checking, all of that happens, it’s pretty rapid-fire. And that’s amazing, too. I did that for a long time, but I didn’t get to see anything. You basically see parking lots and then the venue, and then a hotel room if you’re lucky, mostly floors and stuff. But that’s not to disparage. That has its own place in my heart, too. I miss it and it’s always in the back of my head.
But now, I’m fortunate enough to stay usually in cool parts of town. I make every minute count. I hit the ground running. Now I try and see everything. But I will tell you, I missed out. About 20 minutes from Pittsburgh is the mall from Dawn of the Dead, it still stands. You’ve gotta go because you’re closer to it than I am. I couldn’t make it work this trip, but next time I’m anywhere remotely close, I’m gonna go. So I’m still kicking myself that I missed out on that. But yeah, I try and see everything. I do a lot of those walking tours, I book a lot of walking tours and I go sightseeing. Oh, man, I can’t get enough of it. I got my Pirates baseball right here from Pittsburgh, since we’re talking about it.
PopHorror: Will you be joining Green Day for their upcoming dates? I saw they have a bunch of festivals and international dates in Indonesia, etc.
Kevin Preston: Yeah, we’re hitting a lot of places I’ve never been to. As rock and roll as it is, I’ve never toured Australia. We’re going to Australia and I can’t wait. So, if you’ve got any suggestions, let me know.
PopHorror: I keep seeing on social media all of the giant spiders down there, so maybe stay away from them!
Kevin Preston: Oh, man!
PopHorror: Is it hard to transition from the road back to home life? Or is that something that you can’t wait to get back to?
Kevin Preston: I’ve heard it described this way before, but the thing is, I live to play and I also love my home life. I’m not trying to leave. That’s a hard one to sum up because it’s really hard to be away, but I also love what I do. Coming home now with a son, it’s incredible, it’s a whole other adventure. Every day is different with this guy. It is true what they say, he’s just growing daily. Every day there’s some new thing he’s doing, and it’s pretty neat. It’s pretty easy to come home. Coming home’s like a beautiful thing in a way that it’s never been before. It’s always nice to come home. I’m really close with my family and we all live in the Valley, so I see everybody pretty regularly. But now, coming home with that kid, it’s pretty awesome.
PopHorror: How old is he now?
Kevin Preston: He’s gonna be 8 months in a few days, right after Halloween. And he’s starting to babble a lot. He’s a really smiley kid, he’s happy. It’s pretty neat. I’ll show ya, he’s got a little laminate from the tour. Little Eddie.
PopHorror: Oh, how cute! Maybe he can join the tour someday. I’ve seen videos of Tré’s son in the wings playing drums.
Kevin Preston: Yes, since I’ve been around those guys, their kids — well, they’re at various ages now — but their kids used to be the babies dancing backstage, so I can’t wait for Eddie to be the one dancing backstage. I’ve seen all of their kids grow up, it’s crazy. But yeah, at some point he’ll come hang out, he’s a little too young now. But next year, who knows? He’ll probably be out there at some point.
PopHorror: In addition to those upcoming dates, is there anything that people can look forward to regarding your own projects?
Kevin Preston: When I’m home, I’m DJing a lot, I’m on my Instagram. I pretty much just do Instagram. I have a TikTok, but I don’t use that enough. But yeah, that’s pretty much it for now. We’ll have more things coming.
But let’s talk more spooky tunes! I love goth and dark wave music, but if I had to pinpoint, I think Ministry With Sympathy is probably my favorite record of that time period. I can’t get enough of that. As far as the old school Halloween tunes, “Witches Brew” by Janie Jones is, to me, the best. You’ve gotta respect the classics, I think “Monster Mash” is incredible. And it’s really neat, I think, maybe even if you can’t name the artist Bobby “Boris” Pickett, that song, it will never die. “Monster Mash,” that’s the quintessential. But I think there’s a lot of tunes underneath it, and “Witches Brew” by Janie Jones is one of them. But yeah, I love all that stuff.
PopHorror: “Monster Mash” is definitely a classic.
Kevin Preston: And Roky Erickson. I think Roky Erickson wrote some of the best, he wrote songs about monster movies, “I Walked With a Zombie” and “Two Headed Dog” and all these great songs for the season. But he also wrote really great love songs, and I don’t know how he did it.
PopHorror: I need to listen to more Halloween music! I’ve been focusing on movies this season, trying to watch at least one a night.
Kevin Preston: Oh, cool! What did you watch last night?
PopHorror: I went through the House of 1000 Corpses trilogy by Rob Zombie, have you ever seen that?
Kevin Preston: Yeah, those are great!
PopHorror: I always wanted to watch them, but never did until now. And I went to see Terrifier 3 in theaters, have you seen that?
Kevin Preston: No! I haven’t seen the third one yet, how was it?
PopHorror: Disgusting, but so good!
Kevin Preston: Did you see Talk to Me last year?
PopHorror: I did not.
Kevin Preston: Watch Talk to Me, I went and saw it last Halloween season, that blew my mind. You should watch that, for sure. What did you think of Longlegs?
PopHorror: I haven’t seen that either!
Kevin Preston: OK, watch that. Watch that immediately. I thought it was like a modern day Silence of the Lambs, which I think is my favorite movie of all time, Silence of the Lambs. And that’s got “Goodbye Horses” by Q. Lazzarus on the soundtrack, which is one of the top, top spooky tunes. But yeah, see Longlegs for sure, that was incredible.
PopHorror: Any other horror recommendations before I let you go?
Kevin Preston: Well, let me shout out some LA stuff! In LA, I think our claim to fame, basically LA gets credited with inventing death rock, 45 Grave, Christian Death are the big titans of that stuff. I can’t get enough of that music. And if you’re not aware of early Christian Death and 45 Grave, check them out immediately. I’m really bummed I was born too late because I would’ve really loved seeing some of those bands back in that time.
But also, just the classic Universal movies are incredible. I rewatch Dracula and Frankenstein around this time of year every year. I think those movies are spooky and beautiful, and they kicked the whole thing off. And Universal Studios is in the Valley, so it’s neat that I can drive over to the studios where they were filmed at. That’s never lost on me. I love that stuff.
PopHorror: Have you ever done their Halloween Horror Nights?
Kevin Preston: Yes! And I think it’s the best in the world. I’m biased, but I try and go to all the haunt things and, to me, that is the best in the world. And we’ve got the West Hollywood Halloween Parade every year, I think it’s the biggest Halloween party in the world. We go all out for Halloween out here, I can’t get enough of it.
PopHorror: Philly needs more of that!
Kevin Preston: Yeah, you should do a big parade at the Rocky steps or something. You’ve gotta kick it off.
PopHorror: Definitely! I just got back from Florida, I did the Horror Nights at Universal down there.
Kevin Preston: Was it incredible?
PopHorror: It was!
Kevin Preston: Aw man, I haven’t been to the Florida park, I need to go.
PopHorror: The Insidious house was great.
Kevin Preston: They did a Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th maze. Actually, they do that one pretty often, that was great, and The Exorcist maze was incredible, too. But Insidious, I’ve gotta experience that.
PopHorror: They play that song by Tiny Tim, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Loved it.
Kevin Preston: That’s a whole other side, songs that aren’t intended to be spooky that are just really creepy, oh, my God.
Thanks for speaking with us, Kevin! Keep up with him on Instagram @kevintylerpreston.
Cover photo by John Pingry. Photo of Kevin sitting with guitar by Piper Ferguson.
