BiB: Fitz and the Tantrums – From Complete Rejection to Stadium Anthems: Fitz Gets Real About Breaking Through

0:00 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 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 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, 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.

1:28 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. 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.

2:11 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 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 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 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 process now to try to make it a little bit more fluid? Well,

3:44 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. 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 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.

4:48 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 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 college's Studio. Everybody laid down their instruments.

5:35 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 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 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 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 brains kind of pace. Like I like a little quicker gratification than six months to get

7:06 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 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 of that creativity to your music videos now. Maybe your stage craft, your style. Do you feel like always, I mean.

7:50 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. 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 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 to take it back and kind of hear about what got you into music initially.

8:53 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? 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 at SIR, which is like a fancy music rental house in LA. 10 showcases, 10 nos.

9:42 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 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 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 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 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

11:15 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 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 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 like, on a timeline. I was like, I don't have another second to waste.

12:14 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 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 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.

13:11 And so we got these amazing opportunities. Like, Maroon 5 wants you to open up for them. Follow them around in their tour buses. 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 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 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.

14:16 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. 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 and walked away with our first independent record deal at the last possible moment, you know. Yeah.

14:59 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 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 that gets a top 40 hit at like 18.

15:42 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 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. 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.

16:36 Because I understand the journey. 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, 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.

17:18 So that moment also, I was just a more mature adult by that time. So 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, 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 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 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.

19:02 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? 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. 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 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 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

20:33 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, 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 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 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 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

22:08 what that did for us was give us. Just kept giving us more exposure. And a perfect example of that is that when Hand 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 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, 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 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

23:41 wants to license it for 500 bucks, I'm going to say 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 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 and I've already read a few articles. What's the song of the summer this year?

24:34 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 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, oh, will there be any more song of the summer?

25:15 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. 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 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.

26:06 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 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 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 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 for 12. I mean, it couldn't be more upside down.

27:46 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 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 be a source of good if it's being created by companies that have a monetary capitalist agenda?

28:36 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 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 coming from a corporation's perspective. And I just had the craziest conversation with it.

29:18 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 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 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 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.

30:27 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 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 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.

31:20 It even said it's a little bit of a gray area. 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 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 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.

32:28 There's all these copyright infringement things that come up, but 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 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 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.

33:30 It's like programming yourself on something that's potentially false can be dangerous. Yes. Well, Fitz, I 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 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.

34:14 The only engineering story I'll have is my friend once called me and said, hey, I'm working 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 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 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.

35:23 I think I've got it up and running like five minutes before 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 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?

36:05 Oh, man. Oh, my God. Tom Petty. I got it. Anyways, luckily, the third time 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. 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?

36:48 Oh, advice for young musicians. I mean, obviously we are in a social 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 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, 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 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 most fickle fan base of all.

38:53 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 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 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 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 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

40:25 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. 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 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 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.

41:40 Was that really the biggest radio breakout here for you guys at first? Oh, that was absolutely. Because the first record that 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, 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 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.

42:48 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 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 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 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.

43:49 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 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 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 that was the trick that we found. We gave it to the radio station, to the label.

44:52 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 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. 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.

45:41 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, 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 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 tour and you haven't seen us play live, it's worth. It's worth coming. We do a church of music.

46:39 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 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 pleasure, brother. Bye now. Have a good day. You too. Bye.

47:24 Bringing it backwards. Bringing it backwards Bringing it backwards Bringing it backwards Bring it backwards Bring it backwards.