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Nov 04, 2022 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Rahil Ahsruff

Rising indie outfit The Happy Fits are quickly making their name as one of the most effortlessly charming acts in indie pop and rock, delivering unerringly bright and relentlessly catchy pop gems with each new release. The band debuted with their 2018 record Concentrate, and followed with 2020’s What Could Be Better, and their latest album, Under the Shade of Green, out now. Today, following the record’s release the band are back with a video for one of the highlights off of Under the Shade of Green, “In The Lobby,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“In The Lobby” builds further on the band’s talent for indie anthems, with a shout-along chorus bolstered by subtle strikes of cello from lead singer Calvin Langman, and playful rhythms from drummer Luke Davis. The band manages to approach their arrangements in a way that feels fresh and offbeat, but also intensely catchy, all while showcasing each of the trio at different moments. Langman’s cello tinges the verses while Davis’s drumming casts a propulsive presence, all with guitarist Ross Monteith moving on a dime between spacious strums and syncopated danceable rhythms.

Meanwhile, the lyrics find the band exploring the corrosive effects of money and fame. Langman explains, “Growing up, my mother was an avid viewer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. I remember for the first decade of my life being so confused how anyone could find news entertaining or funny. Now that I’m older, I realize how guys like Stewart and Colbert are necessary- you MUST find the joke in the news or else you’ll kill yourself from depression. The level of rot and inequality baked in to America’s systems are so heart-breaking, and to think it’s all because of greed and white supremacy. As our markets continue to deregulate, our oceans continue to fill up with plastic, and inequality continues to worsen, there is a certain feeling of anguish about our fate.

That’s why I needed to write this song; to remind myself that that hopelessness and misinformation dissemination through the media is just the elite’s strategy to demoralize the working class. It’s honestly jaw-dropping how oil companies literally hire fake scientists to go on news programs and debate the “other-side” of scientific facts. One of the most powerful things I think we can do moving forward is to laugh in their faces at their greed and deception. Of course, the vicious cycle of wealth and power needs to be stopped, but first, there needs to be a cultural shift towards wanting it.”

Check out the song and video below, out everywhere now.