Since forming in 2008, Los Angeles-based six-piece Fitz and the Tantrums have seen a steady rise in the band’s popularity. In May 2013, the band released its latest album, “More Than Just a Dream,” and is back on the road. It will be playing at the Hollywood Palladium on April 5 Daily Bruin’s Aalhad Patankar spoke with bassist Joseph Karnes about the band’s origins, sound and its hit single “Out of My League.”
Daily Bruin: Your musical style has been called a lot of things: neo-soul, indie pop, funk. How would you characterize your music?
Joseph Karnes: I would kind of describe it like you did, because it’s so hard to classify music these days. I mean, for our record “More Than Just a Dream,” we really expanded our influences. It’s very multidimensional in my mind, so all those things you said I would agree with. In the end, it is pop music made to make people feel good.
DB: Where do you and your band find inspiration?
JK: Well, we’re a big band so we have a very diverse playlist when you put all the music everyone in the band listens to together, everything from Santigold to Boards of Canada, all the way to pop like Rihanna and Katy Perry. Our first record had a lot of Motown and Stax influence as well; that’s kind of where we originated and expanded from, and we tried to put our own stamp on things.
For me personally, it’s all over the place. Composers like Charles Mingus, who’s one of my favorite jazz composers, and Stevie Wonder, one of my big, big influences all around, from the way the music feels to the depth of musicality. I’m personally a big fan of rock, like Queens of the Stone Age, and that’s where I really came up, wanting to emulate that kind of stuff. … So many influences, kind of depends on what day we talk.
DB: On top of the success of your albums, you guys have definitely built up a reputation as a live band, and the energy you bring to live performances. What’s different when you guys perform live, and which do you feel best captures your sound?
JK: We definitely shine the most as a live band; that’s where we cut our teeth. We built our fan base from our live shows, even before the radio was playing us. When you’re in the studio, you’re a little bit more inside yourself, you’re a lot more introspective. Some songs on the album were more spontaneous. Take our song “6 a.m.” That was a song we were playing live for two years, so when (lead vocalists Michael Fitzpatrick and Noelle Scaggs) went in the studio to sing the lead, kind of a duet, it was just one take. What you hear on the track is just them singing, in a room, in one take. Sometimes you have those magic moments when you get those live moments in the studio, where you carry over the vibe of what you do live into the studio. It’s like they say, play live like you’re in a studio, and play in the studio like you’re in front of a live audience. Because even when you’re in a show, with all the people and the energy, things can get a little crazy, especially in our shows.
DB: One song that really helped you guys really get out there last year was the hit single “Out of My League.” What’s the story behind the song?
JK: Well, that was a song that (Scaggs) originally brought into the band. … It was just something she wrote, and she made a demo and sang in a man’s voice, a British man actually, like (Fitzpatrick). Only Fitz and her have ever heard that version; we’re really looking forward to it, maybe get a B-sides out there. … Everyone heard it, really liked the melody, and then we “Tantrum-ified” it. And that’s kind of what you get, a really strong melody, and a sentiment I think everyone can relate to.
DB: How exactly does a song get “Tantrum-ified”?
JK: A lot of demos are very basic. But when we’re in a room together, we start flushing it out; I come up with the bass line, the drummer comes up with the beats, sometimes we flip it around a little bit and a slow song might just become a fast song. … I mean it’s just what we do when we get together.