Meet The Sunny Indie-Pop Trio… The Happy Fits

Backed by a feel-good sound and introspective lyrics, The Happy Fits is a band that needs to be on your radar. Made up of long-time friends, Calvin Langman, Ross Monteith and Luke Davis, the band first formed during the summer before their freshman year of college. The guy’s chemistry seamlessly translated to their music, which resulted in their debut EP Awfully Apeelin’ taking off on Spotify. The success of the project inspired the trio to leave school to focus on the band. The threesome wasted no time in honing their craft and soon began to work on their 2018 full-length project, Concentrate. Backed by tracks like ‘So Alright, Cool, Whatever’ and ‘Grow Back’ the record showcased the trio’s boundless creativity and infectious ambition.

The band then released their collection of crowd-pleasers with their follow up album What Could Be Better, two years later. Fast forward to 2021, and The Happy Fits star is continuing to skyrocket with their latest single ‘Another Try’. Filled with relatable lyrics about coping and growth, the track effortlessly showcases their lyrical talent and mission statement of connecting with the world. With over 65 million global streams, 780,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and a 50+ US headline tour in the works, The Happy Fits is a band poised for music stardom. We were able to chat with the trip about everything from their sound, their latest single ‘Another Try’, making music in Brooklyn and so much more. Read the full interview below.

Hey The Happy Fits, thanks for sitting down with SPINDLE! How are you all doing? 

Hey SPINDLE! Thanks for having us. We are all doing pretty well! It’s been incredibly hot in New York City and we just got hit by a hurricane but other than that, life’s peachy!

What genres or specific artists helped to shape your music and sound?

Calvin: We all grew up listening to different genres and through the years touring together, our tastes have meshed together. Luke our drummer grew up listening to Led Zeppelin, Panic! at The Disco, and Avenged Sevenfold and later got really into Royal Blood. Ross our guitarist grew up with Dave Matthews, Ben Howard, and The Proclaimers. I grew up kind of all over the place; my dad was always listening to classic rock, Billy Joel, and Elton John and later I moved on to indie rock like The Killers, The Fratellis, and Franz Ferdinand. We all really love Alabama Shakes, Two Door Cinema Club, Arctic Monkeys, and Radiohead. Touring together we always love finding new songs with crazy production, great melodies, or sick riffs… but don’t put it past us to throw on a Weird Al Yankovic song here and now.

How would you personally describe your sound?

Calvin: We’re constantly evolving every album. When we started with Awfully Apeelin’ and Concentrate, I definitely feel like we were trying to imitate our favourite bands. After we started playing basement shows, we got super into shredding and really heavy sounds. Our producer and manager Ayad Al Adhamy (from Team Spirit & Passion Pit) really helped us find our sound for each record. He has so much recording and production knowledge that we were able to put out a pretty cohesive first record despite having our songs all over the place; Reason for Dreaming is a slow acoustic ballad, Grow Back is a stadium rock anthem, and Achey Bones is an afrobeat inspired indie rock song. Moving into the 2nd record, I learned a lot more about song arrangement from Ayad and sought to make an even more cohesive record. What Could Be Better definitely feels way more like pop-rock since the hooks move so quickly one to the other. Incorporating my cello into the songs has been an ever-evolving process. I’m always throwing different pedals on it for the live show but when it comes to the records, we usually do a crazy 4-5 microphone combo that Ayad makes. 

Your most recent release was the incredibly infectious and catchy A/B side release ‘Another Try’. What’s the story behind the songs?

Calvin: I was feeling so lethargic and unsatisfied during quarantine. I moved in to our old practice space at Ross’ house (we call it The Loft) and definitely living 5 feet from your job can have some pretty crazy effects on your productivity and work. ‘Another Try’ came about after Ross’ showed me this riff and melody he wrote that sounded like a fast-paced Queens of The Stone Age song. I had a catchy chorus idea that was way faster too, so one day I sat down with a guitar, slowed them both down, and tried mashing the ideas together. I’d been in quite a writer’s rut so the first words out of my mouth naturally were “Another day, another try”. As I continued in to the second verse and started writing about cigarettes and bad habits I knew I had to add in some sunshine in the chorus as to not bum everyone out. I love the song ‘Make Your Own Kind of Music’ by Mama Cass so I used that as inspiration for the chorus. 

With ‘Cold Turkey’, I wrote that chorus one night when I was visiting my girlfriend in Georgia. Something about the far vocal jumps really just made me want to sing “Time and Space” and “High and Low”. I was thinking back to my first breakup ever that shattered my heart completely and turned me into a very pathetic, bumbling fool. I channelled the desperation and hyperbole of some old diary entries into the verses and the sulking nature really complimented the yearning melody of the chorus. I’m really happy with the way the production ended up with that song; we put a microphone in one of the hallways at Diamond City and that made the cello sound like it was part of an orchestra. We layered around 15 cello parts and that made it sound like an entire orchestra despite it being just me. 

We hear you’re all living together in Brooklyn, right? What’s the story behind you forming a band together?

Ross: Yes! We just moved to Greenpoint, 5 blocks from Diamond City Studio so we could work super hard on our 3rd record. It was a big move for us, our first time ever living outside of our parents’ houses in Pittstown, NJ. Despite our rural up-bringing we’ve quickly adjusted to the hustle and bustle of NYC. We started the band in our senior year of high school and recorded and released our first EP Awfully Apeelin’ as part of my graduation gift from my parents. We never intended for it to get traction on Spotify. After our 4th week in college and the EP was getting thousands of plays a day, we knew we had a once in a lifetime opportunity to chase. We dropped out after our Freshman year’s and have been touring and recording ever since thanks to the generous support of my parents. We’ve kind of been figuring out life together so this feels like a natural next step. 

How do you think a city like New York is shaping you as a band?

Ross: Oh man! Especially after staying indoors for the last year, the constant stimulus is an absolutely blast. There’s so much to do and see; it kinda feels like we’re on tour all the time now. Living within 5 blocks of our studio has also helped us practice making music all day, every day during the week. If anything, we’re growing closer as people and musicians. 

You have an impressive 50+ date tour coming up across the US, what’s your favourite thing about being on the road?

Calvin: Non-band related, it’s got to be food! We love new food. Ross likes spicy, Luke likes Chicken Tenders, and I like anything fried or with noodles. Though we get our fair share of fast food too, getting lunch at a hole in the wall or local favourite is always the best. When it comes to playing shows, we definitely look forward to getting our fans as hyped as possible. We’ve been inside for so long that I can tell there’s going to be an explosion of energy at each show. I mean, we released an entire 2nd record intended to be played fast and loud live and we haven’t even gotten a chance to play for our fans once. It’s gonna be an absolute banger on the road so we all look forward to getting up there every night and jumping our asses off. 

What has been the best gig you’ve ever played, and the worst? Any on-stage embarrassing moments?

The best gig(s) have got to be our Asbury Park Christmas shows. It’s such a nice time and celebrating the end of the year with all your hometown friends and family just gives us so many warm tingly feelings. Last time, we played with extra musicians too and I love hearing as many instruments and singers playing our songs as possible. We couldn’t do one last December but we’re looking forward to bringing the series back this Winter and have it be bigger and bolder than ever. 

Our worst show ever has got to be our first show ever at Penn State. We had never played a show together before and we were in charge of running our own sound. I was so new to live performance that I wasn’t aware a non-treated cello will feedback like crazy when plugged in to a PA. We probably played 30 mins of a 60 minute set and spent 30 minutes trying to run the board. At the end of the gig, the sound guy that was supposed to be running our sound for us showed up which was absolutely hilarious. 

In terms of embarrassing moments, I had one too many drinks before a show in Santa Ana and we had played Santa Cruz the night before. I got up on stage and blurted out “HOW’S IT GOING SANTA CRUZ” first thing. Never again will I mess up like that…. People turn on you quick!

We see you also stream all of you playing games via Twitch, what game would you like your music to be featured in?

Luke: If I had to choose, it would have to be Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I started playing Pro Skater 2 when I was 10 and really loved the music in that game. If I had to choose another it would definitely have to be Borderlands. 

Calvin: Having one of our songs be a walk up song in MLB The Show would be siiiiiick!

What can fans expect from The Happy Fits in the coming months? 

Calvin: Fans can expect lots more teasers for new music. This 3rd album is really shaping up and we are so excited for them to hear the new era of our sound. We’ve put our hearts and souls into these new songs so we hope it resonates. 

Make sure to check out The Happy Fits brand new single ‘Another Try’ below or here.