I had the good fortune of meeting Fataday Korngor a little while back when I dropped by the Rusty Nail in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, to check out a few bands. Fataday plays guitar and sings harmony vocals in Sacred Monsters, and he puts on a great show. At one point, I noticed he was missing from the stage and then suddenly realized he was out among the audience, dancing through the crowd with his wireless guitar rig and getting everyone up on their feet and grooving to the beat. After the set, I chatted with him briefly and learned that in addition to his work with Sacred Monsters, he also records as a solo artist with tunes that highlight his skills not just as a musician but as a songwriter as well.

How did you get involved with Sacred Monsters?

I first got involved with Sacred Monsters in July 2021, when they came to my college to film a music video in the studio. At the time, I was working as a cameraman on the shoot, and I had just started playing live music again following the pandemic. I’m admittedly a pretty big guitar nerd, so when Julie (our other guitar player) came in with her blue PRS, I got into a conversation with her about it just geeking out over the guitar. From there, I followed the band on Instagram, and when they found out that I played guitar as well — and thought that I rocked myself — they asked me to join the band in September and I’ve been here ever since.

What attracted you to their music?

The song that made the band jump out for personally was “Plans Change,” which was the song they filmed for the music video. It reminded me a lot of 90’s-early 2000’s power pop, and I thought that they had a great sound from the start. In a way, I became a fan of the band before I joined it — it’s like every musician’s dream!

How do you fit into the band—both as a musician and as a personality?

As a muscian, I think I fit in pretty well with the other members because we’re all into the same types of music, even with our different musical backgrounds. We collaborate really well together and are always open to ideas that are brought to the table — two things that are incredibly important in a band. Our personalites are a bit different but we all mesh well together, not only as bandmates and musical collaborators but as friends too. There’s never a dull moment whenever the four of us are in a room together. Lots of laughs and good times to be had for sure!

As I mentioned in my intro, you really brought the show to life when you waded out into the audience with your guitar. Is that something you usually do as part of the show?

It’s something I started doing recently, yes. I did it once at a show last year, but forgot to tell the others that I was gonna do it, so it ended up throwing everybody off. With our recent shows, I’ve been going into the crowd for “Believe” — our cover of the Cher song — since it’s the only song I don’t sing on during the set. It’s a very danceable tune, so whenever I jump in, my hope is to get people into the show and excited!

You also record as a solo musician. How is your own music different from the music you make with Sacred Monsters?

With Sacred Monsters, we consider ourselves “sad girl rock,” which is usually very upbeat with sad lyrics. With my solo stuff, it’s similarly upbeat, but it has a lot more emphasis on the lyrics and is overall a bit more universal, though both projects have personal lyrics attached to them.

Your most recent solo album is called Messing with the Brightness, which you’ve described as a culmination of experiences and issues you worked through over the preceding years. Specifically, you mention that you try to capture what you describe as your “broken-down feelings” with catchy melodies. What makes these extremes pair well?

I think they pair well because of how dynamic the music tends to be. When I started writing my own songs, I became obsessed with this idea of “lyrical dissonance,” meaning songs that sound happy but actually have dark lyrics over the facade (think something like “Zak and Sara” by Ben Folds). I love dark sounding music, but I know that an entire album’s worth of dark music wouldn’t have connected as well with people, so I mixed the sad lyrics with poppy melodies that people would be able to sing along to. It’s a trick that I picked up from Paramore’s After Laughter, though my album sounds much different than theirs for sure.

You also mention dealing with imposter syndrome. Where do you think that comes from, and how does music help you deal with it?

I’ve always been a little insecure about many things in my life, but when I started taking music seriously, for whatever reason I started feeling like I wasn’t a good enough musician for anything, and I started to wonder whether or not I was even cut out for it. What helped me get out of that thinking was knowing that almost no one has it all figured out, and we’re all just faking it til we get to where we want to be. It’s what I ended up writing “Fake It Til Ya Make It” about — trying to get myself through that moment in time — with the chorus being a pep talk to myself telling me that everything will be fine (“If you can’t find what made you special before, why don’t you fake it til ya make it?”).

Your Bandcamp bio describes you as being punk in spirit and pop in personality. Can you say a little more about that? How do those two ideas complement each other?

I thought of it one night as a catchy slogan for my music, but I also think it describes it fairly well: the punk spirit of carrying on with life no matter what it throws at you paired with a bright poppy personality of myself and my songs are a bit of an “opposites attract” deal, but they pair well when put together in practice.

Do I remember correctly that you just graduated with a degree in music production? What kinds of “big picture” lessons or ideas about music did you take away from that experience?

I did graduate with a degree in communications, not music. But I think the biggest takeaway that I got from my degree and time at college is that “the worst ideas are the ones that are never tried.” There’s always going to be someone that’ll be looking to doubt what you do and whether you should do it or not, but at the end of the day, they’re mostly not going to care what you end up doing anyway, so you just have to do it without thinking of whatever people might say.

How about smaller things – like production tips or tricks of the trade, as it were?

I defintely learned a lot from college about music production. During my sophomore year, I took a class called “Intro to Audio,” which taught me pretty much everything you’d need to know about recording anything — from a live concert, to music, podcasts, and everything in between — that really helped me find my own sound and gave me many valuable lessons about recording that’re probably gonna stick with me for the rest of my career. I’m grateful for that class, as well as Sean (my instructor).

And your plans for the future?

For music, Sacred Monsters is currently playing shows through the end of July, and our current plan is to regroup in the fall to start working on new songs. As for myself, I’m nearing the end of writing the follow-up to Messing With The Brightness, and the hope there is to start recording the new songs in August and have them out by next spring. It’s a lot on my plate musically for sure, but it soothes my soul and I couldn’t imagine myself in a better position then right now.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

Thank you for the interview! It was fun getting to answer these questions.