The pro-mundane Auz Fontaine blows up from two to four members.

“We’re just dirty pop singing about pizookie appetizers at BJ’s,” says Auz Fontaine co-founder Captain Auzmo. “It always works and has this fun element, like when you go to a prix fixe and you get seven different meals. That’s always what I try to bust out. You’re always getting a different course at our shows.”

I caught Auz Fontaine at Soda Bar on a Friday night in October 2019. At the time, their live show was still composed solely of Auzmo’s singing (augmented by a myriad of backing tracks) and Vic Fontaine’s live keyboard instrumentation. The duo delivered a more polished and R&B influenced version of the skewed, dance-friendly pop that Beck churned out circa Odelay and Midnight Vultures. Auzmo even cites Beck’s song “Debra” as a major influence on his own songwriting. “With that song, he’s on that whole falsetto tip that entire time, but he’s talking about picking people up in a Hyundai in Glendale. It’s the most beautiful shit ever. That song, for me, has resonated my entire life.”

Beck has a knack for turning mundane aspects of his life (such as working as a leaf-blower) into memorable lyrics. Auzmo embraces that “write what you know” ethos as well. “I take a look at what’s around me,” he explains. “I love chain restaurants. I love going to Chili’s, Applebee’s, all of that. I have this song called ‘Mom’s Gift Card’ where I talk about using gift cards and taking someone out and falling in love at a chain restaurant. And if you go to chain restaurants enough, real life happens. It’s, like, I will be at Chili’s and get a call that something happened to my dad, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ but I’m at a Chili’s.’”

The duo performed “Mom’s Gift Card” that first night I saw them, and it was a certifiable highlight of the gig. It’s also of note that the performance was temporarily derailed due to technical difficulties: the dreaded “crackle” in the sound mix due to a faulty cable or input. One of the most deceptive aspects of Auz Fontaine is how complex their live setup is. The backing tracks are far removed from simply having a single MP3 file sent out of a laptop’s auxiliary output. “We need really hard-hitting bass and hard, snappy snares,” Auzmo says. “The only way you can do that is by having individual audio stems and 18 channels out, so you can mix them all from the front of house. We started calling ourselves ‘The Crackleboys’ because we have so many cables that shit would go bad and we would have a crackle. Then onstage, we’re trying to figure it out. Because I am all about crowd work and being kind of nimble, I never let a disaster go to waste. I would kind of flirt the line of, ‘Is this real? Is this actually happening?’ when there was a complete meltdown on stage.”

Since I last saw Auz Fontaine, they’ve beefed up their ranks. Danny King has been brought in to play drums and additional percussion. He also morphed into the band’s de facto IT expert, designing a rig (Auzmo refers to it as the “trinity core”) that keeps their live performances crackle-free. “We’re all on in-ear monitors on a click and cue,” he explains, “so it’s, like, if we’re not surgical, the Crackleboy ghost will come and everything will fall apart. But, now with Danny kind of quarterbacking everything for us all, that shit is a thing of the past. Now I can use ‘Crackleboys’ as more like stage banter as opposed to having a complete meltdown.”

The other addition is keyboardist Joel Williams, whom Auzmo describes as “playing Final Fantasy 7-style video game 16-bit soundtracks on top of our music. I tell him, ‘I’m not even going to tell you what to play. You don’t have to play the same thing twice. Just get up there and make shit up. If you feel something, just run with it.’”

The four-piece Auz Fontaine completed their second Soda Bar residency in January. The band is currently working on their third album, set for a January 2024 release that will coincide with a planned 2024 Soda Bar residency. “I like playing the same place, so people know where to park,” concludes Auzmo. “All my friends are like, ‘I got the parking dialed.’”