Californian power-pop/mod-rock outfit The Fantastic Fellinis is the brainchild of Vitta Quinn and Kenneth Wessel.
“I was a musical theater kid,” says Quinn. “When I moved to New York for drama school, I sang in underground bands, danced burlesque, and started working in film/TV. My life in L.A. was all stage and screen acting until I wrote and released the EP Vitta in Vaudeville, realizing music has always been my artistic axis.
“In high school I heard some guys were starting an all Ramones cover band and were looking for a bass player,” adds Wessel. “I’d never played bass but snagged a used one and started woodshedding to Rocket to Russia. It got serious when I started recording and getting radio love with later project Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
The duo came together full-force with the Fellinis. “Spawning from a western movie theme song duet that Kenneth composed, we formed The Fantastic Fellinis as a recording project during lockdown and signed with Germany’s Soundflat Records,” they say. “Introducing The Fantastic Fellinis dropped in 2021, and we went live in 2022 when the world reopened.”
Describing the sound, Wessel says, “The original tag line for our first LP was ‘Ultrasonic Mod/Soul Pop.’ We moved more towards garage and power pop once we started playing live.”
Quinn says that their DIY credentials come from a, “Non-purist attitude, no rules in writing, and genre-bending!”
“Thus far we’ve recorded everything in our home studios, directed our own videos, and created our own artworks,” adds Wessel.
The band’s most recent release is the sophomore DEUX album, but they have more planned.
“We have a cool collaboration with Tony Valentino of The Standells on our present horizon, and a Eurozone tour for The Fantastic Fellinis in our imminent future,” they say.
For more information, visit instagram.com/thefantasticfellinis.
