Foto-© saybyetoit
Mit zerbrechlichen Songs, die versuchen Widersprüche der Welt in Einklang zu bringen, hat es Alternative-R&B-Sänger Montell Fish aus Pittsburgh zu über 12 Millionen monatlichen Hörer:innen, 3,5 Milliarden Streams und in die Tonight Show von Jimmy Fallon geschafft. Binnen kürzester Zeit sorgt die Fanbase des 25-jährigen US-Musikers inzwischen für weltweit ausverkaufte Konzertvenues von Berlin bis Boston, von Sydney bis Paris.
Das heute erschienene Album Charlotte, das Jacob Portrait (Unknown Mortal Orchestra) koproduziert hat, ist eine rohe Sammlung von Songs, die die Höhen und Tiefen von Liebe, Ehrgeiz und Selbstverwirklichung erkunden. Es befasst sich mit Themen wie Erinnerung, Bindung, Verlust und Wachstum sowie mit der Psychologie hinter all diesen menschlichen Erfahrungen. Während Fish das Album – die Fortsetzung einer Trilogie, die mit Jamie (2022) begann – schrieb, las er über Psychologie, Gedächtnis und Kindheit. Wir sprachen mit Montell Fish in Berlin über sein neues Album!
Hello and welcome to Berlin first of all. I want to start off with something that stuck out to me in the conversation you had with Daniel Caesar, where you said, that you grew up around feminine energy & female figures mainly. In what ways did that affect your music making journey, or you as a person or artist in general?
In so many ways, I mean, I love a woman’s voice. Even very early in my career, there were certain songs that I would find and would try to recreate my voice to sound like it. And they’d usually be female singers. But also just my love for falsetto and high range. I think it just comes from my love for hearing a woman’s voice singing. It definitely influenced me.
A little topic switch..What is known about you, is that Christianity played a big role in your upbringing, but you moved to nyc and in a way broadened your horizon also beyond that & that you’re still believing but evolving. Was there a point where you felt like the way you were involved and practicing your beliefs before, didn’t align anymore with you being an artist and if so, what was the process of coming to that acknowledgement and also being okay with it?
Yeah, there was. I’m a pretty all-in person, I try to be if I go for something, so with religion and the kind of fundamental Christianity that I was following, it just gets pretty intense, psychologically to the point where you also feel like you have to do a lot for God or else you’re not enough or you’re not doing enough. So I would always have tension in writing, because I want to write about my life and I’d feel like a pressure to write about God. And sometimes I did actually want to write about God, but sometimes I’d question authorities at the church or the higher up people and be like “why can’t I really write about this?” And it’d always be some answer, but it just never felt genuine to me. And so I just felt like I came to a point where I was like, you know, some of these things I still agree with a lot, some of these things I don’t. Now I just try to find my own way.
Just like a balanced path.
Yeah. And a part of my upbringing was the fact that it had to be so intense and now it’s kind of “oh, it doesn’t have to be so intense.” So yeah, I’m kinda searching for the answers, but I’m not really searching. I’m trying to enjoy life, too.
I just also realized because of the lyrical shift in your work. At first, it was really centered around your belief system and God and now you’re also writing about women and other things in life. But as with anything, you grow up to know things in certain ways and then kinda opening up to the world and all of a sudden there’s like a thousand other perspectives and possibilities.
Exactly. Scary, tho.
Taking it a little further, are u as a person & as an artist equally in line with your faith or do you differentiate between the two, when it comes to that?
As I said, I try to be an all-in person. With art, I try to have that same devotion and it is spiritual. It is like super cathartic. And that’s why I think I see some of the same between the two, religion and in art. I just love devoting myself to something and then hopefully something good comes back from it at a later time. I love that idea.
As always within the sphere of the internet, there’s people questioning your artistic choices especially in relation to your faith – how do you reach the confidence needed to survive as an artist in this industry, where oftentimes, artist are being treated as a business and every step is judged by others? Is there any secret on how to master this life without losing yourself?
I mean, I probably don’t do it the healthiest way. I sometimes channel characters to help me process a certain part of life or to help me bring out certain aspects that are within my personality. But they’re kind of repressed and I maybe forgot about them. I have confidence, I would say, but there’s so many people online and to say that I, with a smile on my face, could always release art into the world and expect everyone to like it.. I’m also not that confident, but I do channel my characters to help me make my art and even to fend for myself more. With this album (Charlotte), I had to learn how to just stick up for myself and if something is going wrong in my life, that I have to say something. Whereas before, I would just let people talk over me. And that’s something I learned just growing up and how I was raised. But this album and the character that I kind of channeled for it, helped me push through that.
Speaking of your new album Charlotte, there’s a track on there called God or The Devil and it goes something along the lines of “god or the devil, which one will you choose, either way you loose”. Can you elaborate on that poem, what was your motive to write it?
I definitely want people to have their own interpretations, but it hints to, if you choose a life with God and we hinted at it in the interview, me and Daniel, you might lose a part of yourself. For me, I was sacrificing my songwriting and I was sacrificing my chords, even my production choices. I was just sacrificing a part of myself, so many parts of myself actually. The Bible requires that. The Bible says that, if you love your life more than you love God, you’re not worthy of the kingdom. And so you lose a lot, if you actually are devoted to fundamental Christianity. But in the devil then it’s also kind of like a layered thing because it’s like the devil to me is the path of fame and it’s following what I want to do. That means it also is going my own path and doing my own thing. But it also comes with like so much negative stuff. So therefore, either way, I’m losing. Either way, you kind of win too. But I like
looking at the worst case.
That’s a nice thought, though, as much as you can lose, you can also win.
Yes, it’s purely your perspective.
As we briefly spoke about earlier, you like to create different characters connected to different projects aside from Montell Fish such as dj gummy bear. You did also release an EP through that alter ego called Intercession before Charlotte which seems like leading up to your album release as Montell Fish. How are these alter egos all connected and what purpose do they fulfill to benefit your main artist project?
I have this kind of like Jamie-Charlotte-Marshall trilogy in my head. I had this idea for this album already when I was making Jamie, for these multiple album things. And then along the way, if Jamie was my first feature film and my first entryway, then I would say “Her Love Still Haunts Me Like a Ghost” would be a short film, and then “Intercession before Charlotte” would be another short film, and then “Charlotte” would be another feature film. The characters in them, on the tour of “Intercession before Charlotte” specifically, we were kind of alluding to this jester character and this jester archetype and dj gummy bear kind of becoming this leading spirit. He helped me process religious trauma, but he also has two sides to him as well. At the very beginning when I was running the dj gummy bear mask, it was this white mask and it was pretty pure. It was actually soft ears. And then I started wearing this kind of black satanic looking mask, that was kind of showing a reflection of where I’ve been. The characters kind of just bounce off of each other. In the world of “Charlotte”, Charlotte is this God or force and this thing that I’m almost trying to escape. But in an “Intercession before Charlotte” that’s kind of like a prayer before God. And dj gummy bear was trying to save me before I entered the world of Charlotte and before I go on tour and have like a musician’s life and all of that.
The “Intercession before Charlotte” EP and the tour specifically, I came out in the mask, but Jamie was like her own character and ghostboi was also the character for “Her Love Still Haunts Me Like a Ghost”. Those we also characters, but they’re within this film world now, so they all kind of know each other in a way.
What’s the Charlotte character going to be like on stage?
I think people will really see it live again. I’m getting really big into live shows and making sure people just feel that. I love Tyler’s (The Creator) live show. I feel like he really comes super alive. A lot of early Kanye stuff is really cool. I really want people to feel the character live, to feel like it’s almost a different person. And I’m just even trying to hit different musical points live, too, just practicing more.
Would you say, since live shows become such a big part of your projects and bringing them to life, creating such an experience on stage is more rewarding than the actual creation of the songs and projects itself?
Yeah it’s very rewarding as opposed to writing an album and then waiting two years to release it. Like you get the praise right there on in person. But there’s also a non rewarding, non instant gratification part, when the preparation for the show is going on. Thinking about it and thinking about how all the worlds can collide together. How the album cover can feel like the tour and how the tour can feel like the visuals and the visuals can feel like the music videos and how everything can coexist and be cohesive. That’s like the funnest part, bringing everything together.
Just make it make sense for yourself and then hopefully everyone else, as well. I also saw you have cleared your Instagram feed, probably with that
same purpose in mind, it being part of the bigger picture?
Yeah. Just that cohesion and bringing even just colors into play, same like Tyler, Kanye, Pharrell.. Colors play a huge part into how you perceive the music and how it makes you feel and what you remember about it. Me and Caleb were just looking into color palettes for this roll out and stuff like that.
You’re doing most of your songs and projects by yourself, have you worked collaboratively on any of the songs of this album, or just you and your new character Charlotte?
No, this one I worked with Jacob Portrait. Jacob is a producer. He worked for example on “Let’s Start Here.” with Lil Yachty and he’s in this band called Unknown Mortal Orchestra. He’s just super chill, a good dude and super talented. But that was my first time really working with someone. With Charlotte I had that idea of perfection and of trying to get things better. I had a bunch of songs that were like 60% to 70% done and normally I’d be fine and just release that, but I just wanted to see what would happen if I just tried to push them a little bit further. And I knew Jacob was the right person to do it with because he kind of works like me and he just knows, he just has the right taste. So it was super fun. I love working with Jacob. I probably would only choose to work with one on one types of people, at least for right now, until I figure out what a multiple session room would look like. I much prefer less people in the studio.
Is there anything you would like to share about your upcoming album, a message of some sort?
I think people might be a little bit jarred by it at first, but that’s the goal. With “Jamie”, I tried to drop “Her Love Still Haunts Me Like a Ghost” like immediately after, just so people would be freaked out and wondered what this whole new sound is all about. And even when I dropped “Jamie”, my Christian fans were like, “Wtf is this?” So I’m kind of addicted to always trying to just do something else and do something more. I hope people like it. Just be open minded and I think it’ll be a good ride.
Montell Fish Tour:
09.12.2024 Köln, Carlswerk Victoria
11.12.2024 Berlin, Uber Eats Music Hall
12.12.2024 Hamburg, Docks
