by Jim Testa

Meet the Happy Fits: Ross Monteith on guitar, Luke Davis on drums, and Calvin Langman on cello (!!) and most lead vocals (although all three members sing, and they harmonize beautifully.) If you haven't heard of them yet, you will soon. The youthful trio from Pittstown, New Jersey already boasts a passionate, nationwide fan base thanks to extensive DIY touring, and the release of the group's second album What Could Be Better on August 28 should only hasten their march to worldwide conquest. The boys took some time to answer our questions while sheltering in place during the Covid pandemic. Actually, they took a LOT of time - they do interviews like they do everything else, with manic attention to detail and no-holds-barred enthusiasm. The result is not only an intimate look at the band, but a Master Class on how a young band learned the fine points of booking tours and building an audience. Enjoy, and learn, and then check out www.thehappyfits.com.

Q: My understanding is that the Happy Fits came together the summer after your senior year of high school, and it went so well that you all dropped out of college to pursue the band full-time. I suspect that the Happy Fits was not your first band, especially for Ross and Luke. Are there any embarrassing teenage hardcore or emo bands in your past? When you decided to play together, did you have an idea of what you wanted the Happy Fits to sound like, or did the sound evolve organically?

CALVIN: The project started after Ross threw a charity event for Relay for Life in October 2015, and he invited me to come play cello after one of his initial performers dropped out. I should have been a senior with Ross at the time but I graduated in three years so I could spend my senior year practicing cello for conservatory auditions. Since I was home with a lot of free time and had always had a passion for writing rock melodies, I took this first opportunity to be on a microphone to finally put pen to paper and lyricize some original melodies I had written.

Ross came up to me after the event and asked if I had written the songs I sang and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy them. It was a big enough spark to fuel my pipe dream of always wanting to be in a band and I’m lucky enough to have met someone like Ross who was equally as passionate and skilled in rock music. From there, he invited me over to his house and he showed me a few original riffs he had written. I recorded them on my phone and spent the next few days trying to come up with words and melodies by playing them over and over.

All the melody ideas I have come directly from the indie rock music of the 2000’s and you could say I wanted to sound and feel just like them: The Strokes, The Killers, Two Door Cinema Club, Alabama Shakes, Airborne Toxic Event, Shannon and The Clams, Franz Ferdinand, The Fratellis, and Bombay Bicycle Club. Though Luke grew up listening to heavier music, he still liked indie rock music and was able to add some nice indie beats to our sound. (Below is a pic of me and Ross’ first time playing together live at that Charity event. We covered George Ezra’s “Budapest”.)

Q: Calvin, obviously the cello isn’t your everyday rock band instrument. Were you trained classically? High school orchestra? Did you learn the cello with the idea that you’d play pop songs on it initially? I’m also curious about your singing, your enunciation and phrasing is not typical for a rock singer. Were you a theater kid? Choir? Did you do any singing before the Happy Fits?

CALVIN: I started piano when I was 6 and cello when I was 8. My grandpa was an amateur violinist and as passions usually skip a generation, my siblings and I were all exposed and encouraged to pursue classical music lessons from a young age. I loved learning classical music but my dad would usually listen to classic rock on The Hawk and my sister Justine exposed me to pop music on WPST at a young age. The first pop song I ever liked was when I was 4 or 5 and heard Bowling for Soup’s "1985." Right after that, The Killers took the mainstream with “Mr. Brightside” and that’s when I discovered my true passion for indie rock. So even though I learned music through a classical lens, the music of my household was always rock.

I have to thank 2Cellos for showing me the bridge between classical instruments and rock. When I discovered them around 5th grade, I suddenly realized I could make some gnarly rock sounds by belting power chords on the lower C and G strings my cello.
I attended pre-college music programs in middle school and high school at Mannes and Juilliard in New York City. It was at the pre-college programs, specifically learning theory from Dr. Wen at Juilliard, that I was taught the beauty of music theory and suddenly found the connecting string between rock and classical music. Music theory and aural skills training helped me realize exactly how 2Cellos achieved their sound and made me realize how easily I could do the same.

In terms of my singing, I did school choruses from elementary to middle school as well as two years at the 6-week long classical music summer camp Kinhaven Music School in Vermont. Though none of the students at Kinhaven were classical singers, we were still required to have choir 3-4 times a week and we’d usually sing 16th and 17th century madrigals, which are honestly just like old pop songs. I took the choir elective at Juilliard pre-college and my choir director Patrick Romano was so encouraging of my vocal skills. Props as well to my high school choir teach Katie Meo who definitely influenced the way I sing my vowels.

I was in one theatre production growing up in 8th grade when I was one of the barbershop quartet members in "The Music Man." I’d say large part of my friend group in high school were theatre kids but I don’t think I’ve put in the time to deserve that title haha.

ROSS: I think he just sang in the shower mostly.

Q: The Happy Fits sound is difficult to describe (that’s a good thing!) because there are very few obvious comparisons to make. To me, the outstanding characteristic of your music is the sincerity, but I also think the overall sound is old-fashioned in a way, more derived from folk traditions than rock or punk. I’m curious what you guys listened to growing up. Was there one band or one song that made you think, “I want to do that!” and learn an instrument? Who would you list as some of your driving influences and role models?

CALVIN: The Killers were definitely my gateway band in to the indie rock world. I just love bands with catchy, euphoric, and unique choruses. Hot Fuss was the first album I listened to front to back on my sister’s old CD player riding the bus to in 4th grade. From there I discovered Last.FM’s “similar artist” page and that’s how I got into Franz Ferdinand, The Fratellis, and Bombay Bicycle club. Every time I found a new song that was catchy it would feel like a drug. It was around 5th grade I started thinking up my own melodies. In high school, I was heavily influenced by jungle-beat bands like GIVERS and Reptar, but also went through a Panic! phase and started listening to The Beatles more consistently around my junior and senior year. I’m always influenced by what my current passion is and sometimes will imagine what a particular singer’s voice would sound like if they were to try and write a song I am working on.

For example our song “Grow Back” grew out of my novel love for Brittany Howard, the lead singer of Alabama Shakes. I had the opening riff in my head and after many failed attempts to write a melody in my own voice I pretended to hear what notes she would sing over the riff.

This way of thinking definitely came from one of the classical performance techniques I was taught when dealing with nerves and stage fright. One of my camp counselors told me that to deal with stage fright, just imagine I was Yo-Yo Ma when I got on stage and putting myself in that mindset makes me think in a total different way.

ROSS: I think those influences have become a lot more apparent over the years of being a band. The first time that I started dreaming of being a band was when I went to my first concert which was Saving Able, Seether, and Nickleback in 5th grade. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and I was starstruck. As funny as it is, that was really what got me working hard to learn the guitar. I bought a Nickleback and Fall Out Boy tab book shortly after that concert. Obviously my music taste has changed since then. I started listening to a lot more indie and alt bands like Bombay Bicycle Club, The Black Keys, Young the Giant, The Temper Trap, Alabama Shakes, Ben Howard, Yellow Ostrich and so on. Calvin, Luke and I connected over this “Indie” style of music but the guys also have very different tastes as well. We definitely still continue to find new influences with current artists as well with bands like Wallows, Surf Curse, Inhaler and tons of others. There are so many styles of music out there that can help influence our music in the smallest ways and thats whats really fun about it.

LUKE: For myself, my father always loved classic rock. I specifically remember when I was young being in the car with my father and him showing me Led Zeppelin I. Hearing those drums in Good Times Bad Times instantly had me hooked and I was obsessed ever since! As I grew older and my music tastes started to widen I listened to a lot of heavier rock and metal to improve my drumming. But when I went to highschool i started to listen to a lot more indie and alternative bands like Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead. That’s when i really started to find my singing voice and started to put most of my effort into improving my vocals.

Q: By the time I found out about you (from my colleague Bobby Olivier’s year-end Bands To Watch piece a few years ago,) you had become almost impossible to catch live because you were always on tour. I started following your social media and I was amazed at how an unsigned and basically unknown band could tour so far and wide. What were those early tours like? Did you book everything yourselves or did you have help? I have to imagine there were quite a few nights playing in front of six people in South Dakota or Alabama and living on ramen and baloney sandwiches before you started to find a following. Yet many bands say those early days were the best years of their lives. Can you just talk a little bit about your approach to touring, the challenges you faced, and any helpful advice you received from more experienced bands you played with?
|
CALVIN: I should start this answer by saying we were VERY naive and ignorant on the music industry when we started and decided to drop out of school in May of 2016. We had a will but definitely not a way.

Our manager at the time and now current tour manager Tyler Miranda had booked us a 10-show West Coast tour in the Spring of 2017. The first few shows in his home state of Arizona were popping (to us, “popping” at the time meant 20-40 people) but we experienced reality when we played in LA and Seattle to empty rooms. We were basically ready to call it quits until we played Kilby Court in Salt Lake City on a Monday night. Around 30-40 kids came out and they were singing our lyrics. For the first time ever, people we had no connection with were singing our lyrics.

So here we are in September of 2017, fresh college-dropouts, a desire to be a rock band, and a brand new album, Concentrate, recorded and ready for release. I saw on our Spotify that cities like Atlanta and Chicago we had thousands of listeners but had no idea how to get there.

I grew up in the Google generation and relied on Google while I was growing up for almost everything. I still do; Google is incredible. Everything is out there, you just need to find it and know the right questions to ask. I started off simple by asking “how to book shows” and that led me to the incredible world of DIY Facebook groups. I booked us a bunch of one-off house shows around the northeast, usually flaunting our success on Spotify.

I remember trying to break in to the New Brunswick basement scene at Rutgers in the Fall of 2017 but no one would have us. Luckily, my good friend Michael Kaplan who was attending Rutgers had a house with a basement and a big enough heart to let us throw a show there. We made up our cliche college-house venue name The Laundromat and the first show was such a smash we kept coming back. We developed such an organic community in New Brunswick that we even ended up playing prom at Demarest Hall in the Spring.

After I felt like I had whet my chops on small-scale booking, I took to the spreadsheets to book us a full DIY tour around October (see below for my spreadsheet for that tour).

I used tons of resources and whatever Google would offer. I didn’t understand the purpose of promoters yet so I was my own booking agent and promoter. I’d reach out first to local bands to try and make a bill and then presented the bill to local promoters, often inflating our experience with our Spotify number. Shoutout to my high school librarians for teaching me about Boolean Generators as the main way I’d go about finding bands would be by Google search: “Rock indie *insert city here* site:bandcamp.com" . This way I’d get Google results of all rock and indie bands in a certain state and city. I’d also scour these band’s Facebook event pages to find other local bands they had played with.

The 2018 Spring Tour was an absolute blast, I think it was 32 shows in 50 days. It took 4 months to complete and ton of emails. After getting back from tour I booked us another 10 show tour with Luke’s old band Zach Matari for the Summer of 2018. During the Summer of 2018 is when I discovered Mail Merge (praise be to Mail Merge) and it took my booking skills to the next level. With the help of Tyler, we booked our 30 show Eat Your Fruits Tour for the Fall of 2018.

There were so many cities that promoters and bookers did not want to touch us so we had to get creative. From playing cramped house shows in Atlanta to renting out Airbnb spaces in LA, we fought and clawed our way to playing shows in these markets. I think our current booking agent Jake Zimmerman with STG took notice and was why he was eager to take such a novel band under his wing.

Obviously, there were some less energetic shows but for the most part, the Eat Your Fruits Tour was our first fully national tour and we even sold out a room in Seattle!
We’ve met so many incredible people and bands along the way. I feel like I have families in so many different states. From Charlene in Bristol, TN to Martyr’s in Chicago, Fashion Jackson in San Diego, The Solarists in Salt Lake City, and Chris Moon in Atlanta, so many beautiful, gracious souls have given us three rag-tag strangers a chance to be heard in their cities.

We definitely owe the ability to tour in our 2015 Ford Transit to Ross’ dad, David, as we have been financing him monthly payments to him on the vehicle since 2018.

Luke, Calvin, and Ross: The Happy Fits

ROSS: Our first few tours will be ingrained in my memory forever. We have countless funny, horrible, and exciting memories that all stemmed from us having no budget and no experience. They were all booked by countless hours of emailing and facebook dming, mostly by Calvin and our, now, tour manager, Tyler. Our method was to search “Bandcamp (City ex. Chicago)” and it would come up with all the local bands. We would then listen through countless pages and find as many bands that we liked and then we would DM them on facebook or email them. Then once the bill was ready to go, we would just beg venues or DIY spots to let us play a show. A lot of the bands that we played with were extremely helpful with finding local venues or offering up their living rooms as a venue. They also gave us lots of helpful advice and tips on saving money and touring. The DIY community is amazing and I am grateful for our experiences playing in basements and makeshift venues.

Our biggest challenge on our first few tours was basically not having a lot of money to pay for hotels or meals or gas. We managed to get by and luckily we have very supportive parents that helped us out if we really needed to be helped, but we tried to do as much as we could on our own. We kept a cooler in our van, right behind the driver seat, filled with our lunch and dinner and we took out the middle chairs so that we could use that as a bed on the nights that we didn’t have a place to stay. Honestly, it’s probably still a financially better option but I don’t think we miss the cooler.

These tours weren't profitable and we didn’t really play to many people, but that was okay. We had a few shows where a good number of people would turn up and those would keep us motivated to keep touring and try again. Really, our mentality was to just keep playing the same cities, regardless of how many people there were because hopefully the next time we came through, those people would bring their friends and so on.

Touring is much more of a pleasure now that we can actually afford hotels, gas, food, and all of that good stuff. We have an awesome team behind us that helps us budget and we have a booking agent, Jake, that is our hero. Still, there’s something really enjoyable about sleeping on floors or playing in people’s living rooms. It really brought us closer together and we’ve made so many great friends through those early tours.

Q: Clearly one of the things that sets you apart from other bands is the rapport you have with your fans, which was evident when you started doing streaming performances after things closed down for the pandemic. In that regard, you remind me of the early Front Bottoms, although their songs tend to be much more confessional and teenage angsty than yours. A lot of bands on tour show up, play their set, and disappear. I’m guessing you do the opposite. To what do you owe your success with making and inspiring fans?

CALVIN: This new digital, social media age is unprecedented and we’re thankful for any fans that happen upon our music on the overwhelming and ever-changing internet. I’d say over 75% of people that come to our shows come from Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist which is a personalized playlist updated weekly. We don’t understand how any of the DSP’s algorithms work but we’re thankful for any attention it gives us.

Our fans have created their own Discord server and have started their own little community on there. It’s beautiful; you see kids offering emotional support for big life events like graduating and other kids sharing and supporting each other’s art. There’s definitely a lot of trashy memes on there but we are here for it.

ROSS: Fans are the ultimate reason that a musician's career is successful. Without any fans, we couldn’t be in the position that we are in. We’ve always wanted to meet our fans and thank them for allowing us to make a living off of this. They are making the effort to support us and drive out (sometimes hours) to see us play and they really don’t have to do it. So, we feel that the least we can do is to go out after the show and talk to everyone and thank them. We have loved interacting with them on these live streams over this quarantine. Their excitement and their willingness to participate and tune in weekly has really kept us motivated since we haven’t been able to tour. We are grateful for every fan that we have.

LUKE: I think it’s super important to talk to your fans whenever you can especially after shows. Whether you’re a huge international arena band or three goofballs trying to make their dreams come true, the fans are your backbone. People pay good money and take the time out of their day to come see you. They even go to the extent of driving multiple hours just to drive straight home after the show. Any source of gratitude and appreciation we can show is the least an artist can do when someone is supporting you. Also a few minutes out of your day can make someones whole year. So whenever were exhausted and shot after a show (and we always are,) we know there are fans waiting and we can't wait to meet all of them!

The Happy Fits on one of their live stream performance

Q: After all shows were cancelled and you started streaming, I remember it was just Calvin and Ross, and then Luke showed up a few weeks in. Do you all live together now? How have you been coping during the pandemic, both socially (do you ever get sick of one another) and financially?

CALVIN: Luke has high-risk individuals in his household so he was unable to meet with us after tour to ensure he wouldn’t expose them. We are all at our respective childhood homes with our gracious parents. We plan on moving in together eventually when things get better. We don’t really get sick of each other as we are all pretty laid back (except me sometimes when I can get pretty intense, i.e. spreadsheets). Financially it’s been just fine as we found a way to manage paying for this album cycle and still have enough to continue paying off our startup debts and have enough pocket change to be able to treat ourselves every now and then. Our biggest income stream right now is streaming, so as long as the algorithm keeps giving, we know we’ll stay afloat.

ROSS: We practice at my house and they sometimes sleep over but we all live nearby each other. Luke had to quarantine at a friend’s apartment because his mum was at high risk for infection. After he quarantined he basically only just came to my house and went back home. I think we have been doing the best that we can be in this pandemic. We have been busy with the album release and the live streams help give us some sort of schedule.

Honestly, we rarely rarely argue or get sick of eachother. We all know what would make one another annoyed and we try to avoid it. It has been totally fine. We are used to close quarter living from touring I guess.

Financially, we are fortunate enough to be gaining Spotify listeners, so that has been keeping us afloat with monthly royalties. Also the new single releases have given our royalties a boost. We are in a good position. We also don't have to worry about paying rent, luckily, because we all still live with our parents.

Q: I love the new album, I found it interesting that you chose “Go Dumb” as the first single, since it really doesn’t sound like the rest of the album. How did that song come about? Do you think its explosive, uptempo (dare I say “punk?”) attitude was a result of the pent-up frustration from the lockdown? Will we be hearing more songs like that in the future?

CALVIN: I had had the melody for “Go Dumb” for a few years before I put words to it last summer. At the time, I had just gotten done with my second year away from school. School was all I knew until the age of 18 and a part of me felt like I was starting to lose all the knowledge and intuition I gained from my youth. At the same time, I was more passionate than ever about writing. The words “I wanna go dumb” are kind of a jeer to my past; I will gladly “Go Dumb” to do what I love.

Performing these “explosive” songs live is a means of escape and catharsis for me. I get to scream my problems at people and people often scream them right back at me. It’s an incredible feeling to drain myself fully on stage and feel so light after shows. It’s incredible that so many people connect with my lyrics. Having this unique community makes me feel like I’m not alone, and that’s how I want people to feel when we play these songs. A lot of these anxieties and stresses we feel in life are usually shared by many more people than we realize.

In the wake of the recent Black Lives Matter movement, I’ve tried to take the focus off myself and have discovered a passion for finding truth and social justice. There is so much novel anger that’s grown in me in the past months towards the society and country we live in and I look forward to channeling that energy in to our future music. These past few years I’ve been so focused on myself and just recently have I started educating myself on the horrors of our country’s past and the failures of the public education system that I grew up in to acknowledge our country’s numerous racial and wealth inequalities. Our first two albums have all been about our personal growth and I feel ready to take on larger issues at hand and use our generous platform for good. Some bands I’ve been listening to a ton recently that have powerful social messages in their songs are IDLES, Parquet Courts, and Michael Kiwanuka. I can tell you right now that they will have a heavy influence on the songs we put out in the future.

ROSS: I think we chose this song because it was very simple and easy to digest. A lot of people have been pent up in their houses and we thought this song could serve as some type of simple release in a way. They didn’t have to think too much about the words or the meaning. We have a lot of songs that didn't make the album and some of them are upbeat like this. I don’t think it’s our favorite song off the album but it’s just a simple, straightforward, fun groove that we really enjoyed recording.

LUKE: I think "Go Dumb" was the first single we chose because it was something we found our parents bopping their heads to, but also kids our age rocking out. I think it brought a classic rock sound with an indie blend that we’ve been trying to hone in throughout our time as a band. I also think there will definitely be more songs like Go Dumb that we will eventually release because we love the feeling of that song and will easily be one of my favorites to play live when were back on the road again!

Q: People always assume that the person who’s singing writes the lyrics, but I know that’s often not the case. And of course even if one person comes up with the melody, everyone winds up adding their own imprint to each song. What is your songwriting process like? I also love that you guys do covers; you have very good taste in choosing songs that you can mold to fit your unique sound. What is that process like, and are there any that you’re working on?

CALVIN: I always start with a really solid, catchy melody. They come to me at the most random times and there’s really no rhyme or reason to it. I think one of the only times on this record where I sat down and said “I’m going to write a melody now” was on “Two of Many” in the pre-chorus when we sing “stay in with me let’s ditch the dancefloor”. All other times I’ve written a melody has been away from instruments and in my head.

My ideal setting for thinking of melodies is right before I go to bed. The mix of bodily and mental calm, darkness, and silence leaves my brain with enough sensory deprivation to get creative (I’ll admit, a tiny bowl of Maryjane has sometimes gone a long way, too). I don’t think I’ve ever pitched a single melody during a practice session as the drums and guitar disrupts any musical train of thought I get.

When we play covers, we usually try to and pick songs that our fans suggest or pay us to do. We’ve been so wrapped up in creating music videos lately that we haven’t had much time to work on covers, but more are definitely in the works.

ROSS: Calvin is the predominant songwriter in the band. Usually he comes to us with the lyrics and melody fully written and we will fine tune it from there. I struggle more with lyrics but can offer suggestions or add lyrical sections to Calvin’s song. I have written a few of our songs like "Right Through" and "Sailing," and usually it's that same process where I bring it to them and they add their touch on it. Some songs also change in the studio as well. It’s a great space to experiment and have other ears on the song. "Go Dumb," for example used to just be a straight power chord song until our producer/manager Ayad told me to go in and try some riffs out and thats what stayed in the song. I suppose each song is approached a little bit differently but Calvin mostly writes the music.

LUKE: Typically Calvin or Ross come to the band with a song, it could be completely done with a specific idea in mind or just a chorus and first verse. Sometimes there is no lyrics at all and we mumble through what we think the melody should be. But once the idea is there, we all work together and much like you said put our own imprints into each song. A lot of these imprints also come to life when in the studio because that's when you really start to hear what the final product is going to be. With that in mind we were very conscious with this new album about how those imprints could change the songs in comparison to others on the album. We wanted What Could Be Better to have a flow and I think we achieved just that!

The Happy Fits were the only young band invited to play the Jersey 4 Jersey telethon to benefit the NJ Pandemic Relief Fund in April, appearing with Bruce Springsteen, Tony Bennett, Jon Bon Jovi, Charlie Puth, and Fountains of Wayne.

Q: Last question, but I have to ask: What’s with the fruit? It’s a wonderful way to brand yourselves. I have a pair of the orange slice socks, and I’ve seen bananas and other fruit on your logos and social media. Is there a story behind that, was it one person’s idea?

CALVIN: It all started with our original EP cover that I made on MS Paint. It was supposed to be silly as we were just releasing it for our friends and family. After our initial success on Spotify, when we tried to book shows, promoters would look at our artwork and not take us seriously and refuse to book us. We updated the artwork on our EP with the help from a graphic design buddy of ours who designed our logo and our modern color-blocky look.

We wanted Concentrate to have similar vibes to our EP which is why we stuck with the fruit theme there. We were unsure about whether to continue the trend with What Could Be Better, but after we saw how brands like Samsung took a liking to our simple branding, we decided to not overthink it and stick with what we know works.
Can I say we will do fruits forever? No comment.

ROSS: Thank you for getting those socks! It all started as a joke from our first EP. Our EP was initially titled “Lost in Translation” which sounded serious but the cover had hotdogs with sunglasses and rainbows all over it and it was a whole mess that didn’t add up. So we decided to go the funny route instead of the serious route and Calvin came up with the idea of a screaming banana because it’s in an awful amount of pain from its skin being peeled away. We didn’t really plan on continuing the fruit theme at first but then we decided to keep it going. Fruit is very colorful and we like having bright and bold colored artwork. Also its fun to see the fans guessing what the next fruit will be!

LUKE: There was never a plan in the beginning for the band, I think the fruits were supposed to be a one off thing but it stuck on the first EP and the fans latched on. So with that it started to become something more, if you had told me that our second album was going to be fruit themed as well, I might’ve been hesitant to believe you. I think now the challenge is how long can we come up with fruit ideas until we feel like it has run its course!

Visit the Happy Fits for more information, singles, and to re-order the new album.

Back to jerseybeat.com l back to top