As countless punch lines from Rick Astley to Vanilla Ice have learned, it isn’t always easy for a white guy to pull off black music. But there have been exceptions to that reality—hello, Eminem and Jon Spencer—with Los Angeles–based Michael Fitzpatrick being one of the latest.

A long-time behind-the-scenes studio guy who’s worked with everyone from Beck to Ladytron, the man known to his friends as Fitz decided he was ready to step out from the shadows at the end of the ’00s. The singer and his band—who perform as Fitz and the Tantrums—quickly built a reputation as one of the most soul-tastastic acts in La La Land, the hype quickly spreading beyond California. Illustrating that, when Fitzpatrick picks up the phone in L.A., he reveals that he’s monstrously jet-lagged, having flown back from a whirlwind European tour the night before, only to have found himself back on-stage at 7 in the morning.

“We had to perform for the national association of retail merchants —aka Best Buy, Walmart, and Target,” the amiable singer says with a laugh. “It was very, very exciting stuff.”

Or, in other words, the crowd was probably about as white and uptight as the Hamptons. But in a testimony to the power of Fitz and the Tantrums, plenty of corporate ass ended up being shaken on the dance floor.

“There were probably some sticks up there, but they got pulled out,” Fitzpatrick offers. “We got them up and dancing, so it was pretty fun.”

Fun will also do as a starting description for Pickin’ Up the Pieces, the debut disc from Fitz and the Tantrums where the five-piece sounds like a band twice its size. The group often gets filed under old-school soul at finer independent record stores, and, as hot-and-sweaty tracks like “Breakin’ the Chains of Love” prove, that label is sometimes deserved. Pay attention, though, and you’ll find that Fitzpatrick is anything but marooned in an era where soul singers were all about crisply pressed stovepipe suits, skinny black ties, and way too much Brylcreem. The title track rocks a decidedly ’70s AM pop-radio vibe, “Don’t Gotta Work It Out” works an old-school hip-hop vibe, and “L.O.V.” suggests a more than passing familiarity with straight-from-the-garage ’60s paisley pop. Clearly, sounding black isn’t the only thing that Fitzpatrick excels at.

“I have a pretty good handle on aesthetics and sounds from different periods,” the singer suggests. “But I think it was more that we didn’t want to limit ourselves and be like ”˜We have to be a traditional Motown band.’ We didn’t want to make a pastiche. We wanted to say something new about soul music.”

Fitz and the Tantrums play Venue on Monday (May 30).