When they're not covering Blondie, the Fontaines are busy strumming their own tunes. Led by brother and sister Hank and Charlotte Fontaine, the four-piece navigates a brand of energetic music they've deemed "new-wop." Their highly danceable rock is alive with real instrumentation and a steady beat to have listeners pogoing along. It's like the Anaheim-era of No Doubt never ended.

Fresh off the summer release of their four-song EP ii, the quartet are lighting up stages in LA. We chatted with Hank about the band dynamics, what it's like working with family and how they've come to settle in Los Angeles.

Hometown: Texas

Homebase: Los Angeles, CA

How do you describe your sound?

High fashion scum. We like new wave music and we like sweet, '60s pop. Connie Francis with a synthesizer. Well, that sounds like an interesting concept, I don't know if that is very accurate though. So I'm gonna go back to high fashion scum.

What music did you grow up listening to?

I think Charlotte grew up more interested in classic pop rock (Blondie, The Cars, stuff like that), and I love that music, but I also have this fascination with British indie music. The Smiths and Joy Division, the music people refer to as "jangly". But when we were kids, we really bonded over '60s and '70s pop: Sam Cooke, Dusty Springfield, and Van Morrison. (Charlotte bought me Moondance on vinyl as a birthday present while everyone else her age was listening to LMFAO).

What are the pros and cons of collaborating together as siblings?

Pros: we are completely, unreservedly honest with one another.
Cons: we are completely, unreservedly honest with one another.

How did you come to expand the band into a four-piece? How do the added players change the dynamic of the band?

Charlotte and I have been writing together for a few years now. We actually always had other band members, we were just the primary songwriters. But Jason DeMayo and Scott Zimmerman played on our recordings and helped us develop them. They have their own band, Street Joy. Now we play with Chrystian Kaplan (drums) and Daniel Zuker (bass), and they are full-fledged members of the band who help in arranging the songs. We've always been interested in collaboration. And yeah, that is both live and in the studio. I don't think that anybody would particularly enjoy seeing us play as an acoustic duo or something like that. In terms of the band dynamic, I think we both have worked hard to maintain a strong sense of self and conviction, so it usually doesn't really cause problems.

How would you compare and contrast being creative in LA versus Texas?

When you first move to LA, it all feels very exciting. You spot Father John Misty at a coffee shop and it makes success feel much more attainable. After a while, you kind of stop caring about that stuff (and that happens faster than you'd think). Texas feels like more of an inwardly focused society. Except for South by Southwest, haha.

What are your goals both in the present, near future and further ahead?

We want to change the world with our music. I can tell that there is a bubble happening with certain kinds of music, certain genres, and I think that within the next two or three years our culture will shift back towards seeking out rawer sounding music. And we'll be right there, hopefully a couple albums deep. And I'd like to build a signature guitar or effects pedal sometime, but that's more for me.