Photo by Olimpia Rende
With a bold new album inspired by Prince and the energy in Paris, Montell Fish ponders big questions about the meaning of life, making timeless art, and his journey from Christian YouTuber to guitar-wielding rock star.
September 30, 2024
BY Alex Gardner
"This is the Charlotte monster. Is there anything after death? Is there meaning to this music beyond just the 50 years that I have left on Earth? I did have to grow a bit as a human to get to the music that I wanted to."
"Deep down, I do have a desire to change a lot of conservative Christian mindsets on art, on how they should let people perceive art, and how they should let people perceive and look at sexuality."
The path from Christian rapper and vlogger to Prince and Hendrix-inspired rockstar is not well trodden, but it is Montell Fish’s truth.
His excellent new album Charlotte is the culmination of a series of fresh starts and new thinking for the 26-year-old artist, who has been tackling life’s big questions head-on over the past few years. In that time, he has reassessed his relationship with faith, educated himself about psychology via the works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and questioned the spiritual and emotional costs of fame.
Montell needed to grow as a person to be able to make the music that he knew he had within him, and Charlotte is the result of that growth.
“I always knew I wanted to make a darker album,” he explains, “but I didn't understand what the darkness was when I was writing Jamie and even Her Love Still Haunts Me Like a Ghost. And then, both fortunately and unfortunately, I found out during the process [of making Charlotte] and I became somewhat of an atheist and somewhat cynical, and very against a lot of things that I grew up on [...] This is the Charlotte monster. Is there anything after death? Is there meaning to this music beyond just the 50 years that I have left on Earth?”
Montell was born and raised in Pittsburgh (which he pronounces “Picks-burg”), Pennsylvania and his relationship with music began in his teenage years when he was at a low point. He downloaded FL Studio and taught himself to make beats, and that DIY mentality remains with him today, even as his ambitions and resources have expanded.
His 2021 singles and breakout album Jamie (2022) were produced, written, and recorded by Montell alone, but he opened himself to collaborators for the first time when making Charlotte, which was co-produced with Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and includes collaborations with Clams Casino, Alex G, and Daniel Caesar.
The minimal production and hushed delivery of Jamie, the last music Montell released under the Christian genre tag, has been replaced by jagged guitars, muscular beats, and dramatic falsetto moments that push the outer limits of Montell’s vocal range. It’s the sound of an artist growing increasingly confident in their artistic vision, and this also extends to the music videos (enjoy, for example, the sparkly suit and fluorescent guitar of the “Is It a Crime?” video) and multi-layered rollout.
Photo by Ben Burton
Photo by Ben Burton
Photo by Ben Burton
Photo by Ben Burton
Montell has been building towards this release and foreshadowing its themes since 2023, releasing conversation videos with Omar Apollo, Lil Yachty, and Daniel Caesar and creating a website full of easter eggs and backstory. There’s even the quasi-religious “Book of Charlotte” which introduces dj gummy bear—another character in the Montell Fish cinematic universe. Montell calls dj gummy bear “a character from my brain to help me to experiment” and also releases music under that name, building an interconnected web of sounds and lore for fans to immerse themselves in.
Why go to so much effort? Because the internet, of course, with Donald Glover as a beacon of inspiration. Age 13, Montell found the Childish Gambino album Camp and then, “found Because the Internet, and discovered that this artist made a website for their album rollout, and this artist made a movie for the album rollout. I realized that this is making a world for your fans, this is adding context to the music. That's what I think about constantly and I aspire to be.”
When I speak with Montell, he is relaxing in a park hours before his Atlanta show, the biggest venue on the tour so far. He sounds calm and takes his time to respond, not balking as the questions get deeper into his psyche, personal history, and the painful process of self-actualization. Despite the judgment of strangers and the unpredictable nature of the music industry, Montell Fish is comfortable in his skin and making the best music of his life.
The ‘Charlotte’ tour continues in North America through October then heads to Europe in December. Listen to the album on all platforms here.
How is the tour going so far? Are you thinking about the live experience when you’re recording, or does that come later?
Tour's going good. Tonight [Atlanta] I think might be the biggest show so far, but Charlotte was last night, which was fun. It's the name of the album, so it was a fun show. It's been going good.
With this project, I was thinking about the live experience a lot more. I made a lot more songs with that in mind and we made some songs in-studio, live drums, live guitar, which definitely translates better. Especially the last project, Jamie, was a little more acoustic in my bedroom, so I've been thinking about it a lot more now.
And when you’re not on tour NYC is home? How do you like living in the city compared to Pittsburgh?
It's much different. Pittsburgh is pretty small, pretty slow, a lot of driving. New York is chaotic and messy, but I love it.
Initially I moved to California for about two years. I was living with a manager at the time and I was still trying to figure out musically where I wanted to go. I was still making a bunch of more Christian centered music at that time when I was in California. And so in New York, I just wanted to have a different perspective with my writing. I wanted to get around different people with other perspectives, and New York helped me channel something else, or just get a different grip and get a different perspective on things.
Can you paint a picture of the timeline of making Charlotte? You’ve been teasing and talking about it for a while, so I'm curious when you knew you were making this album and if you’ve had the concept and sound clear for a long time, or if it developed as you were creating.
I had the concept for a little bit. I even thought that the last project, Her Love Still Haunts Me Like A Ghost was going to be Charlotte—that’s when the Charlotte era and story started. When I was working on Her Love…, even the “Hotel" music video, I put Charlotte in it. So I've had the idea for a while, since 2021 when I was working on Jamie.
But it's also super prophetic in a way. There’s a song called “God or the Devil” on Charlotte which was about me figuring out faith. I was asking these super hard questions, but I didn't have the faith in myself to actually execute it and to basically deconstruct some ideas. So 2024 is when I started reading psychology books and books about the effects of religion. I feel like now I am able to articulate that in the artful way that I want.
So you felt like you needed to grow and understand some things as a person, on a human level, to be able to create the music that you wanted for this album?
Yeah. Yeah. I always knew that it would be a darker album. I always knew I wanted to make a darker album, but I didn't understand what the darkness was when I was writing Jamie and even Her Love…. And then, both fortunately and unfortunately, I found out during the process [of making Charlotte] and I became somewhat of an atheist and somewhat cynical, and very against a lot of things that I grew up on.
So once I reached those questions that I was thinking about in Jamie, once I was able to piece together some of my own evaluation and find some of the answers that I was looking for, I realized, “Oh, this is what I was afraid of.”
This is the Charlotte monster. Is there anything after death? Is there meaning to this music beyond just the 50 years that I have left on Earth? I did have to grow a bit as a human to get to the music that I wanted to.
Is there an experience or moment in Paris that stands out from the making of this album?
I started working on the album in Paris, and that's when I had first met Matthew Williams. He was working at Givenchy [as the Creative Director] at that time and I was brainstorming where I wanted to go with the album. I was playing him the first versions of “What’s It Take to Be a Star” and we had this really interesting talk. He told me that it takes everything and you lose people along the way. You have to focus and devote yourself to what it is you feel like you're called to, but it's not all peaches and cream.
He had that talk with me and it felt so timely. It reminded me, there's a cost to following your dreams, and it's a good cost too sometimes, but you also just have to realize that it is a cost. You are going to miss people's birthdays and you're going to miss people's calls, but you can try to have a balance with all this stuff. When I was working on the album and just at that time, it felt like some good fuel.
Do you have to pinch yourself sometimes when you’re having a conversation with Matthew Williams? Is that still a trip to you, or is that kind of normal life for you now?
[Laughs] It's still a trip. I mean, I'm very blessed and very grateful. But yeah, it's very much still a trip. It's weird when you see people connect with your music when you wouldn't expect them to.
How did you connect with Jacob Portrait [producer and member of Unknown Mortal Orchestra] and what felt right about working with him on this album, after previously doing everything yourself?
I think on a synchronicity level, it felt really interesting. Before I had met Jake, I had done an interview with Lil Yachty and talked about his evolution and leaving a certain sound. I knew that they had worked together and I'd loved all of that shit. But I hadn't even known that Jake was in Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
Jake’s studio is in Greenpoint in New York. So I pulled up there one day and it was just like kindred souls. We operate in a similar way. We send each other ideas and then we just go ham on 'em. So it felt really good, especially coming out of Yachty finishing Let's Start Here and us doing the interview, and then Yachty not even knowing that me and Jake were working on this whole project.
Were there any challenges that came along with working more closely with a producer versus just doing everything more DIY?
With anyone else, it probably would've been a lot harder and a lot slower, but Jake was really good. I took him ideas that were kind of bedroom-y and just not fully polished, and he understood how to not mess it up and add too much polish.
He did it in a perfect way because he is just weird and kind of crazy like me. I'll send him an idea and usually the best way is to let him go home and freak it, and then we come back in the studio and add any finishing touches, but we value our alone time. I think I let him have his space to develop the idea, he let me have my space to develop the idea, and then we kind of bring it back together when it needs to be
Looking back to when you released Jamie compared to now as you’re releasing Charlotte, what are the biggest differences or changes that come to mind, whether that’s musically, personally, spiritually, emotionally… These album releases are like marker stones along the pathway of your life.
Yeah, exactly. Compared to when Jamie came out, I think I was 23. I had a huge weight on my shoulders. I didn't want to box myself in as a specific type of artist. I had that anxiety and that weight to get out of there by any means—in a good way, it produced a lot of good stuff. But I think as well, I just wanted to escape and have my own fan base. So I made it all in my bedroom and I made it all myself, but I still knew what songs would work and connect in a way. As much as I love “Fall in Love with You." [currently Montell’s most streamed song], I know how simple the writing is.
I still love performing it, but with Charlotte, I was like, okay: I have some money now, I have some fans now, I have some room to really show more of my talents as a musician and a producer. I took a little bit more of a risk in that way.
I think there's still some really relatable writing on songs like “Scream My Name,” but when it comes to “What’s It Take to Be a Star” and “It’s Gonna Cost You,” the mindset was definitely that if we're going to leave this earth one day and we love Hendrix and we love Prince, we want to make a mark. I think that it’s just fun. It feels alive.
Have you been aware or felt a change in the reception to your music as your relationship with your faith has changed? Both from that original audience from when you were making faith-based music and from a new audience you might be reaching now. Have there been any surprises?
I still find that sense of purpose. Even on this tour, some kids came up to me a couple shows ago saying that Jamie helped them get through chemotherapy. I still think music has that similar omnipotent, divine effect—the same that helped me when I was 13 and depressed in middle school.
I still feel that Godly gifting, but I guess in a less dramatic way. Before, I had this mindset that I wanted to save the world and I'm trying to save everyone from burning in the depths of hell. Now, I have escaped that thinking and don't view life as dramatically. I think that makes the music a little bit more poetic and not so in your face. It's not like this is specifically Christian music or specifically non-Christian. This is just music. Especially with the writing, some of the songs only have 12 lines or something, so it's really more the music that's drawing the story.
On your journey, both as a musician and personally, who are the mentor figures, whether that's people you know or that you look up to?
I always looked up to artist-producers, people that made their own beats, people that made their own clothes, people that just did a lot of stuff. I started getting into more indie and R&B music as I started getting older, but 14, 15 was more rap. So Tyler and Ye, Kid Cudi, Pharrell.
Gambino was probably the first show I ever went to, for his Camp tour when I was 13. I think that's what I was introduced to as an artist. I found Camp and then I found Because the Internet, and discovered that this artist made a website for their album rollout, and this artist made a movie for the album rollout. I realized that this is making a world for your fans, this is adding context to the music. That's what I think about constantly and I aspire to be.
So that's the goal. Bigger budgets and bigger and stronger ideas. It takes so much money to do even music videos. We have concepts and we're like, shit, we're still independent.
"I found 'Camp' and then I found 'Because the Internet,' and discovered that this artist made a website for their album rollout, and this artist made a movie for the album rollout. I realized that this is making a world for your fans, this is adding context to the music. That's what I think about constantly and I aspire to be."
There was a line in the press release about moving on from not just the old audience, but from the old team. So what does the Montell Fish team look like now?
It's pretty small. I went through some shit with my last manager where I realized it was not a good deal business wise. So I had to leave that, which was 2023.
Now I'm just working with my creative director who I've been working with from right after Jamie. His name is Caleb Wild and he's directed most of my music videos. He's six months younger than me. He's my close friend. He comes for more of a director POV and he also reads a lot. He puts me onto a lot of psychological books—Carl Jung, and stuff like that. He’s where I go for non-music ideas, video ideas, merch ideas, tour stage design ideas.
And then there’s Jeremy, who holds down everything. He operates as a manager, but he's my age. He’s on tour, making sure shit’s getting done. And then my sister, she's on tour as well, just helping out wherever we need. So yeah, we're really pretty small.
Can you describe and explain dj gummy bear? Who is he in the Montell Fish universe? How is he different from Montell?
We want to release the physical versions of the book that we wrote for him. It's called the Book of Charlotte, but we have dj gummy bear him in there as kind of a prophet. We want to release it as a merch piece so people get a little more context.
He's a character from my brain to help me to experiment. “Who Did You Touch?” was the first song that I made for Charlotte and it has this four-to-the-floor, Parisian club energy. I was breaking out of making sadder music and I wanted something that was a little bit more playful, a little bit more experimental. Gummy was just a nice break.
But then on a conceptual level, we started building this story around him. Who he is, what he looks like, this mask that he wears on stage. This superhero quality that he has to help me push through some of the biblical beliefs that I was working through. And so he is this older brother, hero, experimental character. He’s going to teach Montell the ways of music, and then Montell's going to go back and release Charlotte. Gummy is kind of just always studying music, DJing. He's kind of like my off brain.
Talking about mystique and building lore, especially in this social media, camera phone era, I think you do it really well while still being accessible and online. Does being active come naturally to you. How do you think about social media in general as an artist?
I wouldn't say I love having to promote a song, especially more than once [Laughs]. I do have the blessing of my fans checking out my posts and I can not over promote sometimes. But I think everything is a platform and no matter what, you're just talking to people. Some people are like, “Oh, I don't want to post on TikTok, or I don't want to post on this.” My thinking is that it's literally just direct to consumer. It is draining for some people but it's not as draining for me because I see some art in it, and I see that I don't have to do anything I don't want to.
I always wonder if you told an artist in the ‘50s or ‘60s who could only reach their audience by going to the radio station, or getting in a newspaper, or going on tour, that now we have the technology to just reach an entire fanbase at once, would they would wish they had access to that?
It's kind of off topic, but even Prince, he was working on a lot of ideas and he wanted some ideas out that same day, just because he felt like the idea was meant to be heard that same day. I heard that about Prince and that idea helped me think about how I share.
Your digital footprint is interesting. So many artists would've scrubbed the old YouTube account, but you have 10 years worth of videos, Christian vlogs, the music from a different era. It's all there if people want to find it. I'm just curious if there was a time where you thought of taking that down, deleting it, and why you've taken this approach?
Yeah, I mean, I've taken a couple down. I've definitely taken some down! But I left some up because it's honest. Some people still come up to me and let me know that an old video spoke to them.
Deep down, I do have a desire to change a lot of conservative Christian mindsets on art, on how they should let people perceive art, and how they should let people perceive and look at sexuality. I hope that I do somewhat have an effect in that way and change a lot of people's viewpoints. So that's why I keep it up too. I don't want to fully disconnect, and I don't really want to give people an affirmative answer on if I've left or not either, because I think there's something interesting to just letting someone discern.
My father was a Roman Catholic priest for many years, but left the priesthood when he met my mother. Regardless, he still kept his faith, but it was more of a personal faith. That idea of a personal faith, I think, is powerful.
No, it's super powerful, man. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing that your dad had to push through. It's not easy, especially because there are a lot of biblical things that make you want to live inside and not be outside of the bubble. So yeah, I think God appreciates much more when it's genuine and you're praying when no one's watching.
I wanted to talk about the conversations with Daniel Caesar, Omar Apollo, and Yachty. Why did you want to make those part of the rollout and what was the experience like for you?
I was on tour with Daniel Caesar and we were talking a lot about Charlotte and where I wanted to go with world building. I kind of looked at him as one of the only other alternative R&B artists with strong psychological concepts behind their music. I mean, Freudian [Caesar’s album title] and kind of how disturbing [those ideas] might be. So the interview made sense because we mirrored each other in some ways.
He was more Seventh Day Adventist and I was more fundamental Christian, but we just had a lot of similar experiences. The interview is entitled “God or the Devil,” after the track that we did. But the line that I say is:
God or the devil, which will it be?
One, you'll choose sacrifice to me.
You can't deny, then you will die.
You try and try, it eats you alive.
Which one will you choose? Either way you lose.
We just wanted themes to come through, on that Glover level, we wanted an interview that feels like it’s maybe alluding to a film, and gives you that feeling behind the album. So now you have this piece to go back and listen to.
I guess it was almost a role reversal in some ways. You were the one leading the questions as opposed to being interviewed.
Omar was really cool too, because when you meet him, bro, he's just 6’5”, he's a superstar. He just has that superstar energy. And I thought since that’s a theme of my album it'd be cool if we were just in a diner talking a little bit of mess.
Yachty was another synchronicity moment. I had him in my mind, all of 2023 before I met him. Yachty just seems like a person who should be in a TV show. He's a cool guy. He was sending me music that he was working on, he was sampling some of my music at that time. I told him about dj gummy bear and the Charlotte rollout and he was just down. It was another thing where I was learning from another artist about what it takes to be a star.
You've brought up that idea about what it takes to be a star a few times. Is that something you want and are actively seeking? Do you want to be a star?
I want to be the best I can be. I really have big ideas. I want to have a show that feels like a play one day. All my favorite artists, I want to be like them. But my duality is, What does it take and how much of my soul will I lose? I'm still a kid from Pittsburgh and I still very much have a lot of those morals and that feeling. I can't do certain things as easily as other people. There's still something in me pulling me to want to revert home to homeostasis. So it is more like a duality. I know I'm talented and I really want to be even better. I want to make better music.
But I just don't know what comes with it. It's also the fear of the Bible verse that says “it's harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than it is for the camel to go through the eye of a needle.”
So it's kind of seeing the psychological effects of people being rich and famous, and seeing that's kind of gross sometimes. But I love music. I love what I do and I'd love to be known for it. I love to make people feel something with my ideas. But yeah, that’s the duality.
The idea of stardom often comes along with assumptions of certain behavior, but there are lots of ways to be a star or to be impactful, especially with the internet and all the different subcultures and niches. Mk.gee is a really interesting example right now where he has such a dedicated fan base. He's selling out shows, he's those people’s star…
He's like a God, yeah.
But if you go on the street and ask a regular person if they’ve heard of him they’ll probably have no idea who you’re talking about.
The internet definitely gives us the freedom to do that and that's beautiful. The only reason that could get in the way is just that… stadiums and arenas and bigger productions and stuff like that, this shit just cost so much money. I mean, we've tried some stuff and we've done some ideas for 50k and 100k, and they've come out pretty decent. So I think an indie space, somewhere in the middle is where I'd like to live.
One thing that came up in the Omar Apollo conversation is the idea of stubbornness, which is actually just integrity as an artist. As a professional musician, as an artist, and maybe especially since signing a deal, have you felt like you've needed to have that stubbornness? Have you had people trying to push you in a direction that you didn't want to go and how do you deal with that?
Yeah, definitely. My philosophy is that the more people you work with, the easier it could be to impurify your ideas. It's hard sometimes because it's the music business and it's very much a business. You can be a musician and you can care about a lot of creative stuff, but there's also going to be the business people that are going to remind you of the business, and they're not really going to care about your idea like you do.
You have to have a little bit of grit, and remember they came to you to work with you. It's not the other way around. I mean, some people are in different kinds of deals, but I'm glad that I'm independent and I can have a say so on my ideas and where they go.
And then you just really have to believe in yourself. Sometimes your fans don't even fuck with your ideas, so you really… I don't even know if it's integrity. I love that it's a more peaceful word, but I think sometimes you have to be a little delusional. You have to believe when people aren't fully believing.