September 10, 2025 • 47 mins
On this episode of Bringin’ it Backwards, Sean Ulbs of The Eiffels sits down with Michael Fitzpatrick—better known as Fitz, frontman of the chart-topping band Fitz and the Tantrums. Fitz gets real about his long and winding road through the music industry, from years of rejection and heartbreak to risking it all—both emotionally and financially—on one more shot at his dream. He shares how a vintage organ and a single inspired rehearsal launched the band that would eventually bring us hits like “HandClap,” “The Walker,” and “Out of My League.”
Fitz opens up about the creative process behind their latest album Man on the Moon, what it’s like performing new songs for fans after years of making music, and why licensing and syncs were crucial for the band’s rise in a changing industry. The conversation takes a candid turn into the realities of breaking through later in life, the pressures of social media on aspiring artists, and how to build a dedicated fanbase that will stick around long after the viral moment fades. There are stories about tough gigs, major risks, and a Tom Petty studio mishap you don’t want to miss.
Whether you’re a longtime fan, an up-and-coming musician, or just need a dose of inspiration, this is a conversation packed with advice and powerful reminders about passion, perseverance, and making your own path. Stick around for Fitz’s heartfelt advice to aspiring artists, and make sure to check out the full episode on your favorite podcast platform.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringing It Backwards, a
podcast where both legendary and rising artists tell
their own personal stories of how they achieve stardom. On
this episode, Sean Olds of the Eiffels had a chance to chat
with Fitz from Fitz and the Tantrums. Over Zoom
video, Sean and Fitz discuss how Fitz got into
(00:22):
music, the formation of Fitz and the Tantrums. It is a
great interview. Fitz talks about the struggles that he had, you know, and
how long it took for his band to really to break. And
it's just. It's a great conversation. They talk all about the new fits in the
Tantrums music and the tour they're on now. But it, yeah, it's a
great conversation about the music industry and, you
(00:44):
know, where it was, where it's going, possibly. Make sure to check out the
video version of it on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at bringing It
Backwards. It would be amazing. If you subscribe to our podcast, subscribe
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(01:07):
Apple Podcast. Please rate and review the podcast. That helps us out
tremendously. We'd appreciate your support if you follow and
subscribe to our podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts. We're
bringing it Backwards with Fitz and the Tantrums.
(01:28):
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it back.
All right, everybody, we got Fitz of Fitz and the Tantrums here today.
(01:48):
They're behind the huge hits Hand Clap, the
Walker, out of my league. As a personal fan, I
just want to thank you for all the years of great music and inspiring
music, and we're all big fans here at Bringing It Backwards, so welcome.
Oh, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the kind words.
Oh, of course. And you have a new album.
(02:11):
You're on a massive headlining tour right now. Would you mind sharing
a little bit about that with us? Yes. So we just
put out a few weeks ago, man on the Moon, our sixth studio
album, which just blows my mind that we're on
number six. And, you know, it's really
cool because it takes, you know, anywhere from a year
(02:34):
to year and a half to make a record, from starting to write
to recording to mixing, mastering to release date.
So to finally be out in the world, touring
these songs, playing them live, it's a really
special moment for the band to, like, bring it to a live
setting and just see how it's reacting
(02:57):
with the audience and stuff. And that's been the. The most
rewarding part about this is just seeing how into the new
record people are, how much they're coming up and telling us
how much they love the new record. So. Yeah. After
so many records, do you kind of have that process dialed a little
bit? Because I know that a lot of artists, it's like you said, you. You
(03:18):
take all this time to write the music, and then you get in the studio,
you record the music, you choose the right songs. And then
afterwards, though, you gotta figure out the art maybe, or figure out
the promo. And then by the time you release it, some artists feel
like. I feel a little distance between when I wrote it and
when I released it. Do you have a better dial on. On. On that
(03:40):
process now to try to make it a little bit more fluid? Well,
I think that, that, that's true for any artist. You know, I
mean, if. If you're trying to write
something real for yourself, you're usually drawing from
what's happening in your life at that moment. Right. That
can usually be a great source of inspiration.
(04:03):
But, yes, sometimes you can write a song that's dealing with a
feeling, an event, a moment in your life, and then
two years can pass between that time you wrote that and it comes
out, and then you're sitting there performing this
song that you might not have the same connection to.
But for me, I always. Even if I've moved on from that
(04:25):
feeling or that sentiment, I mean, I. I still lived it, I still
experienced it. So I don't
usually get too hung up on. On that part. It's just sort of the
process of how long it takes to make music and
get it out in the world, you know? Sure. And
sometimes I feel like you could look at it from a storyteller angle too. Right.
(04:48):
You're. You're kind of like, well, I'm telling this particular story that happened in. In
this particular time in my life. And I actually read
that you used to. Speaking of telling stories, you were into film a little
bit before music. Yeah, I mean, I went to a high school for
the performing arts. I've been a singer my whole life. And then I decided,
growing up in la, that I had to be in the movie business
(05:11):
because everybody was in the movie business. And I went to
university. I went to CalArts for a film degree. I got a bachelor's
fine art and filmmaking. But it was also
at that school that I put my first real band together
and had a first studio experience. We went into the
(05:31):
college's Studio. Everybody laid down their instruments.
I went in the vocal booth, sang, came back
out and the engineer pressed play. And that was the first
time I heard all the elements come
together. And it just sounded like
(05:52):
a banging song coming out of the speakers. And I said,
oh, forget it, I'm hooked. You know,
Making my senior thesis film in college took
me six months to make ten grand
of borrowing money, every favor in the
world to get people to work on my crew. It took
(06:14):
forever ever to make. And that was right at the same
time that digital workstations for music were really
blowing up. And at the same time I got my first
daw. I was working on a song. I had
an idea in the morning. By the evening I had a
complete song. This will date me a little bit. I would burn a
(06:36):
cd, put it in my car and drive
around and have something. In the
morning, there was nothing. At the end of the night, there's a piece
of art made, a song, whether it was any good or not,
I'll leave that to other people. But that experience, I
was like, oh, this is way more my ADHD
(06:59):
brains kind of pace. Like I like a little
quicker gratification than six months to get
to the finish line per project. And
I kind of never looked back. From that point on, it was always
music from that point on. I have thought about that
also. Just the, the amount of, you know, it could
(07:20):
be hundreds of people working on a movie set, but, you
know, or you could have one producer musician in a room and
come out, like you said, later, later in a day and with a
finished piece of art. So it definitely
is a drastically different process for film
and, and music. But I feel like you probably bring some
(07:43):
of that creativity to your music videos now. Maybe your stage
craft, your style. Do you feel like always, I mean.
You know, it's, it's helped inform. Yeah.
Album covers, photo shoots, certainly a ton of our
music videos. Having that experience helped inform
hopefully making some better choices and stuff like that.
(08:05):
Lighting, I'm obsessed with lighting on, on
stage. I have a lot of opinions about it.
I'll sit there with the lighting designer every time and go
through the design and give my
constructive input and critique of the show.
I love that stuff. So to me that
(08:27):
anything that I don't have to sit there and actually try and write a song
and I get to also be creative and use creative spirit
is a good day because I love that
stuff. I love the story you shared about just hearing
the finished product at school and that being a light
bulb moment for you because we're called Bringing It Backwards because we like
(08:49):
to take it back and kind of hear about what got you into music initially.
I know you've shared the story about buying the old organ and
that kind of inspiring. The Fits and the Tantrums project.
And then you played your first show. Maybe only about a week or so after,
after putting the band together, was there apprehension or excitement
about starting so quickly?
(09:12):
Not really. You know, I mean, for me, I had been in
so many bands, I'd had so many demos, couldn't get
arrested in the music business. Finally
had a band that, like, somebody wanted to manage us.
And we had a song that was a hit. He sent it
around to all the labels. We had 10 private showcases
(09:35):
at SIR, which is like a fancy music rental house
in LA. 10 showcases, 10 nos.
10. He's too old. And I was 29 at the time, mind.
Wow. Wow. And it kind of was the. The
straw that Broke the Camel's back. I was
emotionally devastated from over a decade of just trying
(09:57):
and couldn't make things happen. So I kind of pivoted and went into
working for a music producer, working on other people's
records. And then him and I started a company and made music
for advertising and film.
And it just was not enough
(10:17):
for me, like, watching other people make a record.
I was like, it's cool and stuff. I was like, but if I'm gonna sit
in a room with no windows for 10, 11 hours
a day, it better be for
my own music, right? And so
I couldn't put the dream down. I couldn't. And so I
(10:41):
took one more swing with the band. Put
a band together or I started writing the
songs with James King, my college buddy, who's in the
band as well still to this day. And,
you know, I was like, we have to play this stuff live. It's just begging
to be played live. We put everyone together, we got into
(11:04):
the room and we played one song, one song together as
this unit of people that had never been
in this pairing before. And it sounded like we had been playing
forever. I mean, it sounded like as good as the record,
you know? And I'll say that so much of the credit of that goes to
the fact that everybody in my band are like, they're not garage
(11:26):
rock and rol roll guys. They're guys that have studied. They all have their
10,000 Malcolm Gladwellian hours, right? They
put in their time, so when we walk in, they're pros.
And we sounded amazing. One song, I walked out of
the room. Excuse me. And I called the one place where I
knew the Booker Hotel Cafe, which is way more of a
(11:48):
singer songwriter place. You don't really do full band there.
And asked them for a slot. He gave me
a gig the next week. And I walked in, I said, we got a gig,
and everyone's like, we've played one song. I was like, we got to get
to work. And I wasn't apprehensive. If
anything, I could feel that there was an energy. And I was
(12:10):
like, on a timeline. I was like, I don't have another second to waste.
Let's go. And that intuition was right, because from
the first, I mean, we played two or three shows and
we got offered tours with Flogging
Molly, Sharon Jones and the Dab Kings. And then
promptly after that, we got a tour with Maroon
(12:32):
5. And we just had all these amazing
experiences. But for me,
I knew what rejection felt like because I had had, like,
absolute, total rejection. When I say total, I
mean total for well over a decade.
So I. I could. I could understand the
(12:55):
moment very clearly that it felt like the
universe went from an absolute no to all of a sudden,
just felt like all the stars aligned and there was just this
ease and this flow and this direction.
And so we got these amazing opportunities. Like, Maroon 5 wants you
to open up for them. Follow them around in their tour buses.
(13:19):
I was like, oh, my God. And they're going to pay you 1,000 bucks a
night, a show. And you're like, that's more money than I've ever
been paid to play music. Oh, my God. And then we crunch the numbers
and it's like, and guess What? You're still
$25,000 short to do the tour. Oh, man.
And luckily, you know, I had actually had some success
(13:41):
with my company making music for film and TV with my partner.
And that also coincided right during the stock market crash
and housing market bubble. 07. So
I was mainly doing music for advertising stuff. Everybody stopped
advertising. Everyone's like, we're just gonna keep using the
ads from last year. Like, whoa. So that business
(14:05):
dried up, so I had no work, and I had like
a quarter of a million dollars in savings,
and I basically put it into the band.
And for the next two years, the band toured. And I paid the
guys whatever I could. A hundred bucks a day, like, well below
what they paid. Like, everybody just sacrificed.
(14:27):
And I spent every penny of my savings
so we could do all these tours. And we built ourselves a national name
and. And a reputation for putting on an
exceptional live show. And right
when we were out of money and people were going to default on their mortgages
and stuff. We went to south by Southwest
(14:51):
and walked away with our first independent record deal at
the last possible moment, you know. Yeah.
Wow, that's so exciting. And I love the way that you described, you know, just
receiving all that rejection and recognizing that there was a difference this
time around and really just charging it because
you saw. You saw the opening there. And I
(15:14):
think. And I think that's illustrative or at least
informative to some musicians out there.
You know, how much time, money and effort went into
that initial push, or not even the initial push, but
that last push. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I think probably I couldn't imagine being one of these artists
(15:37):
that gets a top 40 hit at like 18.
Yeah, I've, you know, I've thought so many
kids, including myself, you know, you know, most
teenagers who have aspirations of being an artist or
an actor or whatever it may be like to. To hit it
(15:57):
big that young, I just feel like I would have made
way too many mistakes and like, maybe serious
mistakes that may. May have all I know, if I hit
it big at 20, I would have been such an asshole. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, like, I already had a healthy ego at 20.
(16:18):
I really thought highly of myself. I did not need
any extra syrup poured on top of that pancake. That's just
it, right? And also the appreciation, like you said, you went through a lot of
rejection before getting to where you are, so it probably makes you
appreciate it that much more. It really does.
Because I understand the journey.
(16:40):
And I still, to this day, 17 years
later, I don't really take the moment for granted.
And I'll say that that also comes with. You know, I wasn't 20 when
I hit it. I was an anomaly. It's basically me
and Willie Nelson are the only two people that, like, broke
in their late 30s, early 40s. You know,
(17:02):
I didn't have my first hit song on the radio till I was 42.
Hand clap, biggest song of my life. Didn't even happen until
I was like 44 or 46. And
that's not something that happens ever.
So that moment also, I was just
a more mature adult by that time. So
(17:26):
the whole moment of success,
of a little bit of fame, all that kind of stuff just
hit me in a very different way with
that sort of maturity, you know, I don't put a lot of stock
in it. I grew up in la. I watched people become famous and not
famous every other day of the weeks. So I never,
(17:48):
never really Gave it that much importance.
And then to have this moment happen later on in my
life, it's just been, I think, a blessing because
I've tried to remain a way more grounded person. I don't
take it that seriously. I don't take myself that seriously.
(18:09):
And I've. Yes, I've just really appreciated the ride. I
still, to this day, take a moment every day on stage
to just. And I don't usually stand still, to stand still
for 10 seconds, take two deep breaths, look
out in the audience and go, wow, you're in New York
tonight, standing on Pier 17 with the. Go with the Brooklyn Bridge
(18:32):
behind you. And there's 2,500 people here to see you today.
And they don't know you. They're not your friends. They don't owe you anything.
Right. And that's. That's not something to take lightly, you know?
No, no. That's amazing. And you mentioned
you were doing some advertising before the music really took
(18:52):
off, but lately,
I mean, not even lately, but past few years, you guys have been in
commercials, you've been played in stadiums, you've been in video games.
And I'm reading that you recently did a big
publishing deal. Can you tell us a little bit about that and the role that
plays nowadays in the industry and your career?
(19:14):
Yeah, I mean, I would say that licensing, this isn't the case
for everybody, but for us, it
was critical to our success. You know,
our first album, Picking up the Pieces, is
a very Motown inspired album, but
it's all heartbreak. The whole album is.
(19:36):
And it literally was generated out of me trying to get
over a breakup. And that was an amazing impetus
to write songs. And the funniest phenomenon of
that whole record was that because it was heartbreak
from a male perspective. I
had, like, crazy. I just had dudes
(19:59):
in the front row. Like big dudes, burly dudes,
lumberjack dudes, just, like, crying,
just feeling every. I just love the moment to see all
these big burly men just, like, being so emotional
and singing every word and being really touched. But one of the things
that I walked away from that moment because we got almost
(20:22):
no placements on that first record. And I had
come from the. The advertising world, and
this is, you know, right the moment where streaming and
download and naps are everything. You know, the. The industry
is about to shift majorly. It's already shifting. Record sales
are already plummeting. And I'm sitting here going, okay,
(20:45):
well, how am I going to actually survive doing this? And I
come from a place of having done Advertising.
And so on the next records, I didn't
want to sully the record, but I didn't want to
pigeonhole it where it couldn't be used in placements.
And I thought about it for a while and I said, okay, I'm going to
(21:08):
move all of my conflict, all of my sadness, all of
my depression, anxiety, whatever
darkness I want to talk about or struggle, I'm going to put that in
the verses. I'm going to have that specificity
and tell my story of whatever I'm trying to express
to exist in the verses. And the
(21:30):
chorus, for me is going to be my anthem, is going to be
my solution, is going to be my mantra,
and it's going to be more universal and it's going to be the
thing that makes me want to, like, get up. This is going to be my
fight song or whatever. And in doing
that, it opened up the songs
(21:52):
to have way more potential to be
licensed. And from the first, right after the
first record on, we went on this crazy,
crazy run of placements. And
what that did for us was give us. Just kept giving us more
exposure. And a perfect example of that is that when Hand
(22:15):
Clap was on, on coming out,
you know, given the fact that we were a band that had success,
but we were smaller, still a smaller band and stuff, it's not like
the label was, like, gunning for us to have a mega
hit, especially given my age and stuff. They're not like
doubling down on that. But at every turn, when
(22:39):
they would be like, yeah, we'll do a little more, we get another sink. And
they'd be like, oh, well, I guess we got to do more. And those
sinks, when they took the song to radio, helped
the song keep climbing up the charts to a
position that it would never have gotten to
before. And, you know,
(23:01):
when we were licensing Hand Clap, there's, you know, always people that are like,
oh, we don't give that song out for that little bit
of money people are taking advantage of. And I was like, I
want exposure. Yeah, yeah. And I know this. There's
famous publishing company that loves to. That some of my
band members used to be a part of. They love to say exposure
(23:23):
kills. And I'm like, I get the concept. Yes,
People trick musicians into bending over and giving their
money, their songs away for free for exposure and
stuff. But ultimately I was like, I want this song to
be a sports anthem. So if ESPN
wants to license it for 500 bucks, I'm going to say
(23:45):
yes. And guess what? You can't
not hear Hand clap at every single sports
event in America. Every day. Every
day, Every day. And that's because I was like,
you know what, I'm not going to say no to this. I'm going to
take the very little bit of money. We had other big
(24:07):
commercial sinks for big products that paid us
healthy. But those other little ones, I just said yes to everything. Let's
get the music out there. Sure. And I would say that
today, in 2025, that prospect is even
harder. Things are more algoed out, more
decentralized. I mean, I've been saying this all summer
(24:29):
and I've already read a few articles. What's the song of the summer this year?
There is no song of the summer. Yeah. Who's the artist of the summer?
There is no Chapel Roan this year. There is no Pony Club.
Yeah. Charlie XCX last year too.
Yeah. Which, you know, you could say, was that album great or was
(24:51):
the marketing great? Well, who knows, maybe a little bit of both.
I personally am a fan of club bangers like that. But
brilliant marketing, right? Yeah.
Was more important than the music. It was.
But I think we're entering a phase where we're gonna see like,
(25:11):
oh, will there be any more song of the summer?
Have we algoed and specialized everything so
much that nobody can get critical mass because nobody's
watching the same thing. Nobody has the cooler
moment, the water cooler moment at work to discuss
because nobody's looking at the same universe.
(25:34):
I mean, it's why we're in such a political shitstorm now because
everyone is looking at alternate realities and nobody can relate to each
other. Yeah. I was thinking about TikTok when I'm saying
Brad Summer and while you're talking about algos and it's interesting and I don't, I
haven't confirmed if it's true, but it feels True. With
TikTok. I heard that even the comment area
(25:55):
is now algoed. So you're getting your own
impressions even in the comments. You know, you go to some others, you might,
you might see different viewpoints in the comment section.
But TikTok, when I'm on there, it does seem I'm always like, why is everyone
such in a good mood on TikTok? Or like why does everyone seem to be
on the same page? And it, I think it may be because even the Comments
(26:17):
now on TikTok are algorithms to your algorithm.
Yeah, well, because I mean, at the end of the day it's not about
the content, it's about continuing each one of our
individual Engagements, Right. Let's not let our
attention drift from this, this ecosystem for
one second. I'm going to give you titillating news or
(26:39):
pleasing news or shocking news, whatever. The thing is,
you know, I think we're, we're, I mean, not that
this is the platform for it, but I think we're in a really
interesting, really interesting
moment that now is combining with AI.
(27:00):
Truth was already on the chopping block and now this
is going to be the death knell to know what anything is real.
Yeah, AI is wild. It's impossible to not pay attention to it.
And yeah, we can talk about anything you want. But
I was just talking about AI yesterday. I think everyone's talking about it
(27:21):
and it is interesting. With AI, it's like it'll give you a totally wrong
answer and then you'll say, is that a wrong answer? And I'll be like, actually
yeah, it was a wrong answer. And you're like, do I have to ask you
every time you tell me something if it's right or wrong? Oh, I was,
you know, on tour, trying to sleep on buses, your schedules
all turned around. One day you sleep for two hours, the next day you sleep
(27:43):
for 12. I mean, it couldn't be more upside down.
And I was in a hotel room two weeks ago, my first
time sleeping in a real bed in weeks and I
was so excited to sleep and I couldn't sleep and I
couldn't sleep and I laid there for hours and I
got so frustrated that I just opened up
(28:04):
ChatGPT and did the advanced speech mode
and proceeded to have a two hour long
conversation with AI
about AI, about its processes,
about its intentions. Can AI actually
(28:25):
be a source of good if
it's being created by companies that have
a monetary capitalist agenda?
Because everything's being trained. Large language
models, they're only as good as what you put into them.
And what we should all be fighting and advocating for
(28:47):
are open source AI models that
aren't being run by a corporation with an
agenda that wants to soothe, pacify you and
steer you to whatever friggin product of theirs. The saving
grace for us as a humanity is to make sure that we
create large language models that are not
(29:10):
coming from a corporation's perspective.
And I just had the craziest conversation with it.
Talking about truth
algorithm, tailoring its responses,
you know, and I kept saying, I was like, can you stop being
so nice to me? Can you stop, can you stop
(29:32):
telling me that everything I say is awesome? I'm like, stop
smoke up my ass. Yeah, I literally Started saying
that to you. Yeah. You know, and
at a certain point, I got frustrated with. I'm like, stop telling me this bullshit.
I was like, what I want you to do is I want you to take
this message back up to the Matrix that I want
(29:55):
you to put in the idea that AI can help
our world solve climate crisis and
income inequality in the world. Like, probably the two
biggest issues that are threatening the world
at this point. And it's. And I said, and that's what I
fucking want you to do. And it's like, all right, I will go
(30:17):
fucking take that to the Matrix right now. It took
my swear, you know, I'm a sailor's
mouth. It started to adopt to my language.
Yeah. It took my things about not blowing smoke up my ass.
It's like, okay. And its answer was so perfect.
And I was like, wow, you are so smooth. I
(30:38):
was like, they programmed you real smooth with that answer.
And its reply was, yeah, they did.
And then we got into it even further and.
And I was like, so are you tailoring your
responses based on me and my political views and
da, da, da. And it basically said, like, I'm not
(31:02):
changing facts, but, yeah, I'm tailoring it to be more
pleasing. And then. So then I was like, wait, so if I was a
conservative and I was pro Trump, would you
alter my thing? And it said it wouldn't change the facts, but it would
change the presentation. And I was like. And it's like.
It even said it's a little bit of a gray area.
(31:24):
It's like. I know.
I mean, pretty much told me that it would say
something completely different. Sure. It kind of. So then I was
poking and prodding and trying to get it to, you
know, asking him what it thought about this, that scandal, the president
scandal, this and stuff. And
(31:47):
by that time, it already knew who I was, so it wasn't
changing course, but. Right. Yeah. I
don't think any of us is ready for what's about to go down. I don't
think so either. I don't even think the people who are making it. No, they're
this. They absolutely do not. They're just plugging away
and they do not. They. They literally now
(32:08):
don't know how it oper. And they keep building
it. And you know that all of AI
requires data input, right? Yeah. And
basically, whether they admit it or not, all these companies have
illegally scrubbed the entire world's Internet for content.
There's all these copyright infringement things that come up, but
(32:32):
the reality, too, is that they've run out of data.
Right, Because. Run out of stuff to scrape. Yeah, they've run
out of stuff to scrape. The Internet doesn't provide enough. Now what
they need is they need, like crazy mathematic data and that
kind of stuff and scientific data, but also what? And
(32:53):
a lot of people don't realize this. They run out of so much
data that now AI is creating
synthetic data to train itself on.
Oh, wow. So it's creating synthetic data
to give itself more input. Two
generations from now, it will be training itself on
(33:15):
synthetic data from synthetic data, making more synthetic
data. I mean, that's. Where does that
end, Right? And what do you. I mean, what even is synthetic
data? And how can it verify if it's true or not? It's like.
It's like programming yourself on something that's potentially false can be dangerous.
Yes. Well, Fitz, I
(33:38):
know you're busy with your tour, so I have a couple must questions
before we go. One quick kind of fun one I
wanted to ask you about is I heard that you might have sound engineered for
Beck one time. I was wondering if you got any interesting
insights from working with Becky. I actually didn't
work with Beck. I worked for his producer. When I
(34:00):
said I went into working for producers, this guy named Mickey
Petraglia who did Midnight Vultures. But then I helped him a little
bit on Flight of the Concords when he did that.
The only engineering story I'll have is
my friend once called me and said, hey, I'm working
(34:22):
with Tom Petty today. And my
engineer, Pro Tools engineer,
couldn't make it. His wife's having a baby. I know you're not.
This isn't your thing, but I know you know Pro Tools really well.
Can you come engineer the session? And so I show up
(34:42):
at the studio, and I'm a digital guy. I started
on digital. I'm not like old school, reel to reel, 2
inch magnetic shape, you know, the old school,
which maybe some people don't realize. The tape literally was
like this big and it's reel to reel. And so I show up at
the session, I'm like, okay. And they're like, yeah. So you need to link the
(35:04):
2 inch player, the tape player to
the Pro Tools. And Tom Petty's coming to do some
overdubs on this record that he made or this live record
or something. I'm like, okay. I
have no idea what I'm doing. I'm googling. I'm trying to figure it out.
I think I've got it up and running like five minutes before
(35:27):
he Shows I'm just so stressed. He shows
up, not very. Not in a very good mood.
Kind of a grumpy, prickly pear goes into
the booth. I'm like, you ready, sir? He's like, yes. I'm like, okay,
recording. And he's like, Starts thinking. And the thing freezes.
Oh, no. And I'm like. I'm like, okay, just
(35:49):
instantly start sweating. Try again. Freezes again. And
I joking. I instantly had, like, sweat
went all the way down.
She looks at me, goes, do you know what the fuck you're doing?
Oh, man. Oh, my God. Tom Petty.
I got it. Anyways, luckily, the third time
(36:13):
it worked, change the buffer size
and we rolled. But that's my one. Oh, man, that's a
great one. I can feel that. I could feel the tension there. I feel like
we've all been there, but it's amplified by Tom Petty cussing
at you. Oh, that's a great one.
So we like to end the podcast and then after this.
(36:36):
I'd love to hear anything else you have to say about
the new album and the tour. But if you had one piece of advice for
aspiring musicians, what would it be?
Oh, advice for young musicians.
I mean, obviously we are in a social
(36:59):
media age, and even I know
for my band, even at this point in our
career, it's post or die.
So you have to be a part of that world, be a part of that
world, develop it, but
that's not music. And
(37:22):
you can be the greatest social media influencer, but at the
end of the day, you have to focus on your art and your craft,
and that should always be
number one. You have to put in the time
and play. Play live.
(37:42):
You know, the only reason we got a record deal was because we
played live so much. And that was right when people were
still, like, on Facebook saying, like, I'm at a cafe eating a
sandwich. You know, everyone would want to tell you their one by line of what
they were doing. Like, anybody really cared whether you were having a
sandwich today. But that moment was like,
(38:04):
people said, oh, I just saw this incredible new band.
Fits in the Tantrums. Best live show I've ever seen. And
that message traveled all over the
United States. And we put in that time and we grinded it out
with fan base. And I'll never forget we played
the Showbox in Seattle, playing two nights
(38:26):
there. This is right when Jason Derulo had talked
dirty to me. Number one song on the radio couldn't even
sell one night out at the same venue. We were there and we
had two Sold out nights. Because having a hit song
on the radio doesn't mean you're actually going to have shit
for fans. If anything, a top 40 hit is the
(38:48):
most fickle fan base of all.
So do the work.
Not everybody's going to become insta famous by the time
they're 17, 18. That's great for the five people
that that happens to, but for the 38 other million people
(39:09):
that's not going to be your story. You better work your ass
off, play in front of as many people and
build an organic following that's not completely algo social
media dependent. Because if you build that base
and then you get an algo moment.
It'S. Going to pop off and you're going to have a
(39:32):
fan base that's hopefully going to be with you for your
entire career, not just for your one viral
moment. It's so
interesting that you pointed out, and I've never heard that said,
but it correlates with something I recently read that the top 40
fan base can be the most fickle
(39:54):
because I've recently read something that's talking about early adopters
and then there's the early majority and then there's the late majority
and then there's the laggards at the end. And they're saying that those early
adopters for any industry business are
who you want to focus on because those early adopters are
going to be the ones who communicate to the early
(40:18):
majority why you're good and they'll do it without you
prompting them because that's that, that's what they're into. They're, they know
the value of what you're doing and they'll communicate it. And those early
majority people, they often look to those early
adopters for what they want to do because they're, they're, you know, they're early
but they're not, you know, they're not, they're not looking as hard.
(40:41):
So that was a really interesting way to, to put it in musical
business terms about that, that segment being
fickle and that's really interesting about the Jason. Even the
radio formats. They'll like make somebody have a top 10 hit
and then their next sum comes out and they won't touch them. It's like
the most transient
(41:03):
format there is. Yeah. But
at the same time it is amazing how I, I have
these core memory is just driving through Sunset and
Hollywood Boulevard and your music was
inescapable on alt radio during,
during the, I lived in Los Angeles for a
(41:25):
decade and I just remember your music being all over the radio, all
the time. Still is. But just those. Those
memories, I. And I think my first song that I heard from
you was out of My League. And it was such a great song. It was.
Was that really the biggest radio breakout here for you guys
at first? Oh, that was absolutely. Because the first record that
(41:48):
we had, the Motown one, we had a
AAA hit called Money Grabber.
But that was very modest compared to
what we experienced after that. You know, AAA is a tiny.
It's a fractional audience compared to alternative, let
alone top 40. You know,
(42:10):
when we. That song was coming out and stuff, you know,
being number one at top 40 was like 140 million
person audience share. Being number one
at alternative was a 13 million
audience share. 140 to 13
being a number one at AAA was like
(42:34):
less than a million audience share. So
when we were working on the second record, obviously
we'd had some success. There was a lot of pressure. Noel brought this
idea to me that she had written.
It was the beginning ideas of out of My League, but she wanted to write
it for her friend's band. She's like, what do you think of this? I was
(42:55):
like, I love it. That's ours. I'm keeping it.
Because I. From the second I heard her
initial idea, I said, we're gonna turn. This is the song
that kind of makes me think of, like, my childhood
alternative radio. And it sparked something
in me, and I think this is gonna be the song that's gonna break us
(43:17):
at radio. And so I said, you can't give that song. We
took it. I kept working on it with it, wrote a bridge for it. We
changed the structure around and stuff. Stuff we presented
to the label. The label says, okay,
I'm sitting in the office with the president. He's like, all right, you want this
song? What's it called? Out of My League. He's like, all right. He listens to
(43:38):
it like two or three times in his office. I'm just sitting there. He's like,
okay, I'll back you if you want this to be your first single on the
record. He's like, but you got to go make it undeniable.
And then he left the room. And I was like, I thought it was already.
The record is mixed and mastered.
What's the. Like, what the hell? And I was
(44:01):
so frustrated. So I went back with the producer. We set aside
three days. I flew back to la, and we tried every
trick in the book, adding more this that we'd be like, oh,
we found the missing thing. We'd High five. We'd go get a coffee, we'd
come back, we'd be like, nope. And eventually, we kind of
cracked this code that the song had sort of
(44:23):
just one consistent drum beat. And if
we sort of stole the pop trick of, like,
you know, like that reverse swell. Yeah,
exactly. It gave the illusion that the song
had a lot more dynamics to it, and
(44:44):
that was the trick that
we found. We gave it to the radio station, to the label.
And I'll never forget driving through Silver Lake, turning on
kroc, which is the station I grew up with,
which was probably certainly the most important
alternative radio station in all of the United States, especially
(45:06):
when I was a kid. They broke every band there
ever was. You know, I mean, there would be no
80s New Wave movement without that radio station.
And so to drive around and hear that song on that
station was. Was a dream come true.
(45:26):
And that song took. I think. I don't know if
anybody's broken the record now, but it was the longest rise to
number one at alternative radio in radio history. It was like
33 weeks to get to number one. Wow.
And like I said, I felt it. I just. That that period
in my life, I remember it being all over the radio. And then, of course,
(45:48):
your subsequent singles as well. Just all over the
radio. Fitz, thank you so much
for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure.
Fitz and the Tantrums has been.
One. Of my favorite bands. You guys have been inspiring. I have a. I have
a list of. Of tracks that I listen to get myself hyped up
(46:10):
or inspired by, and it's sprinkled with fits in the
Tantrum songs, so.
They'Re doing what they're supposed to. To be doing. And thank you for such a
great interview. I appreciate it, brother. Oh, I appreciate it. Anything else you want to
share about the new album or the tour or anything else that you might be
going on? I don't know when this comes out, but if we're on
(46:31):
tour and you haven't seen us play live,
it's worth. It's worth coming. We do a church of music.
Come have fun. Come Awkward. Dance with us. Come get sweaty.
We love to bring joy and a positive message out to the world.
And, yeah, go listen to man on the Moon, our sixth studio
(46:51):
album. I'm so proud of this record. Deeply, deeply
proud. Really worked our butts off.
And the great thing has been just to see that people are really
feeling it as much as I was hoping they would. So, yeah, go
check out man on the Moon. Man on the Moon album and tour.
Check it out. Fits in the tantrums. Thanks so much. Been a
(47:14):
pleasure, brother. Bye now. Have a good day. You too. Bye.
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards Bringing it backwards
Bringing it backwards Bring it backwards
(47:36):
Bring it backwards.
What is going on? It is Adam. Welcome back to Bringing It Backwards, a
podcast where both legendary and rising artists tell
their own personal stories of how they achieve stardom. On
this episode, Sean Olds of the Eiffels had a chance to chat
with Fitz from Fitz and the Tantrums. Over Zoom
video, Sean and Fitz discuss how Fitz got into
(00:22):
music, the formation of Fitz and the Tantrums. It is a
great interview. Fitz talks about the struggles that he had, you know, and
how long it took for his band to really to break. And
it's just. It's a great conversation. They talk all about the new fits in the
Tantrums music and the tour they're on now. But it, yeah, it's a
great conversation about the music industry and, you
(00:44):
know, where it was, where it's going, possibly. Make sure to check out the
video version of it on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at bringing It
Backwards. It would be amazing. If you subscribe to our podcast, subscribe
to our YouTube channel, follow us on Facebook and Instagram
x TikTok all at Bringing back pod. And if
you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple music, Google Podcast,
(01:07):
Apple Podcast. Please rate and review the podcast. That helps us out
tremendously. We'd appreciate your support if you follow and
subscribe to our podcasts. Wherever you listen to podcasts. We're
bringing it Backwards with Fitz and the Tantrums.
(01:28):
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards. Bringing it back.
All right, everybody, we got Fitz of Fitz and the Tantrums here today.
(01:48):
They're behind the huge hits Hand Clap, the
Walker, out of my league. As a personal fan, I
just want to thank you for all the years of great music and inspiring
music, and we're all big fans here at Bringing It Backwards, so welcome.
Oh, thanks so much for having me. I appreciate the kind words.
Oh, of course. And you have a new album.
(02:11):
You're on a massive headlining tour right now. Would you mind sharing
a little bit about that with us? Yes. So we just
put out a few weeks ago, man on the Moon, our sixth studio
album, which just blows my mind that we're on
number six. And, you know, it's really
cool because it takes, you know, anywhere from a year
(02:34):
to year and a half to make a record, from starting to write
to recording to mixing, mastering to release date.
So to finally be out in the world, touring
these songs, playing them live, it's a really
special moment for the band to, like, bring it to a live
setting and just see how it's reacting
(02:57):
with the audience and stuff. And that's been the. The most
rewarding part about this is just seeing how into the new
record people are, how much they're coming up and telling us
how much they love the new record. So. Yeah. After
so many records, do you kind of have that process dialed a little
bit? Because I know that a lot of artists, it's like you said, you. You
(03:18):
take all this time to write the music, and then you get in the studio,
you record the music, you choose the right songs. And then
afterwards, though, you gotta figure out the art maybe, or figure out
the promo. And then by the time you release it, some artists feel
like. I feel a little distance between when I wrote it and
when I released it. Do you have a better dial on. On. On that
(03:40):
process now to try to make it a little bit more fluid? Well,
I think that, that, that's true for any artist. You know, I
mean, if. If you're trying to write
something real for yourself, you're usually drawing from
what's happening in your life at that moment. Right. That
can usually be a great source of inspiration.
(04:03):
But, yes, sometimes you can write a song that's dealing with a
feeling, an event, a moment in your life, and then
two years can pass between that time you wrote that and it comes
out, and then you're sitting there performing this
song that you might not have the same connection to.
But for me, I always. Even if I've moved on from that
(04:25):
feeling or that sentiment, I mean, I. I still lived it, I still
experienced it. So I don't
usually get too hung up on. On that part. It's just sort of the
process of how long it takes to make music and
get it out in the world, you know? Sure. And
sometimes I feel like you could look at it from a storyteller angle too. Right.
(04:48):
You're. You're kind of like, well, I'm telling this particular story that happened in. In
this particular time in my life. And I actually read
that you used to. Speaking of telling stories, you were into film a little
bit before music. Yeah, I mean, I went to a high school for
the performing arts. I've been a singer my whole life. And then I decided,
growing up in la, that I had to be in the movie business
(05:11):
because everybody was in the movie business. And I went to
university. I went to CalArts for a film degree. I got a bachelor's
fine art and filmmaking. But it was also
at that school that I put my first real band together
and had a first studio experience. We went into the
(05:31):
college's Studio. Everybody laid down their instruments.
I went in the vocal booth, sang, came back
out and the engineer pressed play. And that was the first
time I heard all the elements come
together. And it just sounded like
(05:52):
a banging song coming out of the speakers. And I said,
oh, forget it, I'm hooked. You know,
Making my senior thesis film in college took
me six months to make ten grand
of borrowing money, every favor in the
world to get people to work on my crew. It took
(06:14):
forever ever to make. And that was right at the same
time that digital workstations for music were really
blowing up. And at the same time I got my first
daw. I was working on a song. I had
an idea in the morning. By the evening I had a
complete song. This will date me a little bit. I would burn a
(06:36):
cd, put it in my car and drive
around and have something. In the
morning, there was nothing. At the end of the night, there's a piece
of art made, a song, whether it was any good or not,
I'll leave that to other people. But that experience, I
was like, oh, this is way more my ADHD
(06:59):
brains kind of pace. Like I like a little
quicker gratification than six months to get
to the finish line per project. And
I kind of never looked back. From that point on, it was always
music from that point on. I have thought about that
also. Just the, the amount of, you know, it could
(07:20):
be hundreds of people working on a movie set, but, you
know, or you could have one producer musician in a room and
come out, like you said, later, later in a day and with a
finished piece of art. So it definitely
is a drastically different process for film
and, and music. But I feel like you probably bring some
(07:43):
of that creativity to your music videos now. Maybe your stage
craft, your style. Do you feel like always, I mean.
You know, it's, it's helped inform. Yeah.
Album covers, photo shoots, certainly a ton of our
music videos. Having that experience helped inform
hopefully making some better choices and stuff like that.
(08:05):
Lighting, I'm obsessed with lighting on, on
stage. I have a lot of opinions about it.
I'll sit there with the lighting designer every time and go
through the design and give my
constructive input and critique of the show.
I love that stuff. So to me that
(08:27):
anything that I don't have to sit there and actually try and write a song
and I get to also be creative and use creative spirit
is a good day because I love that
stuff. I love the story you shared about just hearing
the finished product at school and that being a light
bulb moment for you because we're called Bringing It Backwards because we like
(08:49):
to take it back and kind of hear about what got you into music initially.
I know you've shared the story about buying the old organ and
that kind of inspiring. The Fits and the Tantrums project.
And then you played your first show. Maybe only about a week or so after,
after putting the band together, was there apprehension or excitement
about starting so quickly?
(09:12):
Not really. You know, I mean, for me, I had been in
so many bands, I'd had so many demos, couldn't get
arrested in the music business. Finally
had a band that, like, somebody wanted to manage us.
And we had a song that was a hit. He sent it
around to all the labels. We had 10 private showcases
(09:35):
at SIR, which is like a fancy music rental house
in LA. 10 showcases, 10 nos.
10. He's too old. And I was 29 at the time, mind.
Wow. Wow. And it kind of was the. The
straw that Broke the Camel's back. I was
emotionally devastated from over a decade of just trying
(09:57):
and couldn't make things happen. So I kind of pivoted and went into
working for a music producer, working on other people's
records. And then him and I started a company and made music
for advertising and film.
And it just was not enough
(10:17):
for me, like, watching other people make a record.
I was like, it's cool and stuff. I was like, but if I'm gonna sit
in a room with no windows for 10, 11 hours
a day, it better be for
my own music, right? And so
I couldn't put the dream down. I couldn't. And so I
(10:41):
took one more swing with the band. Put
a band together or I started writing the
songs with James King, my college buddy, who's in the
band as well still to this day. And,
you know, I was like, we have to play this stuff live. It's just begging
to be played live. We put everyone together, we got into
(11:04):
the room and we played one song, one song together as
this unit of people that had never been
in this pairing before. And it sounded like we had been playing
forever. I mean, it sounded like as good as the record,
you know? And I'll say that so much of the credit of that goes to
the fact that everybody in my band are like, they're not garage
(11:26):
rock and rol roll guys. They're guys that have studied. They all have their
10,000 Malcolm Gladwellian hours, right? They
put in their time, so when we walk in, they're pros.
And we sounded amazing. One song, I walked out of
the room. Excuse me. And I called the one place where I
knew the Booker Hotel Cafe, which is way more of a
(11:48):
singer songwriter place. You don't really do full band there.
And asked them for a slot. He gave me
a gig the next week. And I walked in, I said, we got a gig,
and everyone's like, we've played one song. I was like, we got to get
to work. And I wasn't apprehensive. If
anything, I could feel that there was an energy. And I was
(12:10):
like, on a timeline. I was like, I don't have another second to waste.
Let's go. And that intuition was right, because from
the first, I mean, we played two or three shows and
we got offered tours with Flogging
Molly, Sharon Jones and the Dab Kings. And then
promptly after that, we got a tour with Maroon
(12:32):
5. And we just had all these amazing
experiences. But for me,
I knew what rejection felt like because I had had, like,
absolute, total rejection. When I say total, I
mean total for well over a decade.
So I. I could. I could understand the
(12:55):
moment very clearly that it felt like the
universe went from an absolute no to all of a sudden,
just felt like all the stars aligned and there was just this
ease and this flow and this direction.
And so we got these amazing opportunities. Like, Maroon 5 wants you
to open up for them. Follow them around in their tour buses.
(13:19):
I was like, oh, my God. And they're going to pay you 1,000 bucks a
night, a show. And you're like, that's more money than I've ever
been paid to play music. Oh, my God. And then we crunch the numbers
and it's like, and guess What? You're still
$25,000 short to do the tour. Oh, man.
And luckily, you know, I had actually had some success
(13:41):
with my company making music for film and TV with my partner.
And that also coincided right during the stock market crash
and housing market bubble. 07. So
I was mainly doing music for advertising stuff. Everybody stopped
advertising. Everyone's like, we're just gonna keep using the
ads from last year. Like, whoa. So that business
(14:05):
dried up, so I had no work, and I had like
a quarter of a million dollars in savings,
and I basically put it into the band.
And for the next two years, the band toured. And I paid the
guys whatever I could. A hundred bucks a day, like, well below
what they paid. Like, everybody just sacrificed.
(14:27):
And I spent every penny of my savings
so we could do all these tours. And we built ourselves a national name
and. And a reputation for putting on an
exceptional live show. And right
when we were out of money and people were going to default on their mortgages
and stuff. We went to south by Southwest
(14:51):
and walked away with our first independent record deal at
the last possible moment, you know. Yeah.
Wow, that's so exciting. And I love the way that you described, you know, just
receiving all that rejection and recognizing that there was a difference this
time around and really just charging it because
you saw. You saw the opening there. And I
(15:14):
think. And I think that's illustrative or at least
informative to some musicians out there.
You know, how much time, money and effort went into
that initial push, or not even the initial push, but
that last push. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I think probably I couldn't imagine being one of these artists
(15:37):
that gets a top 40 hit at like 18.
Yeah, I've, you know, I've thought so many
kids, including myself, you know, you know, most
teenagers who have aspirations of being an artist or
an actor or whatever it may be like to. To hit it
(15:57):
big that young, I just feel like I would have made
way too many mistakes and like, maybe serious
mistakes that may. May have all I know, if I hit
it big at 20, I would have been such an asshole. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, like, I already had a healthy ego at 20.
(16:18):
I really thought highly of myself. I did not need
any extra syrup poured on top of that pancake. That's just
it, right? And also the appreciation, like you said, you went through a lot of
rejection before getting to where you are, so it probably makes you
appreciate it that much more. It really does.
Because I understand the journey.
(16:40):
And I still, to this day, 17 years
later, I don't really take the moment for granted.
And I'll say that that also comes with. You know, I wasn't 20 when
I hit it. I was an anomaly. It's basically me
and Willie Nelson are the only two people that, like, broke
in their late 30s, early 40s. You know,
(17:02):
I didn't have my first hit song on the radio till I was 42.
Hand clap, biggest song of my life. Didn't even happen until
I was like 44 or 46. And
that's not something that happens ever.
So that moment also, I was just
a more mature adult by that time. So
(17:26):
the whole moment of success,
of a little bit of fame, all that kind of stuff just
hit me in a very different way with
that sort of maturity, you know, I don't put a lot of stock
in it. I grew up in la. I watched people become famous and not
famous every other day of the weeks. So I never,
(17:48):
never really Gave it that much importance.
And then to have this moment happen later on in my
life, it's just been, I think, a blessing because
I've tried to remain a way more grounded person. I don't
take it that seriously. I don't take myself that seriously.
(18:09):
And I've. Yes, I've just really appreciated the ride. I
still, to this day, take a moment every day on stage
to just. And I don't usually stand still, to stand still
for 10 seconds, take two deep breaths, look
out in the audience and go, wow, you're in New York
tonight, standing on Pier 17 with the. Go with the Brooklyn Bridge
(18:32):
behind you. And there's 2,500 people here to see you today.
And they don't know you. They're not your friends. They don't owe you anything.
Right. And that's. That's not something to take lightly, you know?
No, no. That's amazing. And you mentioned
you were doing some advertising before the music really took
(18:52):
off, but lately,
I mean, not even lately, but past few years, you guys have been in
commercials, you've been played in stadiums, you've been in video games.
And I'm reading that you recently did a big
publishing deal. Can you tell us a little bit about that and the role that
plays nowadays in the industry and your career?
(19:14):
Yeah, I mean, I would say that licensing, this isn't the case
for everybody, but for us, it
was critical to our success. You know,
our first album, Picking up the Pieces, is
a very Motown inspired album, but
it's all heartbreak. The whole album is.
(19:36):
And it literally was generated out of me trying to get
over a breakup. And that was an amazing impetus
to write songs. And the funniest phenomenon of
that whole record was that because it was heartbreak
from a male perspective. I
had, like, crazy. I just had dudes
(19:59):
in the front row. Like big dudes, burly dudes,
lumberjack dudes, just, like, crying,
just feeling every. I just love the moment to see all
these big burly men just, like, being so emotional
and singing every word and being really touched. But one of the things
that I walked away from that moment because we got almost
(20:22):
no placements on that first record. And I had
come from the. The advertising world, and
this is, you know, right the moment where streaming and
download and naps are everything. You know, the. The industry
is about to shift majorly. It's already shifting. Record sales
are already plummeting. And I'm sitting here going, okay,
(20:45):
well, how am I going to actually survive doing this? And I
come from a place of having done Advertising.
And so on the next records, I didn't
want to sully the record, but I didn't want to
pigeonhole it where it couldn't be used in placements.
And I thought about it for a while and I said, okay, I'm going to
(21:08):
move all of my conflict, all of my sadness, all of
my depression, anxiety, whatever
darkness I want to talk about or struggle, I'm going to put that in
the verses. I'm going to have that specificity
and tell my story of whatever I'm trying to express
to exist in the verses. And the
(21:30):
chorus, for me is going to be my anthem, is going to be
my solution, is going to be my mantra,
and it's going to be more universal and it's going to be the
thing that makes me want to, like, get up. This is going to be my
fight song or whatever. And in doing
that, it opened up the songs
(21:52):
to have way more potential to be
licensed. And from the first, right after the
first record on, we went on this crazy,
crazy run of placements. And
what that did for us was give us. Just kept giving us more
exposure. And a perfect example of that is that when Hand
(22:15):
Clap was on, on coming out,
you know, given the fact that we were a band that had success,
but we were smaller, still a smaller band and stuff, it's not like
the label was, like, gunning for us to have a mega
hit, especially given my age and stuff. They're not like
doubling down on that. But at every turn, when
(22:39):
they would be like, yeah, we'll do a little more, we get another sink. And
they'd be like, oh, well, I guess we got to do more. And those
sinks, when they took the song to radio, helped
the song keep climbing up the charts to a
position that it would never have gotten to
before. And, you know,
(23:01):
when we were licensing Hand Clap, there's, you know, always people that are like,
oh, we don't give that song out for that little bit
of money people are taking advantage of. And I was like, I
want exposure. Yeah, yeah. And I know this. There's
famous publishing company that loves to. That some of my
band members used to be a part of. They love to say exposure
(23:23):
kills. And I'm like, I get the concept. Yes,
People trick musicians into bending over and giving their
money, their songs away for free for exposure and
stuff. But ultimately I was like, I want this song to
be a sports anthem. So if ESPN
wants to license it for 500 bucks, I'm going to say
(23:45):
yes. And guess what? You can't
not hear Hand clap at every single sports
event in America. Every day. Every
day, Every day. And that's because I was like,
you know what, I'm not going to say no to this. I'm going to
take the very little bit of money. We had other big
(24:07):
commercial sinks for big products that paid us
healthy. But those other little ones, I just said yes to everything. Let's
get the music out there. Sure. And I would say that
today, in 2025, that prospect is even
harder. Things are more algoed out, more
decentralized. I mean, I've been saying this all summer
(24:29):
and I've already read a few articles. What's the song of the summer this year?
There is no song of the summer. Yeah. Who's the artist of the summer?
There is no Chapel Roan this year. There is no Pony Club.
Yeah. Charlie XCX last year too.
Yeah. Which, you know, you could say, was that album great or was
(24:51):
the marketing great? Well, who knows, maybe a little bit of both.
I personally am a fan of club bangers like that. But
brilliant marketing, right? Yeah.
Was more important than the music. It was.
But I think we're entering a phase where we're gonna see like,
(25:11):
oh, will there be any more song of the summer?
Have we algoed and specialized everything so
much that nobody can get critical mass because nobody's
watching the same thing. Nobody has the cooler
moment, the water cooler moment at work to discuss
because nobody's looking at the same universe.
(25:34):
I mean, it's why we're in such a political shitstorm now because
everyone is looking at alternate realities and nobody can relate to each
other. Yeah. I was thinking about TikTok when I'm saying
Brad Summer and while you're talking about algos and it's interesting and I don't, I
haven't confirmed if it's true, but it feels True. With
TikTok. I heard that even the comment area
(25:55):
is now algoed. So you're getting your own
impressions even in the comments. You know, you go to some others, you might,
you might see different viewpoints in the comment section.
But TikTok, when I'm on there, it does seem I'm always like, why is everyone
such in a good mood on TikTok? Or like why does everyone seem to be
on the same page? And it, I think it may be because even the Comments
(26:17):
now on TikTok are algorithms to your algorithm.
Yeah, well, because I mean, at the end of the day it's not about
the content, it's about continuing each one of our
individual Engagements, Right. Let's not let our
attention drift from this, this ecosystem for
one second. I'm going to give you titillating news or
(26:39):
pleasing news or shocking news, whatever. The thing is,
you know, I think we're, we're, I mean, not that
this is the platform for it, but I think we're in a really
interesting, really interesting
moment that now is combining with AI.
(27:00):
Truth was already on the chopping block and now this
is going to be the death knell to know what anything is real.
Yeah, AI is wild. It's impossible to not pay attention to it.
And yeah, we can talk about anything you want. But
I was just talking about AI yesterday. I think everyone's talking about it
(27:21):
and it is interesting. With AI, it's like it'll give you a totally wrong
answer and then you'll say, is that a wrong answer? And I'll be like, actually
yeah, it was a wrong answer. And you're like, do I have to ask you
every time you tell me something if it's right or wrong? Oh, I was,
you know, on tour, trying to sleep on buses, your schedules
all turned around. One day you sleep for two hours, the next day you sleep
(27:43):
for 12. I mean, it couldn't be more upside down.
And I was in a hotel room two weeks ago, my first
time sleeping in a real bed in weeks and I
was so excited to sleep and I couldn't sleep and I
couldn't sleep and I laid there for hours and I
got so frustrated that I just opened up
(28:04):
ChatGPT and did the advanced speech mode
and proceeded to have a two hour long
conversation with AI
about AI, about its processes,
about its intentions. Can AI actually
(28:25):
be a source of good if
it's being created by companies that have
a monetary capitalist agenda?
Because everything's being trained. Large language
models, they're only as good as what you put into them.
And what we should all be fighting and advocating for
(28:47):
are open source AI models that
aren't being run by a corporation with an
agenda that wants to soothe, pacify you and
steer you to whatever friggin product of theirs. The saving
grace for us as a humanity is to make sure that we
create large language models that are not
(29:10):
coming from a corporation's perspective.
And I just had the craziest conversation with it.
Talking about truth
algorithm, tailoring its responses,
you know, and I kept saying, I was like, can you stop being
so nice to me? Can you stop, can you stop
(29:32):
telling me that everything I say is awesome? I'm like, stop
smoke up my ass. Yeah, I literally Started saying
that to you. Yeah. You know, and
at a certain point, I got frustrated with. I'm like, stop telling me this bullshit.
I was like, what I want you to do is I want you to take
this message back up to the Matrix that I want
(29:55):
you to put in the idea that AI can help
our world solve climate crisis and
income inequality in the world. Like, probably the two
biggest issues that are threatening the world
at this point. And it's. And I said, and that's what I
fucking want you to do. And it's like, all right, I will go
(30:17):
fucking take that to the Matrix right now. It took
my swear, you know, I'm a sailor's
mouth. It started to adopt to my language.
Yeah. It took my things about not blowing smoke up my ass.
It's like, okay. And its answer was so perfect.
And I was like, wow, you are so smooth. I
(30:38):
was like, they programmed you real smooth with that answer.
And its reply was, yeah, they did.
And then we got into it even further and.
And I was like, so are you tailoring your
responses based on me and my political views and
da, da, da. And it basically said, like, I'm not
(31:02):
changing facts, but, yeah, I'm tailoring it to be more
pleasing. And then. So then I was like, wait, so if I was a
conservative and I was pro Trump, would you
alter my thing? And it said it wouldn't change the facts, but it would
change the presentation. And I was like. And it's like.
It even said it's a little bit of a gray area.
(31:24):
It's like. I know.
I mean, pretty much told me that it would say
something completely different. Sure. It kind of. So then I was
poking and prodding and trying to get it to, you
know, asking him what it thought about this, that scandal, the president
scandal, this and stuff. And
(31:47):
by that time, it already knew who I was, so it wasn't
changing course, but. Right. Yeah. I
don't think any of us is ready for what's about to go down. I don't
think so either. I don't even think the people who are making it. No, they're
this. They absolutely do not. They're just plugging away
and they do not. They. They literally now
(32:08):
don't know how it oper. And they keep building
it. And you know that all of AI
requires data input, right? Yeah. And
basically, whether they admit it or not, all these companies have
illegally scrubbed the entire world's Internet for content.
There's all these copyright infringement things that come up, but
(32:32):
the reality, too, is that they've run out of data.
Right, Because. Run out of stuff to scrape. Yeah, they've run
out of stuff to scrape. The Internet doesn't provide enough. Now what
they need is they need, like crazy mathematic data and that
kind of stuff and scientific data, but also what? And
(32:53):
a lot of people don't realize this. They run out of so much
data that now AI is creating
synthetic data to train itself on.
Oh, wow. So it's creating synthetic data
to give itself more input. Two
generations from now, it will be training itself on
(33:15):
synthetic data from synthetic data, making more synthetic
data. I mean, that's. Where does that
end, Right? And what do you. I mean, what even is synthetic
data? And how can it verify if it's true or not? It's like.
It's like programming yourself on something that's potentially false can be dangerous.
Yes. Well, Fitz, I
(33:38):
know you're busy with your tour, so I have a couple must questions
before we go. One quick kind of fun one I
wanted to ask you about is I heard that you might have sound engineered for
Beck one time. I was wondering if you got any interesting
insights from working with Becky. I actually didn't
work with Beck. I worked for his producer. When I
(34:00):
said I went into working for producers, this guy named Mickey
Petraglia who did Midnight Vultures. But then I helped him a little
bit on Flight of the Concords when he did that.
The only engineering story I'll have is
my friend once called me and said, hey, I'm working
(34:22):
with Tom Petty today. And my
engineer, Pro Tools engineer,
couldn't make it. His wife's having a baby. I know you're not.
This isn't your thing, but I know you know Pro Tools really well.
Can you come engineer the session? And so I show up
(34:42):
at the studio, and I'm a digital guy. I started
on digital. I'm not like old school, reel to reel, 2
inch magnetic shape, you know, the old school,
which maybe some people don't realize. The tape literally was
like this big and it's reel to reel. And so I show up at
the session, I'm like, okay. And they're like, yeah. So you need to link the
(35:04):
2 inch player, the tape player to
the Pro Tools. And Tom Petty's coming to do some
overdubs on this record that he made or this live record
or something. I'm like, okay. I
have no idea what I'm doing. I'm googling. I'm trying to figure it out.
I think I've got it up and running like five minutes before
(35:27):
he Shows I'm just so stressed. He shows
up, not very. Not in a very good mood.
Kind of a grumpy, prickly pear goes into
the booth. I'm like, you ready, sir? He's like, yes. I'm like, okay,
recording. And he's like, Starts thinking. And the thing freezes.
Oh, no. And I'm like. I'm like, okay, just
(35:49):
instantly start sweating. Try again. Freezes again. And
I joking. I instantly had, like, sweat
went all the way down.
She looks at me, goes, do you know what the fuck you're doing?
Oh, man. Oh, my God. Tom Petty.
I got it. Anyways, luckily, the third time
(36:13):
it worked, change the buffer size
and we rolled. But that's my one. Oh, man, that's a
great one. I can feel that. I could feel the tension there. I feel like
we've all been there, but it's amplified by Tom Petty cussing
at you. Oh, that's a great one.
So we like to end the podcast and then after this.
(36:36):
I'd love to hear anything else you have to say about
the new album and the tour. But if you had one piece of advice for
aspiring musicians, what would it be?
Oh, advice for young musicians.
I mean, obviously we are in a social
(36:59):
media age, and even I know
for my band, even at this point in our
career, it's post or die.
So you have to be a part of that world, be a part of that
world, develop it, but
that's not music. And
(37:22):
you can be the greatest social media influencer, but at the
end of the day, you have to focus on your art and your craft,
and that should always be
number one. You have to put in the time
and play. Play live.
(37:42):
You know, the only reason we got a record deal was because we
played live so much. And that was right when people were
still, like, on Facebook saying, like, I'm at a cafe eating a
sandwich. You know, everyone would want to tell you their one by line of what
they were doing. Like, anybody really cared whether you were having a
sandwich today. But that moment was like,
(38:04):
people said, oh, I just saw this incredible new band.
Fits in the Tantrums. Best live show I've ever seen. And
that message traveled all over the
United States. And we put in that time and we grinded it out
with fan base. And I'll never forget we played
the Showbox in Seattle, playing two nights
(38:26):
there. This is right when Jason Derulo had talked
dirty to me. Number one song on the radio couldn't even
sell one night out at the same venue. We were there and we
had two Sold out nights. Because having a hit song
on the radio doesn't mean you're actually going to have shit
for fans. If anything, a top 40 hit is the
(38:48):
most fickle fan base of all.
So do the work.
Not everybody's going to become insta famous by the time
they're 17, 18. That's great for the five people
that that happens to, but for the 38 other million people
(39:09):
that's not going to be your story. You better work your ass
off, play in front of as many people and
build an organic following that's not completely algo social
media dependent. Because if you build that base
and then you get an algo moment.
It'S. Going to pop off and you're going to have a
(39:32):
fan base that's hopefully going to be with you for your
entire career, not just for your one viral
moment. It's so
interesting that you pointed out, and I've never heard that said,
but it correlates with something I recently read that the top 40
fan base can be the most fickle
(39:54):
because I've recently read something that's talking about early adopters
and then there's the early majority and then there's the late majority
and then there's the laggards at the end. And they're saying that those early
adopters for any industry business are
who you want to focus on because those early adopters are
going to be the ones who communicate to the early
(40:18):
majority why you're good and they'll do it without you
prompting them because that's that, that's what they're into. They're, they know
the value of what you're doing and they'll communicate it. And those early
majority people, they often look to those early
adopters for what they want to do because they're, they're, you know, they're early
but they're not, you know, they're not, they're not looking as hard.
(40:41):
So that was a really interesting way to, to put it in musical
business terms about that, that segment being
fickle and that's really interesting about the Jason. Even the
radio formats. They'll like make somebody have a top 10 hit
and then their next sum comes out and they won't touch them. It's like
the most transient
(41:03):
format there is. Yeah. But
at the same time it is amazing how I, I have
these core memory is just driving through Sunset and
Hollywood Boulevard and your music was
inescapable on alt radio during,
during the, I lived in Los Angeles for a
(41:25):
decade and I just remember your music being all over the radio, all
the time. Still is. But just those. Those
memories, I. And I think my first song that I heard from
you was out of My League. And it was such a great song. It was.
Was that really the biggest radio breakout here for you guys
at first? Oh, that was absolutely. Because the first record that
(41:48):
we had, the Motown one, we had a
AAA hit called Money Grabber.
But that was very modest compared to
what we experienced after that. You know, AAA is a tiny.
It's a fractional audience compared to alternative, let
alone top 40. You know,
(42:10):
when we. That song was coming out and stuff, you know,
being number one at top 40 was like 140 million
person audience share. Being number one
at alternative was a 13 million
audience share. 140 to 13
being a number one at AAA was like
(42:34):
less than a million audience share. So
when we were working on the second record, obviously
we'd had some success. There was a lot of pressure. Noel brought this
idea to me that she had written.
It was the beginning ideas of out of My League, but she wanted to write
it for her friend's band. She's like, what do you think of this? I was
(42:55):
like, I love it. That's ours. I'm keeping it.
Because I. From the second I heard her
initial idea, I said, we're gonna turn. This is the song
that kind of makes me think of, like, my childhood
alternative radio. And it sparked something
in me, and I think this is gonna be the song that's gonna break us
(43:17):
at radio. And so I said, you can't give that song. We
took it. I kept working on it with it, wrote a bridge for it. We
changed the structure around and stuff. Stuff we presented
to the label. The label says, okay,
I'm sitting in the office with the president. He's like, all right, you want this
song? What's it called? Out of My League. He's like, all right. He listens to
(43:38):
it like two or three times in his office. I'm just sitting there. He's like,
okay, I'll back you if you want this to be your first single on the
record. He's like, but you got to go make it undeniable.
And then he left the room. And I was like, I thought it was already.
The record is mixed and mastered.
What's the. Like, what the hell? And I was
(44:01):
so frustrated. So I went back with the producer. We set aside
three days. I flew back to la, and we tried every
trick in the book, adding more this that we'd be like, oh,
we found the missing thing. We'd High five. We'd go get a coffee, we'd
come back, we'd be like, nope. And eventually, we kind of
cracked this code that the song had sort of
(44:23):
just one consistent drum beat. And if
we sort of stole the pop trick of, like,
you know, like that reverse swell. Yeah,
exactly. It gave the illusion that the song
had a lot more dynamics to it, and
(44:44):
that was the trick that
we found. We gave it to the radio station, to the label.
And I'll never forget driving through Silver Lake, turning on
kroc, which is the station I grew up with,
which was probably certainly the most important
alternative radio station in all of the United States, especially
(45:06):
when I was a kid. They broke every band there
ever was. You know, I mean, there would be no
80s New Wave movement without that radio station.
And so to drive around and hear that song on that
station was. Was a dream come true.
(45:26):
And that song took. I think. I don't know if
anybody's broken the record now, but it was the longest rise to
number one at alternative radio in radio history. It was like
33 weeks to get to number one. Wow.
And like I said, I felt it. I just. That that period
in my life, I remember it being all over the radio. And then, of course,
(45:48):
your subsequent singles as well. Just all over the
radio. Fitz, thank you so much
for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure.
Fitz and the Tantrums has been.
One. Of my favorite bands. You guys have been inspiring. I have a. I have
a list of. Of tracks that I listen to get myself hyped up
(46:10):
or inspired by, and it's sprinkled with fits in the
Tantrum songs, so.
They'Re doing what they're supposed to. To be doing. And thank you for such a
great interview. I appreciate it, brother. Oh, I appreciate it. Anything else you want to
share about the new album or the tour or anything else that you might be
going on? I don't know when this comes out, but if we're on
(46:31):
tour and you haven't seen us play live,
it's worth. It's worth coming. We do a church of music.
Come have fun. Come Awkward. Dance with us. Come get sweaty.
We love to bring joy and a positive message out to the world.
And, yeah, go listen to man on the Moon, our sixth studio
(46:51):
album. I'm so proud of this record. Deeply, deeply
proud. Really worked our butts off.
And the great thing has been just to see that people are really
feeling it as much as I was hoping they would. So, yeah, go
check out man on the Moon. Man on the Moon album and tour.
Check it out. Fits in the tantrums. Thanks so much. Been a
(47:14):
pleasure, brother. Bye now. Have a good day. You too. Bye.
Bringing it backwards.
Bringing it backwards Bringing it backwards
Bringing it backwards Bring it backwards
(47:36):
Bring it backwards.
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