“‘Charlotte’ is, to me, becoming better,” shares Montell Fish about his new album ‘Charlotte,’ the second chapter of his JCM Trilogy. Proclaimed to be ‘the chaos after peace,’ ‘Charlotte’ embodies an artist’s sonic evolution, with more profound psychological remarks and instrumental portrayal of Montell Fish’s abilities.
Strikingly honest, soft, and yet quietly aggressive, ‘Charlotte’ takes people on a journey of conceptual duality with pulsating temptations and themes of love, ambition, and self-actualization. Throughout the ten tracks, the Pittsburgh native Montell Fish pushes the boundary with some of his best falsetto shouting that indeed strikes the cord and the corners of your soul.
Traversing through the US, Montell Fish is on the road, headlining his ‘Charlotte’ tour, excited to perform the new sound and show off new sides to his performing persona. Aspiring for showmanship similar to Kanye West and Tyler The Creator, Montell Fish plans to share his love for interludes and scoring with standout tracks like ‘It’s Going To Cost You,’ ‘Who Did You Touch,‘ and ‘Is It A Crime?.’ You can check his upcoming European dates here.
Witnessing Montell Fish’s real-life compulsion at his London show at Scala back in 2022, his feverish and tempting stage presence had the entire audience in a chokehold, me included. Two years later, a few weeks before ‘Charlotte’ hit the shelves, Noctis spoke to Montell Fish about remaking the album ten times, moving to New York, 2021 being the breakthrough year, and standing by his artistic vision.
How do you actually know when an album is finished?
It’s hard to know when it’s finished. I think I somewhat even tried to forfeit the idea of it ever being really finished. It’s the most honest me right now at this moment. I don’t even think that ever, you can always work and tweak stuff. You have to trust that this is the most honest best thing you could do right now. And if you keep holding on to it, it might not make sense in two years.
What can we expect from your live shows?
I’m really excited to bring the new sound of the new album. Jamie and even at that tour, I wasn’t able to, since the album was so acoustic, I wasn’t able to really perform with bass or show people how much of a producer I am and how much I like interludes and how much I even like scoring as well. Charlotte opened my pilot up sonically to be able to take people on a journey. That’s hopefully what I’m trying to do. That’s all my favorites, like Kanye and Tyler The Creator. They feel like sonic explorations at their shows, and little pieces of their brain that you hear in between songs that might not necessarily be a full song, but it still fits the tour.
How did your approach to writing songs and making music change from Jamie to Charlotte?
The Jamie performance versus I guess the COLORS performance that I’ve most recently did, those were two different channels to me, like two different spirits. Darling was pure, first draft, leaving a lot of rough stuff in. Then the COLORS performance, that was a few months after a few vocal lessons and some more guitar work. I guess Charlotte to me is trying to get better and execute my ideas more.
At the Jamie tour, I was pretty limited somewhat between how much I could do with just an acoustic guitar on stage or just an electric guitar on stage. Now I’m working with synths and I’m using a lot of synths from the 90s and I’m able to articulate the different sounds that I want.That’s what Charlotte is to me, becoming better, hopefully.
Do you think you’re digging deeper on Charlotte compared to Jamie?
I mean, lyrically as well, Jamie was about a breakup and about this girl, but it was also very much about me trying to figure out things with the divine and why God had felt so far away. I think Charlotte is even more chaos, but even in the refineness. There’s a bunch of different philosophies that I’ve been reading and stuff that I’ve been reading that have influenced Charlotte. It’s more of the concept of duality and light needing darkness.
On Jamie, I didn’t really write any of the lyrics, I just let my subconscious speak. Charlotte is kind of more of the opposite to me. Lyrically in a lot of ways too, I think I’m pretty aggressive with some of the songwriting. There’s a song called ‘What’s It Take To Be A Star,’ there’s a song called, ‘It’s Going To Cost You’: “You can try to play this game of sin. One day you won’t win and it’s gonna cost you.” Some of the writing is very in your face thematic. So I think people will notice hopefully the differences because I always want it to be as genuine to me. I think the right ears will hear it though.
Do you still resonate with your stage name? You came up with it when you felt like you were a lost fish swimming in the ocean.
I guess in some way I still feel very singular, and pretty individualistic. I don’t feel as lost. I accepted the alone part of the journey sometimes. I still love the ocean and I still love lot of things about fishes and the fact that they were before humans. So I still resonate with it in a lot of ways.
Do you feel like you’re recharged when you’re alone or when you’re with people?
Definitely alone. Sometimes I wish I was more extroverted, but definitely alone.
You moved to New York in 2021, when you felt too boxed in the genre of Christian music. How did that move shape you?
It did a lot for me, honestly, because before I moved there, I was around people that had a lot of opinions about the way I make my music. And some were good intentions. Some were trying to lead me on the path of strong devotion to God and strong devotion to fundamental Christianity. There’s a huge risk if I was to start intermixing with that world. Even close people to me, I eventually had to walk away from, they strongly advised against doing that.
I just felt in my heart that there was something not right about all of that. Even Jamie, it’s a Christian album and I thought that even ever since I was young that there was never any religious art that could speak in that way. So in 2020, I decided I would move to New York the next year.
It was really the ability to think for yourself to meet people with different beliefs and to get out of bit closed minded thinking sometimes. Then I wrote ‘Talk To Me.’ I wrote a lot of songs that year because I was also able to finally process a breakup that I hadn’t processed mainly because I was trying to numb myself in a way. But 2021 was definitely a breakthrough year for me.
Could you tell us more about the moment you got signed?
I actually got signed in 2022. I was working on Jamie at that time, and I hadn’t released it yet, but I wanted to make sure that I was able to protect myself as best as I could. And still, I got into some legal stuff, not my label, but other things have tried to mess me over. But I’ve always been an independent artist. I’ve always made all my own music. I’ve always promoted myself. I wanted a label, which is why I wanted distribution to help me in that as well.
It made me feel really good that Virgin trusts me and let me do whatever I want because that was the main thing. I’ve just heard so much about people that get signed and then it’s the worst deal ever and then they can never release music again. I guess that’s what I was looking at because it feels like the musical landscape and the musical industry is always changing. So I don’t ever want to be like, okay, this is the way to do it all the way for eternity. It’s like maybe for 2022, that was the way, maybe for 2023, this is the way nonetheless, it did feel really great to get signed though.
In your conversation with Omar Apollo, which was a very insightful, yet casual interview between two friends, you said you have a woman’s soul, would you mind elaborating on that?
I was referring to Jamie specifically and especially within my music, I try to channel a woman. I love the sound of a woman’s voice. I have a few songs that I’ve even based a lot of my mixes off of that are sung by women. I’ve always related more to women. I didn’t really have a lot of friends, but the friends that I would find where women in school, and I grew up with two sisters. I feel like I never felt comfortable as this super bravado man. I’m more in touch with my emotions and in touch with my emotional side. Specifically in music, I definitely feel a channel, a woman’s soul, and even with characters that give me the ability to try to see and feel what I feel inside like with Charlotte.
You also talked about how important it is to believe in yourself first and foremost, label representatives might see the plan rather than the artist’s vision. What’s your experience and how do you stand by your art and vision?
I think that goes back to, you do have to be alone sometimes. Sometimes, specifically when it comes to music, I’m really protective of it. No one sometimes hears it until I send it. These are the three songs that I want out, and let’s just put them out. I think there’s a level of purity to that to where you trust yourself. There’s always the need for some back and forth, especially with a concept like a music video. I have people that I trust and I think you have to really, if there are people in your circle that don’t fuck with your vision and don’t understand you, then you got to get out of that. But then you get people that you can trust and you can bounce ideas off of each other.
What is your relationship with religion now?
I still have a lot of respect for religion. I still love religion, but I went through a hard period in my life where I was trying to follow fundamental Christianity. There’s the belief in the doctrine of hell, a huge teaching in that sector of Christianity. The whole thing about fundamental Christianity is that the Bible is the word of God. The Bible is the divine word of God and there’s no other Gods besides God. And you have to follow everything in this Bible or else you’re not really a person. I lived a life where I thought that I had the one true religion and this is the thing and I can’t follow anything else and I have to believe in hell and I have to believe in these things or else my religion isn’t real. That left me in a place where I went to the opposite way, I was really strict on myself. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t curse. I didn’t have friends. I didn’t have sex. I barely went to parties. I stayed in my room and I tortured myself in some ways.
Now I’m trying to heal from that stuff because being that strict on yourself, I don’t think it’s good. I still have a lot of love for people that follow religion and people that want to do that. But, right now I’m trying to have a balance with it and have a balance with the divine and how subconscious and unconscious it can be.
One of the new songs on the album, ‘What It Takes To Be A Star?,’ how is your relationship with fame? Do you think you had to sacrifice some parts of yourself?
You definitely have to make sacrifices. My niece was just born and I got to see her for a day, but I still had to come back and work. There’s so much stuff that you will miss out on because of the job that you take. I guess there was also an ambitious side to that song too, because the people that you love are really excited to see you chase your dreams and you don’t want to let them down. Sometimes you reach the road, the block in the road, when you’re like, is this all I can do?
Maybe I should just give up now. Maybe all this stuff is getting heavy on me, so there was just a huge ambition that I felt as well and especially living in New York with so many good artists and so many artists that are better than me. Just wanting to push yourself, but also seeing the existentialism, there’s so many people, like who am I to be a star like I don’t know if I can even do it, so there’s a lot of tension in that song. But I’m glad that I liked it, because I don’t think it speaks as much separate from this era, I think it’s very timely for right now.
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Words: Karolina Kramplova