Freer Fitz & The Tantrums look to have fun at Artpark

Preview by Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Now six albums into his stretch as frontman for Fitz & The Tantrums, Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick has given up – not on his family, friends or fans, but on trying to figure out what works.

“In 2025, I feel like nobody knows what a hit song is anymore,” he said in a phone interview. “You know, the landscape has changed so dramatically in the last four years, five years, with TikTok and Instagram Reels, that songs that were never hits have become hits, and songs that normally would have been hits don't become hits.

“In all of that, what I found was total liberation, because having been a radio band and having had big songs at radio, there's always been this massive pressure from all different sources – from the label, from everywhere – of being like, ‘What's the radio signal? What's this? How are we going to go to radio with this?’

“I think nobody knows those answers anymore; so, it just let me sort of be like, ‘Oh, well, screw it. There's no more rules. Nobody knows what a hit is, so I'm going to do whatever the F I want.’ ”

While that “throw caution to the wind” sentiment might sound like an excuse, or permission to not try as hard, Fitz explained of new album “Man on the Moon,” “We just really set this marker that we were not going to settle or cut a corner ever, and always just pushing for best song possible. And that really set up the compass for how we approach the record, and it was such an incredible journey to make it.”

He explained, “This one I'm incredibly proud of, because I feel like, six albums later, we've gone almost full circle in all of our different influences. We brought a lot of our original sort of Motown, soulful influences back on this record.

“I just sat there a long time with our producer, Jonas Jeberg, and we listened to our entire catalog of music, and had these intense conversations about which songs worked, which ones didn't, what felt authentic, what felt a little forced; and just sort of having this quest to really challenge ourselves at every turn, musically, lyrically, production-wise – just to always be pushing ourselves to say, ‘Is this the best choice? Is this us just phoning it in, or just taking the easy path?’ ”

Fitz & The Tantrums (Image credit: Matty Vogel // courtesy of 2b Entertainment)

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While Fitz and his bandmates – co-lead vocalist Noelle Scaggs, James King (saxophone, flute), Jeremy Ruzumna (keyboards) and Joseph Karnes (bass) – might not know what makes a record pop, they know a thing or two about making a pop record.

Hit songs including the four-times-Platinum “HandClap,” three-times-Platinum “Out of My League,” Platinum “The Walker” and Gold “Moneygrabber” have hundreds of millions of YouTube views and Spotify spins.

“I love pop music; I always have,” Fitz said. “I think people want to poopoo it because they think that it's simplistic. But I'll tell you that I think that it's harder to make something interesting with just the same three chords the whole time.

“I, from a very young age, was fascinated: ‘How come this one song, I'm listening to it, and I already have it seared into my brain before it's even finished – and I've only listened to it once? And now I'm singing this song for the next three months in my subconscious.’ And just that connection to melody and rhythm and lyric, I was always fascinated by it; and so, I've always had that compass within me.”

Fitz said, “I have always set out to try and make every song be an unforgettable song – whether I've achieved it every time or not, definitely not. But I think that that desire has been one of my biggest assets. And it's not like a Machiavellian or contrived thing where I want to make it pop. I just generally love the genre. I'm a huge Bieber fan. Dua Lipa fan. SZA fan.

“I'm not afraid of pop music. I don't think it's an insult. There's something powerful and undeniable that people can't deny. … Pop music, yes, it can be called corporate or it's being shoved down our throat through media, but it's also damn catchy and fun and joyful – and who doesn't want to remember a song and be able to be the backup singer to it?

“I think we've always had that in our minds. Anybody that's seen us live knows. We put on an extra-special live show – and it's always been that way. We've had such crowd engagement that it really just inspired us to keep that relationship with the fans going. And we love the sing-along section, the clap-along section.”

“Man on the Moon” is the new single and new album from Fitz & The Tantrums. (Image courtesy of 2b Entertainment)

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In fact, when Fitz & The Tantrums headline an Aug. 12 concert at Artpark, audience participation will be paramount.

“I think we discovered very early on that we were bringing joy to people, and the harder that Noelle and I went on stage – and the more we ask the audience to get low, jump, dance, wave their arms in the air, clap along with us – the more joy they were getting,” Fitz said. “And it became this sort of like infinity loop where we would just see how hard we could go, how hard can we get the audience to participate with us. And then that joy, that element, led into like, ‘Wow, I love putting out powerful, positive messages.’

“The stories we get back from people at our-meet and-greets, or who stop us backstage, or walking to the bus after, the stories we get are so profound about how much our music has meant to them – not because we write such incredible music, but because people take those things and then they ascribe their own meaning to it. But for somebody to come up and say, like, ‘Man, last year was one of the hardest years of my life. I was in the darkest place. And I just want you to know that your last record was my saving grace. Every day I would put it on, it would motivate me to get out of bed. I was depressed. And I just kept working through it. So, I just wanted to say thank you.’

“It's so humbling to have another human being come up to you and say that about something you've created. And that power of that has stuck with me so profoundly that I wanted to continue to put out positive messages into the world.”

Catch Fitz & The Tantrums live at Artpark. Visit www.artpark.net for tickets.

Fitz & The Tantrums are online and social at Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok.

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