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🎙️ Episode Summary
In this episode, Tim sits down with Connor Fitzgerald, the drummer, mixing engineer, and occasional pianist for the Berlin-based instrumental outfit Lords of Lounge. Following the May 15, 2026 release of their highly anticipated third album, Lords of Lounge 3, Connor discusses the band’s evolution from an accidental hotel lobby gig to a masterclass in minimalistic, lo-fi recording. They dive deep into the unique production choices behind the new album’s melancholic tone, the magic of dual-guitar interplay, and how a standard pocket wallet serves as an essential studio tool.
🎧 Key Takeaways
- The Power of Negative Space: Lords of Lounge 3 intentional shifts away from the “breezy, anytime-of-day” vibe of their first two records into a more melancholic, atmospheric space where the focus is on playing fewer notes and letting the instruments breathe.
- Recording Straight to Tape: The band prioritizes spontaneity, capturing tracks live in their budget-friendly basement rehearsal room as they are actively composing them, avoiding heavy post-production or over-editing.
- Extreme Production Experiments: From setting up a completely un-miked secondary drum kit across the room for a 1950s Americana vibe (Debra) to dripping spring reverb on everything (Water Temple), the album embraces lo-fi experimentation.
- The Interplay Synergy: A core pillar of the band’s sound is the immediate, uncalculating musical chemistry between guitarists Dirk Berger and Boti Ikvai-Szabó, whose distinct styles seamlessly lock together.
⏱️ Timestamps
- [00:00] Introduction – Tim introduces Connor Fitzgerald and sets the stage for the sonic world of Lords of Lounge 3.
- [01:16] From Australia to Berlin – Connor shares his 10-year journey as an expat musician and falling into the Berlin session scene.
- [02:57] The Accidental Birth of the Band – How a last-minute hotel lobby gig at the Hotel Orania in 2021 birthed the Lords of Lounge.
- [04:30] The Melancholic Shift of Album 3 – Exploring the minimalist, emotionally deep concept behind the new record.
- [05:41] The Lo-Fi Recording Process – Composing and tracking straight to tape inside a messy basement rehearsal room.
- [07:44] Track Breakdown: Red Riviera & Juan-les-Pins – Diving into the opening tracks and discussing the electronic remix by LUFFT.
- [10:20] Sonic Extremes: Airlock & Debra – How the band manipulated mic distances to achieve drastically different drum textures.
- [11:41] Drum Secrets & The Snare Wallet – Connor reveals his practical, old-school dampening techniques (towels, shirts, and a wallet).
- [13:31] Guitar Chemistry on Low – Analyzing the seamless melodic puzzle pieces created by the band’s two guitarists.
- [16:31] Thomas’s Bassline & Connor’s Piano Gag – Celebrating bassist Thomas Stieger and the spontaneous studio piano outro on The Beginning.
- [18:33] Playing Guitars Upside Down – The ethos of experimentation on the final track, The Long Goodbye.
- [19:37] Spring Reverb on Water Temple – How the “dripping” sound of vintage spring reverb inspired an entire song structure.
- [20:30] The Mixing Philosophy – Connor explains how less processing allowed for more creative mixing choices.
- [22:15] 2026 Tour & Looking Ahead to Album 4 – Balancing family life with upcoming tour dates and a sneak peek into their massive unreleased archive.
🔗 Links
- Bandcamp: lordsoflounge.bandcamp.com
- Instagram: @lordsoflounge
- YouTube: @lordsoflounge
📃 Transcript
Tim Smal [host]: Hi everyone, and welcome back to the show. My name is Tim Smal. Today, we are diving deep into the sonic world of one of the most exciting instrumental bands operating right now, Lords of Lounge. Based out of Berlin, they blend 1960s easy listening, surf rock, and contemporary R&B into something entirely their own. They just dropped their stunning third album, Lords of Lounge 3, which takes their signature sound into a more melancholic, deeply emotional territory. And today, we have the man holding down the foundation of that sound. He’s not just the drummer keeping the groove alive, he’s also the mixing engineer shaping their raw recorded-straight-to-tape energy. And occasionally, he even steps out to play some piano. Please welcome to the show, Connor Fitzgerald.
Connor Fitzgerald [guest]: Thanks a lot, Tim. Thanks for having me.
Tim [0:54]: Yeah, welcome to the show. Great to have you here today. I’m excited to chat to you about your new record. But first things first, I believe you are an Australian musician living in Berlin, Germany for about 10 years, and you’re involved in music production, mixing, recording, writing, and touring. So I’m keen to hear a little bit about what that journey has been like for you.
Connor [01:16]: Sure. Well, yeah, that is right. About 10 years ago, I came to Berlin, just followed a girl here, the classic story. But we’re still together, we’re married now, and we’ve made a life for ourselves here. And the journey of any new place, you try and make it work, you go out and meet people. And I had a pretty good run, I guess, got pretty lucky, and found work pretty quickly, and met a bunch of good musicians, and kind of fell into the session world, just like backing up all kinds of different artists. And that’s where the other guys in the band are all part of this same world as well.
Tim [01:58]: Amazing. Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ve had such a good time in Berlin. I actually visited for the first time in 2024, just for about five days to visit my friend. But I would say my top three highlights were going up The TV Tower, seeing Smashing Pumpkins live at Parkbühne Wuhlheide, and singing some karaoke with my friend Drew at Poison Rock Bar.
Connor [02:20]: Very good. Smashing Pumpkins would have been huge at that venue. Yeah.
Tim [02:24]: Yeah, during their song Cherub Rock, I was really enjoying myself. And one of the Germans behind me turned to me and said, “Oh, I can see you’re having a lot of fun. Where are you from?”
Connor [02:38]: Yeah. You’re having too much fun to be German. You must be a foreigner.
Tim [02:44]: Yeah, it was a great show. So I’m really interested to hear more about how the band Lords of Lounge came together as, I believe you formed in 2021 when a last-minute hotel lobby gig came up?
Connor [02:57]: That’s right. Yeah, that’s our story. We were just thrown together. In fact, it wasn’t even really by choice. We were just playing a lobby gig in the wake of COVID. Basically, all of our work in the previous year or 18 months had been canceled, and it was just starting to open up. You could just start to play live again. And this hotel called Orania, they set up a nice little night actually back in the day where they had regular live music, and we were just a part of that, just getting together and jamming, playing kind of background music. Yeah, and that’s how we started. We all knew each other from different projects. We’d all met, but we hadn’t played together in that form at all before.
Tim [03:43]: Yeah. I see Lords of Lounge have got a live concert on YouTube, titled Live at Orania, which was actually your first gig ever.
Connor [03:52]: Yeah, the first gig as a band. I guess we had jammed in this hotel technically before, but that was just a session thing. We weren’t calling ourselves a band. And shortly after that, we decided to make something of it. And then that was the first official gig we played, yeah.
Tim [04:10]: Nice. Well, folks, if you haven’t had a chance to see Lords of Lounge perform live, definitely go onto YouTube and watch either their video Live at Orania or Live at The Famous Goldwatch. These are two fantastic concerts of theirs that both celebrate the launch of their debut album, Lords of Lounge, from 2023.
Connor [04:29]: Yeah, thanks.
Tim [04:30]: Now, Connor, the first two Lords of Lounge albums were celebrated for being breezy, “anytime of day” records, but the new album, Lords of Lounge 3, features a noticeably more melancholic and emotionally deep atmosphere. Can you tell me more about the tone of the new record that’s just come out?
Connor [04:50]: Sure. Well, that’s a pretty good description of it. Yeah, I mean, we just got even more kind of minimalistic, I guess, as we were recording. I couldn’t tell you why, but that’s just sort of where we ended up going with the new album. The less we played, the bigger it could sound, just sort of really pushing the idea of how little you can get away with in terms of how many notes you play and how much space each instrument has. ‘Cos you try and make it a little bit coherent, the whole album, and if we were doing these big, slower, more atmospheric songs, it just didn’t seem right to then play really funky grooves or something right next to that. So we just committed to that concept a little bit for this album.
Tim [05:41]: Great. And in terms of how you’ve been writing and recording your songs, I believe the band records straight to tape while composing at the same time. So tell me more about this process, have you been able to use this approach for all three of the albums?
Connor [05:57]: Yeah. Well, that was always the concept for us was just to commit to things straight away. We would get in the room, hash out the basic structural form of a song, and as soon as it was ready, everything’s already set up, ready to go, and we just have to hit record and can do a take as soon as the song is more or less, well, not even completely written all the time. Some of it’s even a bit spontaneous and a bit improvised, but as soon as the raw structure is there, we just hit start and record that way. Yeah.
Tim [06:34]: Amazing. And you mentioned to me that you’ve recorded almost everything in a basement rehearsal room. Of course, you’re the mix engineer, so you have intimate knowledge of this process. But before we dive into the tracks, tell me more about what it’s been like to record in this kind of lo-fi way in your rehearsal room, because the tone of the records are just incredible.
Connor [06:56]: Thanks. That’s a very nice compliment and I appreciate it. But yeah, we’re definitely recording in a very budget-friendly way. I mean, it’s just a basement rehearsal room, not set up as a studio at all. I mean, you can see in some of the videos how it looks. It’s just this kind of messy, full of instruments everywhere and a few mics thrown around. We’re not very strict or fancy with our recording techniques, but I think that’s also a little bit of the magic. I mean, for us anyway, that’s what makes us enjoy the process is that you can sort of feel the space that you’re in. You can feel that you’re in a room together. It doesn’t feel overproduced. It feels very live and very kind of real, I guess, for lack of a better word.
Tim [07:44]: Great. Okay, well, let’s talk about some of the tracks on the album now. You’re a four-piece band, so Connor, you’re on drums and piano, and of course, the mix engineer. We’ve got Dirk Berger on guitar, who I believe plays mostly the Fender Strat, and then Boti Ikvai-Szabó on guitar, playing mostly the Gibson, and Thomas Stieger on bass. So the first track on the record, Red Riviera, this is quite a big track. You’ve recorded a nice live version on YouTube where you were playing at Shtadttheater Landsberg. So tell me more about the opening track.
Connor [08:16]: Yeah. Well, it’s just a sort of pretty, almost a classic kind of like minor, very simple minor chords. And that was one of the first examples we had of the approach we had to the new album, which is just very simple. There is not fancy chords. It’s just giving everything a lot of space and allowing, especially Dirk on that track, his strat sound really gets to breathe and shine a lot. I feel like he nailed that take, I really do. I really do like his sound on that track.
Tim [08:57]: Nice. And I believe there’s another artist by the name of LUFFT, who have done a remix of this track. It’s recently been released.
Connor [09:04]: Yeah, that’s right. It’s a totally different approach. It’s got sort of electronic drums and DJ-type of things, and it’s a lot more edited and produced. But I like it. It’s interesting.
Tim [09:16]: Yeah. I’m almost thinking that perhaps someone in the future could do a whole album of remixes of your tracks, right?
Connor [09:22]: Well, yeah. We’ve had a few requests for that kind of thing. Like we’re not fussy about that. If someone asks for the stems or things, we’ll hand them out. If people want to experiment, then yeah, just get in touch and go for it.
Tim [09:35]: Awesome. Okay. And the second track, Juan-les-Pins, is a sonic tribute to the atmosphere and the history of Juan-les-Pins, a famous town on the French Riviera, which has been a glamorous Mediterranean playground since the 1920s.
Connor [09:51]: That’s right.
Tim [09:53]: So tell me more about that.
Connor [09:54]: Oh, well, you’ll have to ask the other guys in the band about that because that was their sonic inspiration, to be honest. Not my song or my title idea, but I like to think that the sound of that captures something about, at least the images that I have seen of the place. I’ve never been there, but maybe somebody else can tell us if we’ve captured that or not.
Tim [10:20]: Cool. Yeah. And this is definitely a very chilled album. Juan-les-Pins is a super chilled track. The next two, Airlock and Debra, are also very chilled tracks. So do you want to tell me a little bit more about those two?
Connor [10:34]: Yeah, sure. Debra is a funny one because that was more like going for this really, really classic, almost like 50s Americana kind of sound. And from a production standpoint, that one had a few interesting things going on. We wanted to try and get like a more roomy, distant kind of drum sound. The way that I tend to produce and mix my own drums is everything being pretty close and playing softly but putting everything right up in your face. But that particular track, we used a second drum kit that was set up in the room but not actually miked up. The drums were just off at the other end of the room and recording using just the room mics, no mics on those drums whatsoever, just off in the distance. And Airlock is the complete opposite approach. That’s like everything’s super, super close and really, really quite heavily compressed in your face and everything. But yeah, two examples of the extremes of production that we used.
Tim [11:41]: All right. Well, let’s talk about the drums for a moment because I noticed on your live concerts on YouTube that you use some interesting items on your drums. So for example, I see that you’re covering some of the drums with some material and I also noticed your wallet on one of the drums. So I was wondering if that’s used to kind of dampen the sound. Also, if you’re trying to achieve a particular sound, because when I watch those live videos, the drums just sound incredible like on the album.
Connor [12:10]: Well, thanks. I am not the world’s most technical drummer or anything, but I do care a lot about sound. That’s where I really focus my energy into trying to make them sound good in the room and in the space and record well as well. That is a big focus of mine, so I’m very pleased if it comes across that way. With the towels and old shirts and things like that, that’s just classic. I mean, it goes all the way back to when recording drums began, back to The Beatles and everything, just to deaden the sound and make them not ring out. And the same goes with the wallet on the snare drum. That’s just a classic thing if you don’t want it to be sort of pingy. I often want a snare drum to be a little more kind of shorter sounding and not ring out too much. A wallet is not quite as muffled as putting a shirt or a tea towel on it, but it’s a little less ringy than if you just leave it completely open.
Tim [13:14]: Well, I’m glad to know that the wallet was intentional, or should I say the use of the wallet was intentional?
Connor [13:20]: Yeah. Well, you always have it on you. You’ve always got it in your pocket. It’s a good little dampening tool that hopefully you’re not going to lose, because if you lose it, you have other problems.
Tim [13:31]: Yeah. It seems like you guys are really having fun playing in Lords of Lounge. When you watch the videos, you can see everyone’s really into it. They’re feeling the groove. They’ve got smiles on their face. It’s just a really big passion project of a lot of fun and good times. I really feel those vibrations. So the fifth track, Low, this is actually one of my personal favorites on the new album. It’s got such a catchy riff, and the combination of Dirk and Boti’s guitar work is fantastic. The two guitars kind of come together beautifully in the chorus, right?
Connor [14:03]: Thanks. Thomas will be pleased, that’s his favorite track. It’s got a pretty distinct bass line as well. That was all he’s doing, of course. What would you like to know about the song?
Tim [14:15]: Well, I’m quite interested to know how they came up with such a catchy riff, because on closer inspection, of course, both of those guitars are contributing to this riff, which in a sense almost sounds like one guitar, which is quite an achievement because it sounds like this very distinctive melody. But when you listen closely, of course, there are two guitars that are contributing together in the chorus to create this very distinctive melody. So do you have any information on how they actually wrote those two parts together?
Connor [14:44]: That is a good question. I don’t know specifically with that song, but you’ve nailed a very big concept of the band in general is kind of the interplay between those two guys. And that was honestly the thing that grabbed us even at that very first spontaneous hotel gig, was just the way the two of them did not get in each other’s way and complemented each other’s sound. I mean, I hope this is how it comes across. That’s how it feels to me. And yeah, because so often when you work with somebody who has the same instrument as you, it can happen so easily and so quickly that you just get in each other’s way and really have to work hard to make your sounds complement each other. Not just what you play, but also your choice of sound and your choice of maybe effects or whatever. And Dirk and Boti, you really do have, I would say, very, very different approaches to the guitar, but somehow they’re just very complimentary. And that was kind of clear from even the first minute of jamming together. You know, just kind of locked into place like the roles that they would end up having in the band without ever discussing it or really sort of intellectualizing it.
Tim [16:06]: Yeah, I love the way you described that. As a guitarist myself, it’s definitely something that stands out to me about the band, is just this beautiful interplay between the two guitarists. It just sounds very natural. Of course, they’re very creative and they’re just bringing this incredible synergy to Lords of Lounge. And perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I’m so excited about the band.
Connor [16:26]: Well, thanks. Yeah, they’ll be very happy to hear that.
Tim [16:31]: Well, let’s shine a light on Thomas, the bass player, because on the next track, the sixth track on the album, which is called The Beginning, he really gets to shine on bass guitar on this one because the track has got a driving rhythm with another catchy guitar melody where you almost want to whistle along. So I love the fact that the guitar bit escalates fast, but very much driven by this bass playing, right?
Connor [16:56]: Steady bass playing, sure. Yeah, well, I mean, I’m biased, of course, but Thomas for me is really one of the best bass players out there, at least in Germany, you know? And I think even his record as a session player kind of attests to that, you know, he’s very, very in demand, and has worked with everybody you can imagine. And yeah, he never makes a mistake. He’s always got a good sound. His tracks never need any work in post-production. I mean, we don’t really edit things at all anyway, but you know, his tracks just kind of sit perfectly. He’s the consummate professional bass player.
Tim [17:35]: Yeah, and another interesting thing about this track, The Beginning, is that you actually play some piano on this track. The folks can check it out if they go and visit the video on YouTube, because I even noticed that there’s a comment on your YouTube video where one of the viewers says,”At first, I thought Connor was going to dance. Magnificent.”
Connor [17:56]: Yeah. That’s a good example of the kind of spontaneous things that happened in the studio. We had this space for an outro and thought it would be fun to add piano at the end. The piano was sitting there in the studio, the mics were already on it. That’s just the kind of thing we do. We’ve had one opportunity now at a gig where there was a grand piano on the stage. Coincidentally, we’re not going to order a piano or bring one, or bring a keyboard or anything just for that one sort of gag. But one gig we played, there was already a piano, so I could recreate that a little bit and have some fun with it.
Tim [18:33]: Great. Well, I’m glad to hear that you’re getting to play different instruments on the album. I’m wondering what you’re going to be playing on Lords of Lounge 4, maybe a xylophone. Who knows?
Connor [18:41]: Well, I do… in the very last song as well. I play an upside down nylon string guitar on the last song as well. The Long Goodbye is the song. We all just sat around in a circle around a single microphone, and I just picked up one of Dirk’s guitars, but I’m left-handed, so I played it upside down.
Tim [18:59]: Okay, yeah, I guess that’s part of the Lords of Lounge ethos, right? A lot of spontaneity and experimentation.
Connor [19:05]: That’s what we’re all about. And the whole point of this project was just to do something that is entirely ours, because we all work for so many other people all the time as a job. And so when we get together, there are no real rules, there’s no management, there’s no label, there’s no artist telling us what to do. That’s the kind of the joy that we have in the project is just to be able to experiment and muck around even if it maybe doesn’t succeed. Even if it’s terrible, we can just be free to do it.
Tim [19:37]: Amazing. Now, track number eight, Water Temple, another one of my favorites, a really emotive, moody track. Tell me more about how this one came together.
Connor [19:48]: I think the spark for that was literally the watery spring reverb on everything. I’m very, very liberal with spring reverb as an effect, and so are the guys on their guitars. But even in that track, especially it’s on the snare drum, it’s on the drums and everything, and it has this kind of… well, that’s the cliché is that it has this drip sound of the reverb, so the song was really born from having the basis of the whole track, the groove of the whole track was kind of this bouncy dripping of the reverb.Tim [20:30]: Awesome. It’s been great learning more about tracks on the album. So I’m keen to hear a little bit more about what the process of mixing the record was like for you.
Connor [20:40]: Sure. What would you like to know?
Tim [20:43]: Well, first off, did you mix all three of the records?
Connor [20:47]: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’ve always done that. Yeah.
Tim [20:51]: Okay. So what has your experience been like mixing the third record compared to the previous two?
Connor [20:57]: I guess a little bit… I mean, like I was saying, just kind of pushing how much space I can get away with. That was our approach musically, like in terms of our writing and our arrangements, we were always pulling things back and giving things more room to breathe. And I would say mixing wise, I was doing the same thing. I was maybe processing things a little bit less for this new album. I mean, I’m fairly heavy-handed with things like tape saturation and compression and things like this. Like I’m not afraid to get a bit wild with my processing. But with the third album, I’ve used less processing overall and maybe some certain reverbs and things. I would just like let them ring out even longer, you know, to create this space. Because the arrangements themselves were less busy, so you could sort of do more with the mix. You had more space for the actual mix itself to be a little bit creative there.
Tim [22:02]: Nice. Yeah, it sounds like a very exciting process to mix the album after all the hard work to see it all come together in the final stages, right?
Connor [22:09]: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I really love mixing. It’s one of my favorite things to do, you know? Yeah.Tim [22:15]: Amazing. And I’m sure you’re excited to take these songs on the road. You have a couple of shows coming up this year in 2026. I know a lot of the guys in the band have got kids and other commitments, but are you excited to hit the road, at least in Europe, to play a couple of shows?
Connor [22:31]: Of course. Yeah, look, we’re happy to play anytime, and we’d love to get out there more. We try to keep realistic about these things. We’re not taking over the world, we’re a very small band. We’re still pretty unknown, but we’ll take gigs that come anytime and happily travel around and things. So we enjoy that a lot.
Tim [22:52]: Great. Well, I’m definitely going to tell my friends in Berlin to come and check you out when you’re playing there, right?
Connor [22:56]: Yeah, please, thank you. October 10th, I have to look it up, but some time in October.
Tim [23:03]: Yeah, all the dates are up there on Instagram, so go check it out. And I know it’s early to be speaking about another record, but what are the plans for Lords of Lounge 4?
Connor [23:13]: We’re always recording, and we have a pretty serious backlog of stuff that we could already release. We have another two albums worth of material sitting there, but we just try to space it out a little bit, and in June, especially, we’ve got sessions booked again. We’re going to be spending some time and working on the new music, whatever form that takes. I’m sure it’ll be a new album eventually, but we have to take our time. You can’t just completely shoot out the music like confetti. It’s best to space it out a little bit.
Tim [23:46]: Yeah, well, I’m very excited to have a new Lords of Lounge record. Of course, it was released May 15th, 2026. So folks, go check out the new record, it’s absolutely fantastic. And if you can catch them live on their tour in 2026, it’ll be a real treat. So go and buy a ticket and say hi to the guys. Connor, it’s been absolutely awesome to have you on the show today. Any final words for the Lords of Lounge fans around the world?
Connor [24:11]: Yeah, thanks a lot, Tim. Just we’re delighted at the response that we’re getting, and people writing to us or messaging us, we absolutely love that. Keep it up, and we’re very grateful. We hope to see you at a show sometime.
Tim [24:27]: Great, Connor. I look forward to catching you guys live in the future. So if I’m ever in town, I’ll let you know. But thanks again for joining me today, and all the best for the new record and the tour.
Connor [24:37]: Thanks a lot, Tim. See you later.