Fitz and the Tantrums: Finding your creative voice in your 40's and why success feels different than you think

When that actually comes true, not a modified, but your exact dream on steroids comes true, you get there and it's a very strange feeling because you don't feel any better. And finding my wife and starting a family saved my life. For many of us, if we haven't had creative success by our 40s, we feel like we may have missed the boat. But Michael Fitz Fitzpatrick of Fitz in the Tantrums didn't achieve pop star status until he was well into his 40s and now that he's in his 50s, he feels like he's just getting started. Haven't heard of Fitz in the Tantrums? Yes you have. In our conversation, Fitz reveals how the band prototypes their live performances and why constraint has been essential to their creative evolution. He talks to us about the parallels of songwriting and product design, the importance of reading the room, whether it's 50 or 50,000 people, and why the best performances, like the best designs, create space for the audience to become co-creators. Fitz also opens up about how even after achieving his creative dreams, there was an emptiness that he struggled with and where he found true happiness. This is Design Better, where we explore creativity at the intersection of design and technology. I'm Eli Willer. And I'm Aaron Walter. If you're hearing this, you're not currently on our premium subscriber feed. Design Better Premium subscribers enjoy weekly episodes. There's four episodes per month rather than just two, and all of them are ad-free. Plus, you'll get an invitation to our monthly AMAs with the smartest folks in design and tech. And if you subscribe at the annual level, you'll also get our toolkit, a collection of our favorite design and productivity tools like Perplexity, Miro, Read AI, and more. You'll hear a preview of this episode, but if you'd like to hear the full conversation, please consider becoming a premium subscriber at designbetterpodcast.com/subscribe. The podcast is available to everyone through our scholarship program, so if you can't afford a subscription, just shoot us an email at [email protected]. We'll help you out. We'll return to the conversation after this quick break. Design Better is brought to you by Wix Studio, the platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale. Learn more at wix.com/studio. And now, back to the show. Fitz and the Tantrums, welcome to the Design Better podcast. Thanks so much for having me, guys. We're really excited to have you. I have to say, so I really like your music. Aaron did have to say, when we got pitched, like, I wasn't sure if I was familiar with the name, but he's like, "You know their music." For sure. I was like, "Oh, yeah." Yes, you definitely know. I love his music. It's in the Tantrums. But like, I don't think I know. I'm like, "You know." Yeah, you know. I'm just going, "Oh, yeah. Now. Oh, yeah. Now I know." Yes. It's up 10,000. I mean, it literally gets played in a stadium every night at every sporting event. Or they're more of an indie music lover, and we have another hit song called "Out of My League" that has since gone TikTok viral like three different times. The internet is a crazy place. Yes. You are everywhere. And that's a great song, too. Yeah. So for folks that don't know you, let's rewind a little bit because you have a kind of interesting backstory. You were born in France from what we know and grew up in LA. So maybe talk us a little bit about that and kind of your early years and leading it to your music career. Yeah. My mom's French and I was born overseas and was fortunate enough to spend most of my summers overseas in France with my grandparents every summer. So for me, it was a really incredible thing just from the beginning of my life, always understand this duality of cultures, of different countries, of different landscapes. I never saw myself as completely American or completely French. I've always sort of been in this middle place where French people, I mean, they're notorious for being snobby about their language. They'll be like, "You are not French." I'm like, "I speak pretty damn good French." Like, "But what are you? Are you Canadian?" They're always trying to take me down a notch. But then I just ask them to speak English and they can't speak one word. So that usually reminds me pretty quick. But yeah, I grew up in California. My dad ran universities and worked in the arts world for many years. So I was really fortunate to be exposed to some pretty avant-garde cutting edge art my whole entire life. And fortunate enough for me too, the idea of being a musician or an artist wasn't that radical of an ask in my family. It was sort of like my parents had sort of created us to put us on that path, being so involved in the arts world our whole lives. And then I went to an arts high school, first public arts high school in all of LA, which was a really amazing experience to study music there. And then growing up in LA, I just thought, "Oh, I have to be in the movie business because it's LA. It's Hollywood." So I left arts high school for singing and I went and studied filmmaking at California Institute of the Arts, Cal Arts. And actually it was there that I made my senior thesis that took six months to make $10,000 to scrounge to do this every favor in the book. But that was also right at the convergence of the first digital audio workstations, right? And so there was this one rolling put out this one way back in the day called the VS880. And it still kind of looked like an eight-track or a four-track cassette recorder, but they had it in a little box with a tiny little LED screen you had to scroll through menu. And you could multi-track eight tracks. And that was my first experience with it. And I spent six months making that senior thesis that cost me a fortune, got this digital workstation, woke up in the morning and said, "I want to make a song." And by the end of the day, this will really date me. I burned a CD and I'm driving in my car listening to this thing that didn't exist in the morning by the end of the day. I had this song and I was like, "Oh, this suits my ADHD brain way more than the six months to your long trajectory." And I called my dad and I go, "Guess what? I know you just paid for four years of film school, but I'm going to throw in the towel and I'm going to go back to music." And then just grinded it out on music for 10, 15 years, couldn't get arrested in the music business, and then sort of got so heartbroken and frustrated at a certain point. I was like 29 or 30 at that point. And I had finally found a manager. I had this song that everybody thought was a hit, set up like 10 private showcases at SIR, which is this like equipment warehouse place for musicians in Hollywood. Then executives from record labels listening and they're like, "He's too old. He's too old. He's too old." And I was 29 at the time, mind you. And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back, it was devastated for the 10th time. I was like, "I can't take another second rejection. I love music." So I just started calling these producer friends of mine every week, "Can I come work for you? Can I? Oh, no. I'm busy. I'm making a record. Call me next week." And I called the producer every week for a year straight till finally the guy, I think, just so that I would stop bugging him, let me come to a studio. But what he didn't realize was that I worked on Pro Tools, which is a recording platform. But back then it was called Sound Designer 2. So I've been an Averett Pro Tools guy since its inception. I spent my 10,000 hours. I know what I'm doing on that machine. So I showed up at this producer's studio. And he was like, "Oh, you can stay." And so I worked with him for a few years making records. But I didn't love the idea of being locked in a room with no windows working on somebody else's thing. But he would once in a while get these calls like, "Hey, do you think you can make a cool song for this movie or this commercial?" And I said, "Let me run with this. Let me start a company." And so the two of us started a company for music, for advertising, and for film. And I did that for like seven years, crushed it. First time I actually made a penny off of music and actually became pretty successful at it. 2007 rolls around, I can't get this idea of being an artist off my back. I was like, "You know what? I'm going to try and make one more project, one more batch of songs. I can't let this go." And that was right at 2007 when the real estate market bubble burst. Every advertiser just said, "Whoa, we're not going to make another ad. We're just going to recycle the ones from last." So the advertising business dried up. I had this savings account. I had this band that I just started. We played two shows, three shows, and we got offered tours with like Flogging Molly and Sharon Jones and the Dab Kings, Maroon 5. And all these amazing opportunities are coming our way. And for me, who had had 10, 12 years of absolute rejection in the music business, I understood that something was changing in the universe because you don't play two shows and get offered, open up for Maroon 5. Just doesn't happen. So we're celebrating, but then we're quickly wound to the calculator. And I was like, "Well, we don't have a deal, record deal or anything. Okay, this is an amazing thing. They're paying us a thousand bucks a show. That's more money than I've ever been paid, but guess what? We're still going to be about $23,000 short if we try and pull off this tour." And I just said, "Screw it. I have this money I saved from being successful for the last few years making music for film and TV and stuff. I'm going to bet on myself." And I basically took a quarter of a million dollars, invested it in the band for the next two years, floating us. As we kept getting all these amazing opportunities, to the point where I ran out of money, everybody in the band's about to foreclose on their house. And we're like, "Either something happens today, or we're calling it quit. We were at South by Southwest. We got our first record deal, put out our first record, and then kind of have not stopped since then." And that's almost 17 years ago to the day. That's incredible. I mean, it's an incredible story, incredible that you had the foresight and the faith in what you were doing to put your savings into the band. I think one thing you skipped over though is the chemistry that you and the band have. I mean, that's definitely something that's visible in the live performances, in your videos. Can you talk about when the band formed, that origin story there, and the chemistry that y'all felt? Yeah, so I was writing those first songs. There wasn't even a fits in the tantrums yet, but I knew I was kind of onto something. I called my college buddy James King, who's our saxophonist in our band, because especially our first record was very Motown Stacks Influence, so horn section, saxophone section. And as we're working on those first songs, I said, "These songs are all about love and heartbreak, and we need to play these songs live, they're begging, and we need to have a female counterpart for the he said, she said of all these love stories encapsulated in these songs." As James said, "Do you have anybody in mind?" He said, "I just finished doing a tour with Taylor Sol. We had this amazing singer on the tour, her name's Noel Skaggs, you've got to call her." And we called a couple of other random friends that we knew musicians, and we set up a rehearsal, and we went in the rehearsal room and we played one song where Noel and I were just facing each other. And instantly our voices blended, which is not a given as singers, and actually our voices fit together, and we just instinctively knew how to work or add each other. And it sounded, I'm not joking you, it sounded like we had been playing together for 10 years. I mean it sounded flawless. And I'll say that this really goes, my band is not really comprised of garage band musicians that learned in a garage. These guys are all guys that have their Malcolm Gladwell in 10,000 hours. They worked their butts off, micro-focused on their thing, hyper-focused, and what you get with that is six people get in a room and we can play a song almost flawlessly first time out. And that energy was just incredible. We played that one song and I walked out of the room and I called this little nightclub in LA called the Hotel Café, which is kind of famous, at least known for breaking more like singer-songwriters. You know, it's like he's small stage, intimate, little lights on every table, and acoustic guys. We could barely fit us on that stage, but that was the only place that I had a hookup. I called the guy and said, "Do you have any availabilities?" He said, "Well, I got one next Friday. You can have it. 8.30. It's yours." I was like, "Okay." I walked back in the room and I said, "Guys, we got a gig next week." And they're like, "Excuse me? We played one song. You have four songs written." I was like, "Well, we'd better get to work." And we played that show and going back to that idea, I knew what year's decade plus of rejection felt like or doing a gig and having to beg my 50 friends and guilt ship them into showing up and doing this. And from the instant we played that first show, it was like I saw all of my harshest critics, all my other music, jaws on the floor, just blown away by whatever was happening. I think we were all even experiencing on stage. And you know, everybody came up to me and said, "This is your thing. This is your moment." A lot of the creative folks we talked to, they have gone through this period of struggle and hardship and come out through it on the other side. David Sideris is one example for many years was sort of practice his writing and relative anonymity. But what was it for you? It sounds like you all were almost at the point where you're maybe going to give up or switch careers. But what helped you persist through those many years of struggling to get to where you are now in your career? I think a lot of times when you're an artist or music, I didn't ask to be a musician. I was born a musician. Like I drove my parents frigging crazy because I never shut up. I was singing from morning till night. I just have music in my bones. I've always got a beat going through my head. I don't know. It might be the ADHD. It might be something, but I always got a beat going. I always have a melody going in my head. And so for me, it's never even been a choice really. It's almost like if I'm not doing it, I don't feel centered and balanced. I'm a creative person. And if I'm not expressing that creativity or unlocking that part of my brain on a frequent basis, I can feel myself started get out of alignment. And it's only by doing it that I kind of recalibrate my spirit and my mind and my brain chemistry and all of it. So it's never been a choice really. It's just something I knew I've always had to do to keep myself sane. Then every time I try and walk away from it, I don't feel right. And then once I was able to actually make some money doing music for a film and TV and stuff, it was cool, but it still was sort of like a modified version of my dream. Because at the end of the day, I still had to listen to a bunch of ad executives make some ridiculous comment about, yeah, the music's great. Can we have it split up? And then another guy be like, yeah, speed up, but slow down. Like literally these conference calls where these ad execs are giving contrary things or being like, yeah, but make it more yellow. I'd be like, oh, you got it. And it would be my job to kind of creatively interpret that. I mean, sometimes those comments were ridiculous, but also there was an art to figure out what does he mean by yellow? And I usually was able to figure it out or speed it up, slow it down. It's like they just wanted more tension and release. Maybe they didn't have the right words, but it was a lot of time like that, but it was never fully satisfying. Working on other people's records, honestly, I was kind of envious and jealous. I was like, I'm sitting here pressing record for these guys. I was like, this is what I want to be doing. And so I just couldn't let it go. And then I was fortunate enough to have some great musicians finally find my voice as an artist and have the financial resources to be brave enough to put it all on the line to make it happen. You know, because the timeline is that band started when I was 38, we didn't get our first record deal till I was 40, 41. We didn't have our first hit song on the radio till I was 42. I didn't have my biggest song on my career till I was 44. And I can promise you, this business is agist and exclusionary. There's very few people that are doing it at that age. It's basically like me and Willie Nelson might be the only two dudes that have ever made it in their 40s. And I'm not even joking, you know, I'm about to turn 55 right now. We just released our sixth studio album. We got a song on the radio and it's a crazy ride that I get to do this at this stage in my life. Yeah. That's very cool. You mentioned finding your voice and I've heard you say that it was not an easy thing. That you had this love of music. You liked a lot of different types of music. I think you were into classical music as well as opera. Well, I had a dad that was an opera and classical freak. So he liked to listen to it at 11, but like opera. So you're going to make yourself a bowl of cereal with opera just blasts and it's like the most dramatic cereal pour you've ever had in your life. Tell us about like finding your voice, finding a place where you felt like, okay, this is who I am creatively. This is how I can channel the gifts that I'm born with in a way that I can identify with and people can understand. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, specifically as a singer, I've been a singer my whole life and then I went to a high school for the arts. I was in the singing program there and you're singing many different styles and also musically I was into 80s new wave. I was into classic rock. I was into Zeppelin. I was into Motown and stuff. And when you're a singer growing up like that, it's like, I can shape shift really easy, you know, I can sing in jazzy style, I can sing in a rock style. And so I could kind of shape shift like this. And then the question more became, well, you can do all these things, but which one really is authentic to you? And you know, I think a lot of times I was not confident enough in my own ability and my own voice, where I was sort of just chasing trends, I feel like a little like back in the day when Pearl Jam blew up, I was like, all right, can I sound like Eddie Vedder? Well, yeah, I can kind of make my voice so Jeremy, you know, I can do this whole bit. But it was just always imitation. And so that thing was like, well, what is authentically you? And part of that also was in concert with like, I had had a lot of different musical projects, but they were also kind of like chasing trends as well. And so in this moment, I was heartbroken. I had a no talking policy with my ex-girlfriend at the time. And I get a phone call from her, I'm like, oh, I shouldn't answer that. I answer it. And she said, I know we're not supposed to be talking, but listen, my neighbor just put this vintage church organ out on the street. He's getting rid of it. They're going to throw it away. Do you want it? Hell, yes, I want it. Give the guy 50 bucks right now. I had to scramble to find piano movers that would move it in the next three hours. Got this thing in my house and it was like this new toy with new vocabulary and sounds. And I had always had this deep love of Motown. It was kind of the music I grew up where my mom would let me put it on the radio driving to school. And those songs are amazing for singing along. There's background, doo-wop parts. And so that was a real love of mine always. And I got this church organ and I just started playing this riff and then I just let myself be a crooner, let myself belt. Because I'm not a gruff, I'm a belter, I'm a formal singer, I can sing, I can sing with a lot of power. And I just let myself just sing in this way that was fully just authentically me. And it felt so right. And I just said, all right, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make an album that is very focused because I think some of my earlier projects I would try and do all of my musical tastes and put them in one album or one project. But what ended up being was it was just like a hodgepodge and nobody could figure out what the hell I was even about because I was trying to be about too many things, right? And so I finally discovered my voice, the sweet spot. My voice sounded really good crooning like that and belting. And so I just said, I'm making a Motown inspired record. If it doesn't fit within this lane, I don't care how good the song is, it's out of here. And I was just hyper focused to keep the guardrails this way. And that was the thing, that and finding my voice and having that ability to focus the spectrum of what the artistry of this record would be. And those two things converged, I think they really made it all combined to be able to say that, oh, this is my voice and this feels authentic. That's great. One thing that I found fascinating and we were doing some background research on you is that you felt frustrated that you couldn't play the piano as well as you wanted. Something I can identify with because I would like to be able to play the piano. I ended up starting to take lessons playing guitar later in life and you started to take piano lessons in your thirties. I think a lot of people, the voice that the dialogue in their head is, I didn't start an instrument when I was a kid, therefore as an adult, it's too late. I don't really have the right or the opportunity to pick that up. And here's somebody, you are obsessed with music. You talked about your ADHD and that's probably a focusing factor for your creativity. And you said, you know, I'm going to learn to play piano. I'm going to start taking lessons. Tell us about that, how that felt to take piano lessons as a musician, as an adult. Yeah. Well, you know, I had studied piano as a kid and then I had a pushover for a mom who never made me practice. And so of course, when I resisted, she said, okay, and then I have a natural ability. I have the perfect hands for piano playing. I just naturally have it in me, but I didn't put in the work. So I always sort of just got to this one level. I can noodle. I have the three songs that I'm playing and stuff like that, but it didn't ever really translate to anything beyond. And then when I was really getting into writing music, I really wanted to be able to write the songs I was hearing in my head and yet I didn't have the skill to find the chords. So I went back to studying piano, not to be like a shredding piano player or to even really play that much in a performance, you know, I'll let the 10,000 hour dudes do that. But in doing it, it recommitted me to the process to being creative and gave me the access to more knowledge so that I could finally figure out some of these chords I was hearing in my head to finally for realize the kind of songs I wanted to write. And that was the gift. I'm still a pretty crappy piano player, but it just gave me that one level of being able to execute the things that were in my head. Back to your story about your dad and opera music. I don't feel so bad anymore now that I play classical music in our house every morning and I'm sure the kids get sick of it, but you turned out okay. So now I don't feel so bad forcing that on them. And now I mean, I hated it as a kid and now I have this very twisted, weird soft spot for it. I play classical music for my kids because also anything Baroque literally will raise the child's intelligence as they're listening to it because of the structure of the way that Baroque music is. I don't really torture them with the opera part of it, but yeah, well, we'll talk to us a little bit about how you had kids somewhat recently and Aaron and I both have kids. How has that changed the way you think about making music and your career? Yeah, you know, I mean, the crazy part of having your dream come true is when you get there what it does to you. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at designbetterpodcast.com/subscribe. Once you do, you'll get access to every full-length episode all ad-free, monthly AMAs with inspiring people in design and tech and recordings of all our past AMAs. The podcast is available to everyone through our scholarship program. 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