Fitz and The Tantrums Get Candid About 'All The Feels' Album Inspiration

Fitz and The Tantrums have officially returned with their new album, All The Feels, and just like the titles, it was most definitely make you feel all the emotions.

All The Feels is the band's fourth full-length studio album and follows 2016's self-titled LP. Showcasing 17 new tracks, the new collection of songs touches on subjects including the human connection, anxiety, depression, and insecurity. Fitz and The Tantrums' Michael Fitzpatrick tells iHeartRadio, "I think when you're writing about what's real and what you're actually experiencing in life, when it's those difficult things that you need to talk about, that process can be healing in of itself and be therapeutic. And at the same time, we wanted to show something that also brought to the other side with what's the positive that's gonna come from this moment? So with the lead single, 'I Just Want to Shine,' it's really talking about anxiety and stress, but the chorus explodes into this idea of just life affirming, over coming it and living your best self."

The title track, "All The Feels," encompasses "the whole theme of this album," as Fitzpatrick explains. He says, "As soon as we wrote it, it was pretty clear it was gonna be the title song. Because it really did encompass the whole theme of this album, and I think today, in this day and age with devices, we're all looking down at our phones. We're all kind of a barrier between us, our lives, and the people around us that we love. And so, the hope for us as individuals, and for us as a society, is maybe to put the phones down, and just to have this yearning for more connections, with our friends, family, loved ones. And that's really where that song came from."

In the "All The Feels" music video, fans can see Fitzpatrick collapse in a hospital and be rushed into emergency surgery. The band's Noelle Scaggs explains of the visual, "Pretty much every video we've done except for '123456' was directed and produced by our friends Rickett and Sones, they're a couple and they are beast. So we really wanted to take that idea of having everything come from the heart. You know, it's just Fitz walking into the hospital and we don't know if he's from outer space, or what his problem is, but he passes out and he gets his life saved running with this heart that has to be put into his chest, and it's just the reminder of feeling; [a] reminder of reconnecting with yourself. You can just get locked into sadness, and all the the darkness that is going on. But just to remember that we are human beings and to remember to have empathy, and to have a heart again. It's super, super important. So that video was really kind of what that statement was."

It's always tough for an artist to choose a favorite song from an album. As for All The Feels, while Fitzpatrick called out songs including "OCD," "I Just Want To Shine" and "All The Feels," Scaggs mentions that "I Need Help!" is particularly close to her heart, and she relates it to her experience with her bipolar disorder. She tells us:

"I would say for me, 'I Need Help!' speaks volumes to me because I'm bipolar. I suffer from anxiety and depression. That is like the wave of my life. It has been since I was a kid, and asking for help for me is very, very difficult. I grew up with really, really strong independent women in my family, but we did not talk. That was not something that we did. And so you kind of bury your feelings and learn to deal with rage and insanity in a very different way. And for me, 'I Need Help!' just spoke volumes to what I deal with in my life and having to navigate that territory, and learning how to be a better person on tour, and dealing with my five husbands that I have to work with on a daily basis. It's just like having this lifestyle that is not necessarily something that other people would be able to do in their lives. So, that song speaks volume for me in my life, and just asking for help, and knowing that it's okay, and taking away the stigma that it's not."

With so many important messages attached to All The Feels, after fans listen all the way through, Fitzpatrick hopes that fans walk away with this sentiment: "I would say that you're not alone. And that everybody, whether you are looking at us and you think we are living this incredible rock star life, that we're still human beings, and we all have those highs and lows, and those challenges as human beings. And hopefully if we can put that message out there for people, help people a little bit along the way, give them a little bit of respite from their stressful day, then we've done our job."

Fitz and the Tantrums 2019
Fitz and the Tantrums 2019
Fitz and the Tantrums 2019

Photos: Adrianna Casiano


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