Becoming who you’re supposed to be is no easy task. Self-discovery doesn’t happen in a vacuum; humans change in tandem with everyone around them. And evolution always comes with trade-offs. Sometimes a romantic relationship or deep friendship survives these changes and takes on a new shape; at other times, they become irrevocably broken. The aftermath is just as imperfect: Grief and loss can stall momentum just as easily as they open doors to unexpected new connections.
The complexity of this entire process—and what we’ll tolerate along the way—dominates Tolerance, the debut full-length from FIGHTMASTER, the solo moniker of Queer artist and advocate E.R. Fightmaster. “Tolerance is the most deliberate thing I’ve ever done,” they say. “Every song has a goal. There are no random songs. I feel warm and soft about the album in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt about a piece of my art before.”
For starters, when Fightmaster started writing lyrics for Tolerance, they drew from their own life experiences, analyzing them through the lens of hindsight and perspective. “Every song that I write is in some way a personal experience, but here I was mining a broader understanding of patterns throughout a lifetime: patterns of loving different people, patterns of watching my friends love each other,” they say. “All of us do a relatively graceless job, but all the patterns are the same, which is endearing to me.”
This exercise led Fightmaster in varied directions: referencing the story of the Greek hero Theseus to illustrate emotional distance and heartache (the waltzing “Minotaur”), writing music that reflects a deep-seated love for the nostalgia of Fountains of Wayne’s “Radiation Vibe” (“Quicksand”) or penning lyrics that excoriate both cheating husbands and overbearing immigration authorities (“Rumble”).
But Tolerance is dominated by raw, unvarnished lyrics that reflect the complexities—some might say messiness—of emotional growth and attempts to find equilibrium. “I wanted to break through more personally on this album,” Fightmaster says. “I really wanted to give people a part of myself. So I didn’t walk into Tolerance with a character to portray. I would decide that a song felt good if it hurt a little bit. There had to be this real truth to it. And that requires a lack of wall between self and the audience.”
For example, “Press Release” comes from the point of view of someone who isn’t thrilled to find out an ex has a less-than-flattering post-relationship story, but refuses to give into recrimination and wishes them no ill will. The song emerged from Fightmaster watching friends go through breakups and observing that these splits inevitably ended in one person from the relationship being labeled a villain.
“At the time, I could barely tolerate being the villain in my ex’s story, because I thought, ‘That’s not true. We loved each other. It doesn’t have to be this way,’” they explain. “But then I thought about the grace required to let someone leave with whatever story they need to survive the leaving. If I just tolerated it instead, could I move through it more gracefully?”
The cinnamon-warm, acoustic folk number “Versailles” was “probably the most self-aware song I’d written up to that point in my life,” they say. “It’s an adult moment of understanding everyone’s doing their best. And if you look hard at unhealthy situations, it is very rare that you are not participating in it in some way. That’s tough to admit to yourself, because no one wants to say, ‘Wait a second, I’m the one making this worse.’”
The dusky, keyboard-lush opening track “Move Through” is likewise the “heart of the album,” Fightmaster adds. Not only does the song feature their favorite lyric (“How many ways can we set each other free?”) but the underlying concept (“We can be together, but we’re going to have to grow simultaneously, which is going to be fucking painful”) speaks directly to Tolerance’s concept and themes.
“The real gift of our path to becoming is these moments where we figure out the line between what we can and cannot tolerate,” they explain. “When I sat down and let all of the things that I thought I could not tolerate move through me, I found out I could tolerate them. I feel like a different person at the end of this album than I did at the beginning, and I think that is because ‘Move Through’ was constantly in my brain.”
In the lead-up to Tolerance, Fightmaster, who first came into the public eye for their work in TV shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Shrill, built a studio in their house that replicated a particularly fertile creative space from a previous apartment: a cozy closet. (“God bless my keys player Gage, we were here for weeks moving furniture around because I had to feel like I did in the closet.”) They also learned how to use Logic and sharpened their engineering techniques. “It felt like leveling up in a creative way,” they explain. “I never have wanted to do the technical part of things, but when you’re trying to be creative, you have to set up a space that goes beyond what a loop station can do.”
On Tolerance, Fightmaster also wanted to work with more producers than they did in the past. “This album was one of the most collaborative things I’ve ever done,” they say. “I’m really spearheading it with the songwriting. But this album doesn’t get made without the help of a lot of creative people.” Among them was Riley Geare, who helmed the 2024 FIGHTMASTER EPs Violence and Bloodshed Baby and brought adventurous sonics to the blocky, deconstructed baroque gem “Rumble” and sinewy “Glide.” The latter uses a 1980s synthesizer called the Vermona known for its inconsistency to illustrate uninhibited lyrics. “That one is so deeply horny, I blush when I listen to it,” Fightmaster admits of the song.
Elsewhere, they enlisted Casey Kalmensen, an artist who records as Little Monarch and plays keyboards for Gracie Abrams. “There was always such a positive creative space with her. Casey became somebody that I started to text to ask, ‘Will you come to the studio for other recordings? I need your energy.’” They also found a kindred creative spirit in Gabe Goodman, who Fightmaster wanted to work with because he produced “Ode to A Conversation” by Del Water Gap. “Gabe and I worked back and forth for a long time on every song, making adjustments that got it closer to becoming,” they say. “I’m very grateful to him for that. I couldn’t have made this album without Gabe Goodman.”
As an example, they cite the propulsive lead single “All Or Nothing,” a brisk synth rocker with taut grooves. The narrator is full of bluster, challenging a partner to dare to imagine the future. However, the lyrics are delightfully ambiguous: Does the other person want to stay in the relationship, or is the narrator just expressing wishful thinking? “It’s such a dramatic bluff,” Fightmaster says. “When I wrote it, I wanted this bravado attack. Like, here’s the fucking synth, here’s the beat. It’s all these 16th notes. I love this one because we really went hard. Gabe found a lot of really cool sounds for this one.”
Fightmaster stresses that the album’s lyrics primarily arise from thoughtful analysis of accumulated life experiences across many years, not current events. “Those songs are really about all the people that have taught me something because I loved them,” they say. “And I would not have had the space to gently perceive myself if I had not had this space created for me by someone who’s loving me very responsibly.”
“Of course, there’s an immediacy to every album,” they add. “But I’ve already processed the things that I’m singing about, so I feel comfortable handing the ideas over. In contrast, when I was putting music out a couple years ago, I didn’t feel comfortable giving the audience a true snippet of self. I feel much less need for protection on this.”
The artistic clarity Fightmaster exhibits throughout Tolerance is also a reflection of their own self-awareness about their place in the world, musical and otherwise. “I have to have such a clear understanding of self all the time because I’m a public figure,” they say. “And I’m not just a public figure in a celebrity way—I’m a public figure in a very queer way, and I’ve always taken that responsibility seriously. I don’t feel comfortable being reckless anymore. I don’t feel comfortable getting drunk in public, I don’t feel comfortable not going to therapy; I don’t feel comfortable not taking my antidepressants. I don’t feel comfortable blaming other people for my bad behavior.
“I’m one of a very small group of people that has to stand as a pillar for a lot of little guys that are on their path to becoming,” they continue. “Nonbinary people and trans people have so few elders. I’m not an elder yet; I haven’t earned it. But I have taken on an understanding that that’s the path that I’m on.”
That doesn’t mean Fightmaster has life completely figured out, they’re quick to add. In fact, there’s a very good reason Tolerance’s songs brim with so much empathy, both for the narrators and other people.
“I feel much more comfortable being very grounded and I’m willing to be a little self-deprecating,” they say. “I want people to know that there’s still cracks in the pavement; I want them to feel safe with me. I’ve always thought of myself as so tough, but in the last couple of years I had to realize that I get my feelings hurt every day. There’s not a day that passes without me feeling mortally wounded.
“When I realized how much kid-heartbreak is still in there, even though I’ve been to all the therapy and I’m on the perfect amount of medication, I was able to write these songs with more kindness for myself than I ever had.”
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