One of the LA music scene’s best underground acts might finally be about to surface. Today, locally beloved glam rock outfit Fatal Jamz, led by quirkily charismatic frontman Marion Belle, releases its sophomore slay of an LP, Coverboy, via Lolipop Records.
Over the years, Fatal Jamz has released a wave of nostalgic pop sass and sweetness — including 2013’s debut LP, Vol. 1 — and toured extensively, doing legs with both Sky Ferreira and Smith Westerns. Along the way it’s slowly garnered a cult-like following. And it’s warranted. Belle’s a spangly superstar with maddening dream pipes, zany androgynous style, and a knack for creating fatally addictive, well, jams.
The project’s latest tune, “Jean Paul Gaultier,” is one of those driving-down-the-Pacific-Coast-highway bops that wouldn’t feel out of place on a John Hughes movie soundtrack. It would play well alongside other Hughes picks like Flesh for Lulu’s “I Go Crazy” and Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” but it pulses with its own louche glamour. In the track’s video, which premieres below, Belle cruises around the Santa Monica Bluffs like, in his words, “a singer lost in his own labyrinth and searching for a ‘second chance.'”
We chatted with Belle about Coverboy‘s blissed-out sounds and recording in a Skid Row penthouse.
Fatal Jamz. That’s a good-ass name. How’d you come up with it?
In music, I’m all in. I put my whole life into every song, every recording, so the name reflects that.
How is Coverboy different from your previous releases?
Coverboy is my Romeo + Juliet — the 35mm, technicolor romantic bombshell, whereas the first Fatal Jamz record was like a 16mm initial sketch of this paradise I was trying to create. Both records employ the talents of what I would call the new wrecking crew — players so uniquely sick at their craft that they could have played on Lust for Life or Walk on the Wild Side, and they gave their time and their hearts to creating something new with me.
Let’s talk about the experience of writing and recording in that Skid Row penthouse. How did that setting influence Coverboy?
The core of Fatal Jamz is me and my producing partner Nic, who’s lived in Skid Row for, like, eight years. Each time you enter the building, you walk through a naked sea of humanity that’s just hurting and pretty much abandoned by their own city and their country. I’d be in the elevator going up to the studio at night just kind of shaky. It’s troubling. Then the door opens at the top and you enter this quiet palace of gear and focus and that’s where we would work on our vision of Eden.
Coverboy took three years. Why?
It’s not indie music and there was no major label budget. The sound had to be gangster to capture the drama and the intensity of the songs and that was just a pure labour of passion and commitment.
Tell us a bit about your new single “Jean Paul Gaultier” and what it means.
When I was in high school, my mom used to take me to the mall to go spring break shopping. She’d get me two or three things, like, a Hilfiger shirt or a sweater. I liked checking out the cologne counter. Polo Sport, Gaultier, and those scents I think were like a crossroads of innocence and this kind of sexual elicit-ness that was profound to me. So, the song stays true to that feeling and keeps it alive. It’s the scent of youth — feeling beautiful and dangerous.
How do you come up with your record titles? Do you think about your albums as being thematic? Your previous release was 2016’s EP “17 and Hung.”
My favorite songs are songs that you can visualize. Maybe you can see an entire movie in them, whose characters are real and full but mysterious too. The characters in my songs are the people I’m haunted by and the world that they live in emotionally.
I’ve spent a large part of my life performing and recording and writing songs, being on stage mostly in LA. Coverboy, as a record, is ten songs and ten chapters that deal with the sacred and the profane aspects of that life. The title song deals with the kind of corrupting lust for pussy and fame and attention!
What’s your favorite song on the record?
Probably the last song, “Touch the Flame.” It’s about having someone who will ride or die for you, and go on that journey with you, regardless of the danger.
A quick Fatal Jamz Google search turns up some Bowie and even ABBA references. How do you feel about those comparisons? And how would you describe your music and aesthetic?
Music for me is just a way to take authority over how you want to look and how you want to honor your own feelings. That’s everyone’s power and I don’t believe that’s freakish. I would never take being referenced to someone like David Bowie lightly or for granted. But iconic names shouldn’t be thrown around lazily to describe any male singer who may be provocative or different or hard to categorize. And I think these touchstone names are abused as references all the time. I would describe the music as American as apple pie, the mall, or the boardwalk! And I hope people will hear it maybe for the first time on some wild night, in some random place, and it will make them feel good.
Credits
Text Alex Catarinella
Photography Abigail Briley Bean