Forever….Fitting, from left; Greta, Phil, Eli, and Joey; photographed courtesy of @lo__fire.

Structures, systems, and other conventional contrivances abound all around us and are found all throughout our lives. Beyond the good sense reinforced by the mandates of rules and regulations, the human id is forever at odds with whatever prefabricated molds we feel we are supposed to fit into. Nobody wants to be told what to do, where to go, how to act, how to talk, who, and what to be. Being inundated with all this largely inescapable preexisting infrastructure, the easiest thing to do is surrender to the interconnective networks of society. Either consciously or unconsciously we submit to the windy paths that comprise the game of life, where even as we rage against the future imperiling sins and peccadillos from the boomer generation, we ultimately find ourselves in the identity crisis as illustrated by that certain ubiquitous Talking Heads song.

This rift can be heard in the debut of the new song “Burned Out” from Sacramento band Fitting. From their new album Stable Vices, titled after the concept of cooped-up equestrian idleness; Greta, Eli, Joey, and Phil deliver a conscious rocking rebellion against those institutions of inertia found in our shared ecosystems and communities of unrelenting reality. Like the relatable sentiments and sensational snapshots that strive to convey the many moods and emotions of modern existence experienced on their lauded album Minutes; Fitting further mines the places where formative memories meet larger picture concepts.

The band continues to concern themselves with how we find and define meaning and purpose within the chaotic throes of the human condition. And once again, Fitting finds a way to take the assorted things that we reserve for chats with therapists and/or confidants and delivers them in a Dadaist form that is noisy, loud, melodic, manic, always anchoring the abstract into the grounding of substantive sincerity. Musically the group skillfully taps into an artform that upholds the standard of where the San Joaquin meets Seattle all along the influential vertical route of the I-5 that connects Northern California, the PNW, and every other denizen of DIY communities along the way.

"Burned Out" is a human pop tale about how we react to the pressures that the world places square upon our shoulders since the days of our nascent youth. Inspired by a memorable anecdote from Phil's own childhood where him along with friends destroyed a junkyard car in an abandoned landfill, Fitting examines the ways in which we inherently revolt against the imperatives of order, civility, and cut against the flow of the status quo. "Burned Out" examines how even in adulthood, not unlike the days of being a grammar school derelict, there are always implied roles and suffocating spheres of influence to direct our ire against.

The classic continuum of right and wrong treads into more ambiguous terrain over time, and forever the fight is against the almost obligatory motions to be what we don't want to be in the eternal quest to determine what we want and don't want out of life. "Burned Out" is a plea to find more constructive outlets for our unrelenting angst and destructive tendencies, a reminder to be better stewards of our world as opposed to dousing it in accelerants and casting all constructs we disagree with into the bonfire pit of irrelevance. Fitting provides us with a cautionary tale, a morality play that implores the world to learn from their mistakes and seek more constructive methods of rebellion in the face of anything and everything that we find to be utterly insufferable.

The visuals from Fitting's Eli Wengrin finds Phil in a custodial position and being offered leadership promotions. Fed up with up mopping restrooms, the mayhem begins with clogging drains, eating pages from a ULINE sales catalogue and ignoring all the opportunities to ascend the ladder of occupational mediocrity. The motifs of being bored, disaffected, and stuck into soul numbing cycles are stories that span the years since the earliest of ages. With lyrics that recall youthful destructive belligerence and Wengrin's video that highlights how those frustrations carry forward into the mundanity of menial labor; "Burned Out" blazes in the skronk of cathartic chords that desires some sort of immediate reprieve. Fitting observes how we all throughout our lives are stuck in the wheel spin of everything that we don't want to do, and the impulses to strike a spear into the spokes of mechanized mandates, or anything that governs our time, our lives, ourselves, and so on. The band urges a more mindful state of caution against our instinctive scorched earth urges for the sake of striving for more constructive conservations with anyone, everyone, and everything that we feel is an impediment to our principle and preferred paths of life.

Phil from Fitting offered up some thoughtful words on the back stories behind the new single “Burned Out”:

Fitting performing live at the Golden Bear in Sacramento; photograph courtesy of @5432fun.

“Burned Out” was written about a memory from my youth, spending time in an abandoned landfill in my hometown. An old car was deserted in the landfill and became the target of pent up destructive tendencies. What windows were left, we broke and, ultimately, we would set the car on fire. Fueled by bravado, the destruction was a game of upping the ante.
My upbringing reminded me at every turn that it was wrong. It was wrong to be there and wrong to let loose like that but the catharsis was like drunken ambition. The burned out car was discovered by the owners of the abandoned landfill and they were furious. We lied and never got held accountable. I felt guilty and ashamed after. Even the junk was sacred to someone.

Video still courtesy of Fitting’s own Eli Wengrin.

The video was meant to reflect similar destructive tendencies triggered in states of cognitive dissonance. I grew up with a prescribed moral understanding of the world. It never required analysis in the community where I was raised. I felt the prescribed morality was riddled with contradictions. I would instead stumble into the walls while developing my own sense of morality.
At work, there is often expectation to buy in to a plan for the organization or for yourself. Your Thoughts on the validity of the plan are often irrelevant. Sometimes the buy in is coaxed out of you with vaguely supportive compliments or by presenting a path for you to succeed. While it may not align with the reason for the organization’s existence, there is a hope that you will bite the hook. Often it makes your life easier to just buy in. The cognitive dissonance can brew tiny rebellions in the mind. The burned out cars of your youth are hopefully tempered into more reasonable reactions. Hopefully, you’re not flooding anyone’s bathroom or kitchen.

Fitting’s new album Stable Vices arrives June 6.

PREMIERE | Fitting, “Burned Out”