Headliners Fitz and the Tantrums are joined by St. Paul & the Broken Bones with the Seratones at the Big Field Day concert at Meadow Event Park on Sunday, June 5. (Photo by Anna Lee Media)
Remember those field days in elementary school? No matter how good they were, they probably won't be anything like the ALT102.1 Big Field Day, June 5 at Meadow Event Park in Doswell. The event, part of the After Hours Concert series, features pop-funk outfit Fitz and the Tantrums, joined by Alabama-based soul band St. Paul & the Broken Bones and funk rockers Seratones.
Multiplatinum artists Fitz and the Tantrums, known for their songs “Out of My League,” “The Walker'' and “Hand Clap,” are celebrating 14 years of making music together. The six-member band is based in Los Angeles and released their latest album, "All the Feels," in 2019.
We spoke with lead singer Michael Fitzpatrick as he sat outside the Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville, Tennessee, to discuss the band's sound, traditions and what we can expect from them in the future.
Richmond magazine: What does the band do on tour for fun? Are there any pre-show traditions that you all have?
Michael Fitzpatrick: Fun on tour is hard because we are only in each city for about 19 hours. One thing that we try to do everywhere we go is we try to find the best roast possible, preferably made by some guy with a curly mustache.
RM: How would you describe your band’s sound? How has it changed over the years?
Fitzpatrick: No one listens to one genre of music, so we try to incorporate different styles of music into our albums so that it is enjoyable for everyone to listen to. Our [next] album definitely is the most soulful work we've done so far.
RM: It's been said that the band aims to record without guitars; what is your reasoning for this?
Fitzpatrick: When we first started making music we didn't have a guitarist. So we just tried to make the biggest sound possible without the instrument, incorporating it into our music more often now. Every once in a while I'll pick up my guitar and start playing it, but for the most part we don't use it.
RM: Why did you choose St. Paul & the Broken Bones to open for you on tour? What do you like about them?
Fitzpatrick: St. Paul & the Broken Bones are awesome. We pick people that we personally enjoy spending time with and listening to, because you are going to be with them for so long, you know? They have such a great sound, and their lead singer, Paul Janeway, has such a great voice, I hate having to perform after him.
RM: When is the next Fitz and the Tantrums album coming out?
Fitzpatrick: Our single “Sway” will be released on June 10, and our album will be released later this year. When we sat back to choose which songs to put on the album, we agreed that this album is the best we've ever made. When your band has been together as long as we have, you really get to dive deeper and make the best possible music.
The Seratones open the show at Meadow Event Park on Sunday, which is part of the After Hours Concert Series. (Photo by Joshua Asante)
Seratones vocalist and guitarist A.J. Haynes says the challenges of her work in one of the last abortion clinics in Louisiana inspired “Love and Algorhythms,” her third album as frontwoman of the rock and soul band. The Shreveport, Louisiana-based group are the opening act at the ALT102.1 Big Field Day.
Haynes, who is also president of the board directors of the New Orleans Abortion Fund, talks about the Afro futurism- and feminism-drenched “Love and Algorhythms,” as well as her work as an abortion counselor.
Richmond magazine: How has your work as an abortion counselor inspired your music as a whole?
A.J. Haynes: I’d like to preface this by saying I’m a patient advocate because, unfortunately, at the end of the day, the connotation of counselor, if you’re an abortion counselor, is that someone needs to work through something, and that’s not always the case. Ultimately, you’re there to help people process, because that’s what you do as another compassionate human being. … So, I feel it’s more about patient advocacy and less about abortion itself.
I’m really in awe of everyone working in abortion care at this time. And so, that is what excites me. That is what helps me get through the day. This insistence on joy as necessity is what informs the album. It is less about the climate. … I’m mostly interested in creating music that helps cheer and lead people.
RM: I hear a strong ’70s influence on this album. How has the era and sound inspired it?
Haynes: Man, what a great time to have been a recording artist, when budgets were crazy, you know. You could have entire orchestras, like now, like, I can't afford an orchestra! And I feel that during the ’70s and early ’80s specifically, we think about disco music and how, to me, disco is literally music built around getting together and dancing. I think of disco and [composer] Giorgio Moroder, and all of this music that was in the discotheques as like a soundtrack to queer liberation. … I think there was something really important about how people came together in that space. And I think that’s what really drew me to wanting to pay homage to that era.
RM: In the lyrics of “Dark Matter,” why did you choose the metaphor of being lost inside the song’s namesake astronomical particles?
Haynes: I was reading this anthology called "Dark Matter," actually, and it's a century of Black speculative fiction, so, Black sci-fi. So, the namesake came from the anthology, for sure. And it just seemed to capture that innate transience, or lack of corporeality. [Dark matter] contains all it is, something that we can't really touch, yet we live in it. And for me, in so many ways, that is a metaphor for grief. And when I think about dark matter holding the planets, holding the stars, it's that space of what the body remembers in grief.
RM: Louisiana could shut down its three remaining abortion clinics if Roe v. Wade is abolished. What will be your next move as an activist and artist?
Haynes: The reality of abortion access in the deep South, in Louisiana, especially in Mississippi, is already a post-Roe reality. Most people are already dealing with post-Roe because of how inaccessible things are. When I say inaccessible, there are things called Trap Laws, which are targeted restriction of abortion providers that have slowly chipped away at accessibility. Things like 24- to 48-hour wait times, clinics closing down and being less accessible. So we’re already in that, it’s not much of a shift, actually. I’m committed to abortion access by any f------ means necessary, whatever I can do to assist with that. I’m going to be in this fight regardless.
Fitz and the Tantrums and Seratones perform at Meadow Event Park during the ALT102.1 Big Field Day on Sunday, June 5; doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $31 to $99.
