Interview with Ferdk - English

Hi everyone!!

More info HERE. (spanish)

Hi, Ferdk! It has been a little bit difficult to find some personal information about you, such as your birth date or your real name, so I would like to start this interview with a set of quick questions just for our readers to know a little bit about you. 

- What's you real name? 

Fernando


- Birth date?

16th January


- Favourite meal?

No special preferences.


- Favourite city? 

I have not visited too many cities, so I can't give you a justified opinion, but, if I have the chance someday, I would like to know some Japanese cities.


- Favourite colour?

Green But I usually dress in black :P


- Favourite film?

I like plenty of them, but, if I have to choose just one, I would certainly say "The Last Samurai".

- And now, let's start with the questions we all want to ask: Why did you get into the music world? Who brought you in? 

To be true, during my childhood I never was particularly interested in music. In fact, I think that the first time I put my hands on a guitar with the intention of learning how to play it, I was scarcely under 18. If you ask me the reason why, well, it was because a friend of minelet me know Nirvana, and I got fascinated by their songs, so much that I wanted to learn how to play them. I realized then that I don't have a natural ability for this, so it took a really long time until I could play some of them, hahaha.


- Let's talk about your style. How did you find it? Where does it come from? We are a lot of people captivated by it! 

My style in Youtube is really... I don't even know how to describe it, hahaha! In general, I try to do whatever I think will sound good in each song. I like Metal so much, and other metal genres too, such as power metal or symphonic metal. That's why I use their model when I am to make a cover. The song that I am mixing now explains a little bit about the the cover technique itself. My style, then, would be a mix of all those elements; part of it coming from the original composer, part of it coming from the personal influences I have.


- Have you got any kind of musical training? Or have you learnt by yourself?

I learnt by myself from the first moment. But this is something that I hardly recommend. Having a teacher can save a lot of time, because if you learn by yourself, you have to try every single possibility until you find the one that works, and you can spend a lot of time with that. But it also has some advantages: you will never forget something you learnt by yourself; or that's what happens to me, at least. If there is no possibility of having a teacher, I always advise to try to get some information. In this internet era there is a lot of free online information: that was one of the sources I learnt from, too. The advice I would give is not to get stuck in the theory, because it is only when you put it to work when you can really learn.


- Do you think that you could make a living out of music? 

Well, it's something that I wish since I started to make music, and I think that it is possible, but maybe not so likely. For now, I just want to enjoy what I do and make the most of everything that I could find in my way.

- Which bands have inspired you? Who are your models? 

Well, as I said before, Nirvana was the band that inspired me to handle a guitar for the first time, so, even though it is true that I don't listen to their music anymore, they were an important source of inspiration for me. Then, it was a famous Sweeden guitarist called Yngwie Malmsteen who partially introduced me into the instrumental music with guitar. From him I learnt some tricks, scales and some other stuff. From then on, I started to listen to Power Metal bands; they have a strong influence on me, and probably you will notice it in some of my covers. Some of them are Stratovarius, Rhapsody and Sonata Arctica.

But my favourite is Nightwish, a symphonic metal band coming from Finland. I don't know if there are remarkable references to them in my covers, but if I am to write an original album someday, their influence will surely be more outstanding.

Talking about videogame music, my favourite artist is Nobuo Uematsu (the composerr behind Final Fantasy), and I also like film soundtracks, mostly by Hans Zimmer.


- We would like to know your three favourite songs, the three song which have been important for Ferdk's life. 

This is a difficult one, because I have got a lot of songs in mind, but I will name three which blow up my mind since I first listened to them:

 *The Poet and The Pendulum (Nightwish)
 *Aristocrat's Symphony (Versailles -Philharmonic Quintet-)
 *Liberi Fatali (Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy 8 OST)


- When you have to compose... What's the creative process? Because it is necessary to know how to mix covers to make them sound good! 

About the covers, I always try to separate the different tasks of creation: transcribing notes, choosing a topic, making arranges, recording tracks (guitars, bass guitars, etc.), mixing, and so on. All of them are different processes which require different things; that's why I try to divide them. Some of them, such as choosing a topic or making the arrangements, are creative: they need of some inspiration. That's why one can not waste his time when the muse comes, even if you are working in another processes which are more mechanical, such as recording. I try to do everything I consider "work" (transcription, notes, track recording...) when I don't feel creative enough to get into the rest of the tasks. So, when the inspiration comes, I have already get rid of the "hard work" and I can focus just in one task at a time.

I always joke about having an alter-ego for each one of the tasks: each one of them is just capable of doing its work. For example, while the Ferdk who records guitars is working, his mind is not in the mixing, for that is the task that the sound-producer-Ferdk will have to do when he arrives. By facing it this way, you avoid having your mind wandering through many different things at a time, because that is something that can delay, and even obstruct, the process.


- How do you know when the song doesn't need any more arrangements? When is it ready to be released? 
That's a good question. You never really know. I think that, in some way, artistic creations are never "complete", it's just a matter of leaving the work in some moment. In my case, I try to make as much as possible with each cover, as long as I am inspired. When I feel that I am starting to add things without a reason, it means that I am not adding artistic value anymore: then, it is time to release it. Sometimes I put deadlines. In that case, the time I invest in each video is determined. I'm not doing this anymore, but at the end of 2011 I decided to make a cover per week, and I did so for 3 months, for example. Sometimes I felt that I could have done something better with some of those videos, but, on the other hand, it was a good experience in order to learn how to deal with deadlines and stress.


- And about all that process... Tell us, which part of it is the one that you hate the most? 

That's something that has been changing along the time. There was a time when I didn't really fell for recording; later, video-edition seemed so boring to me. I think that today, once I have learnt how to organize the tasks, I have also learnt to enjoy each one of them. But maybe the most annoying part is to choose which song I am going to work with, hahaha! I always have a lot of them in mind, and it is hard to decide.

- A personal question... How does it feel to have 9000 followers in Youtube, not to say the ones who also follow you in other social networks? 

That's something I wondered when I first opened my Youtube account. I thought, how is it for the ones who have people waiting for them to upload a new video? But I never really felt like that. Even today I use Youtube as I have always done: from time to time I upload a video in order to share and know some other opinions, but the most part of the time I spend watching the videos by the people I follow, like any other person. I had the huge luck of befriending a lot of Youtubers who have helped me grow a lot, like FamilyJules7X, CSGuitar89, ArtificialFear, Jam2995, Drpez12, TheDelRe, Bboynoe, LennartAlsing and ToxicxEternity. Knowing that there is people there to share their opinions (whichever they are) with me is something that I value even more than the main number of followers.

But the first time I received international mail it felt a little bit weird. That's when I kind of realized the magnitude of it; it was like breaking the frontier between the virtual world and the real world: let's say that something that I made in the internet had an effect in the "real world", hahaha!

Probably, one of the almost surrealistic things I have been able to do thanks to Youtube caused one of the strong peaks for my channel in 2012: I could make a video with Laura Shigihara! I'm a great fan of her music, and having the chance to make a video with her was awesome, and also so fun! Even some my followers got surprised when they saw her in my channel, because they are also fans of her music.

- Well, moving on to another topics... Have you ever played in the streets or in the subway? And if you have... What was your average earning per day? 

I have never done that, but I would like to, someday. I don't know if I would earn money, but I would like to see the reaction of the people walking on the streets suddenly recognizing (if I'm lucky) the nostalgic songs of those videogames that left a mark in our lives.


- Which other things have you done to earn your living? Jobs, gigs...? 

Musically, I have not done anything professional yet. Maybe someday there could be an audience big enough so as to play live, and I would love to do it, but I mostly enjoy producing. So, before doing any kind of gig, I would probably release an album.


- Would you hesitate if you were asked to support any artist? 

Of course not! Had I a single proposal to present live, I wouldn't hesitate supporting any band, being it from the same music style, of course, because if not the people would be confused, hahaha!

Depending on which project I presented it would be different: were it a music band... well, as I said before, my favourite band is Nightwish, so sharing the stage with them would be an outer-space experience! If we are talking about videogame music, I could maybe support Nobuo Uematsu in some meeting of those he plays in, or maybe a specific festival, such as Video Games Live. But I think that this is too much daydreaming, hahaha!


- And, to finish... Can you tell us which one will be your next cover? What are you working on? 

I have just released in my Youtube channel the cover of Ken, from Street Fighter II. Now it's time to focus on a pending collaboration, and I just have plans of it, nothing definite yet.
Apart from that, I am working on a project that I always wanted to make and I never found time for. But I decided to start it now and build it piece by piece. It is a tribute to the first Final Fantasy game, to my favourite videogame composer, Nobuo Uematsu. The main idea is to take some tracks from that soundtrack (just from the first game) and make a different version of them. They will be mostly the style you already know, but maybe there could be some surprises in the style of some themes. ;)

I would like to thank for the translation to a very nice friend: Sofía Lancho. She's always helping me when I need. Check her blog, please!!
http://jovenesyescritores.wordpress.com/
Click HERE for spanish ver.