Seattle's The Fitness is happy to see the hipsters getting out and dancing these days. Especially the ones around town - and, more and more, around the country - who are moving to the brash electronic punk that the quartet brings to their debut record, last year's Call Me For Together. The Fitness unpretentiously mash up the detritus of pop culture banality with a frenetic mix of analog and digital bedlam, making a noise increasingly hard to ignore.

On a Sunday spent primarily nursing respective hangovers, I spoke with Bree Nichols, one half of The Fitness' vocal duo, on politics ("We don't have any speakers who give you goosebumps anymore. And now they've made me choose from among the ugly people! How could they do this to me?"), John Mayer ("is that the guy who wrote a song about having a bubblegum tongue? God, that song is awful."), and about making a place for her band outside of both the electroclash label and the remnants of Seattle's musical history.

First, what's everyone's musical background? How long have you been playing? How long have the four of you been playing together?

Right, okay, we'll go categorically... Adam [Finn] started the band, it was his idea. I met everyone except for Rebekah [Dunbar] down at Evergreen [State University in Washington]. And Adam was one of those kids who lived in Seattle and probably thought he lived in New York, and he was always really into hip-hop and funk when he was little. Thirteen years old in tracksuits, you know what I mean? When I met him he was actually a DJ. There was an underground rave scene here for a little while that he was a part of, and he used to make his own electronic music, too. And then Tom [Bridgman] has always been in indie and emo bands. And Rebekah is a fucking metalhead. So yeah, pretty much all over the place.

And, at least on the surface, what you are all coming up with now doesn't seem to have anything to do with that background.

That was our trick, though. What we wanted to do was bring in multiple styles that weren't immediately communicable. We mashed it up good enough so that we made our own sound.

I read that you have a design/fashion background.

Yeah, well I've always just made things with my hands. I have an A.A. in industrial design. I run a shop where we sell furnishings that I've made, lighting and all different weird shit. I do paintings and I've got a little clothing line... I was in a band for two seconds in high school, because probably somebody thought I looked like Joan Jett or something. I just listen to music voraciously; I don't make music. I took piano lessons when I was little but my mom cut me off because I wouldn't practice.

Do you think that some of your other experience influences the way you approach your part in the band?

Well, I know that I got asked for a very specific reason to be in the band. I consider both Tom and I to be the lead vocalists; I don't consider myself the lead vocalist. And I just got asked to mess around with the band, and I fell into this position because of my personality. I'm a total extrovert and...

And your band definitely needs that kind of presence, I'd guess.

Well, have you just heard our CD?

Yeah.

We're better live. I think our CD is cute, but we're way fun live. We've got kids dancing and screaming along with us live, because we're dancing and flipping out.

How does your live show compare to what we hear on Call Me?

The thing is that Tom and I are kind of out of control. Playing is a lot of fun for us. Tom and I have a lot of fun together and...I mean, we're kind of a punk band, and that's how we play live.

So then when you go into the studio, do you try to capture a show as best you can, or do you approach it differently?

Well, Adam, like me, is a total perfectionist, and he really made the whole album. Some friends recorded it on the DL, and he mixed the whole thing and is responsible for it sounding the way that it does. And having never recorded vocals before, it was weird for me hearing that shit played back to me. But he and I would listen and ask, how can we make this sound more like the live version, or how much do we want it to sound like the live version? It was weird going back and trying to give the songs an intensity without it sounding restless and weird and rushed. Like, especially with "Chauffeur." Because we usually play that one at the end of our set, and by that point I'm raspy and out of breath, so it was interesting to go into the studio on a Sunday at 11 in the afternoon like, "okay, how do I fucking get this?"

Okay, as you said, you define yourselves as being a punk band, but - and I know that I used this in my review - you're more likely than not to get the electroclash tag stuck on you, which I'm sure can be stifling. How do you all feel about that scene and that label?

It's funny, because when we first started playing in Seattle, we had lived here a long time so we got pretty decent shows right away, but we got shows with more dance bands, you know, like The Streets or that kind of shit, you know? And then, before you have a record, the local press doesn't know you at all, and so all these rumors develop, especially with the kind of name that we have, that we're an electroclash band, that we dress up in fitness workout outfits. So we had this chintzy reputation before anyone had seen us play, and it was kind of annoying, that tag that, what's his name, Larry T. made up to sell all of his bands.

I mean, the electroclash scene was really cute because it got people off their asses, and it's really hard to get hipsters to dance. We're all so bored and we just stand around, and that's the only reason that I like the electroclash scene that was going on, because the only kids that go out dancing are cheesy Top 40 kids or hip-hop kids, you know. Everyone just stands around and tries to get skinnier than everyone else.

And act like they don't really like what they're listening to.

Exactly. So it was rad to see enthusiasm from kids who don't usually show enthusiasm. But we're not an electroclash band.

Your record at times seems to really revel in all the excesses associated with that genre, but at the same time you're taking some digs at the scene and a lot of the tropes connected to it...

One song in particular is an absolute dig at that scene.

And just in general, all the eighties glamour and debauchery...

But, it's a cultural climate. We were all born at the same time, pretty much, so we're all going to be influenced by these same things. How all of a sudden Bambi is the chic thing to put on anything, that's because it made a huge impression on us when we were six years old. I'm twenty-seven years old, and I'm assuming, if you're in grad school, you're about the same age, so we have these commonalities.

One thing that strikes me about some of the songs on Call Me, like "Analog Synths" or "Chauffeur," is a strong storytelling quality. After I listened to the record a few times, I couldn't get images of Bret Easton Ellis novels out of my head, or the American Psycho film, or things like that. I was wondering what sources, or general pictures of young nightlife, creep into your songwriting.

For me, it's Star magazine and shit like that. I am obsessed with our celebrity obsession, and how chintzy our celebrities have become, and what a damn bore they are, and how they don't even deserve to be famous because they're not even entertaining. There are no Joan Crawfords left. There's not even any Burt Reynolds anymore. Everyone's such a damn bore.

Well, the brilliant thing to me is how people like Jessica Simpson fail at becoming famous for the things that used to make people famous, and instead get fame for being housewives, or doing the exact same shit that the rest of us do.

What I'm obsessed with lately is that we're living in the golden age of the idiot. America, in its attempt to not challenge itself - it's the banalization of culture that's been occurring probably since the advent of radio - has left us surrounded by idiots, and it's fucking incredible. Like Britney Spears covering "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" because, she said, "I love Pat Benatar"?

And none of our celebrities are that talented, because we don't want to scare anyone into thinking that anything is awe-inspiring, thinking that you have to challenge yourself or work toward something. And we're congratulating and rewarding people for being as horrible to each other as possible, and as stupid as possible.

What's it like coming out of Seattle, this place that nationally, and internationally, as far as music is concerned, will always likely be remembered for this one moment in the early nineties? Are there still remnants of that scene hanging around, or...

I'm from here, right, but I was more into the DC punk scene, you know? And I loved Nirvana because they were a great band. So then when all the other bands started getting popular, like gross Pearl Jam and all these other bands really fitting into this gross genre, I didn't realize that people thought it was cool. I just thought it was stupid music editors for mainstream magazines, who are just a bunch of fucking nerds, I think.

Seattle's a rock town, and it always will be. Rock towns are made from shitty weather and practicing in your basement. Now, you have Pretty Girls Make Graves, and the Blood Brothers... but it was interesting to get accepted in this town, and it's why I'm interested in the reception that we're getting, because there are remnants of all that. Because grunge is, well, rock with some punk elements in its best form, and melodic shit-pop in its worst, and that stuff is always in existence. It's a four-piece kind of town. That's why, for me, I didn't really give a shit about playing out because I didn't think anyone in this town was going to like our band.

And it seems to me, from what press I've read, that you're getting decent press.

We're getting brilliant press from our local press. Like, our record dropped, and everyone seemed to catch on to the fact that we're this punk band. Because at first people were scared off because we had synths and drum machines, but now we have adults dancing at our shows.

Are you planning on touring?

We're not the kind of kids who are obsessed with touring, and we're only going to tour if it really makes sense. None of us are in positions in our lives - I have too much to do, and Adam has an intense job - and we can't drop a grand each to go on tour and have five people at our shows. We've been waiting for opportunities to show up, like we just played four shows in New York, and they were all total successes. Vice magazine set up one, and our publicist set up another one, and it all just worked out well, and now we're going to go on a little mini-tour with that band Fannypack. That kind of thing, where they're going to pay for our lodging, and there's at least a little guarantee.

What is the one thing that is essential to your music?

This is what I want to say about my band: we are all really good friends, we really love playing together, and I think that's why we're getting the publicity in our town, and it's because we've given kids a chance to dance, and they're punk rock kids. We wanted to create an anti-serious environment for going out, because no one goes out anymore and has any fun.

Everyone goes out and drinks and you go out and see these intense rock shows, which I absolutely approve of, but it's necessary for the human spirit to have these intense releases of joy. And it's so rad to see these little kids, and they've got a local band and they all come out and we all go out and dance together. And I've got people thanking me for giving them a new party record, and that's the best compliment you can get.

Rob Albanese
May 5, 2004