Fredo Viola Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as an artist?
A: I’ve been a bit of a hybrid artist since I was a child. For one incredibly sado-masochistic year I was full time in a professional boy’s choir. I studied filmmaking at Tisch NYU but had spent an equal amount of time and energy passionately listening to tons of music… gospel, jazz, some pop and especially a lot of modern orchestral music at night with a good set of headphones. It was always such a relief and pleasure to disappear into those vivid worlds. When I got out of school I wrote a very ambitious screenplay, but didn’t feel I had the ego-security to raise the millions to make it. So I devoted myself to the much more private, freely adventurous art form of music. Since then, “film” equipment has become much more affordable and I am wandering back towards that original dream.
Q: What was your recording process like for My New Head?
A: My New Head really just spilled out of me over the winter of 2018. I’d get an idea for a melody, record it into my phone, and then go on long walks during which I’d challenge its form and grow it into a composition that I found satisfying. Lyrics came simultaneously, which is not often the case for me, as did the whole format of the album. Anyway, I spent 2018 recording very elaborate demos. After a successful 2019 Kickstarter Campaign I had the money, for the very first time, to choose engineers and studios to record most of the instruments, now with real (and mighty talented) instrumentalists. The last stage was the mix process and that, honestly, was pretty hardcore in difficulty. I get very obsessive, and have zero engineering background, so it’s a lot of tweaking. Actually “Waiting for Seth,” despite being a very short song, was tweaked for over a year with over 160 previous mixes!
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: Honestly, it’s just about keeping calm and going at it with a kind of un-needy attitude towards discovering the songs. I am obsessed with melody, and with the idea that a good melody comes from a place outside yourself, kind of similar to the place dreams come from - maybe from the unconscious, but certainly a collective one. A great melody is similarly difficult to capture intact as it is to remember the uncanny details of a dream. I find it’s best to keep physically active, either with a walk or doing some kind of thoughtless physical chore, to be able to connect and keep connected on that instinctual level to the music as you experience and imagine it.
Q: Can you talk about your history as an artist?
A: I’ve been a bit of a hybrid artist since I was a child. For one incredibly sado-masochistic year I was full time in a professional boy’s choir. I studied filmmaking at Tisch NYU but had spent an equal amount of time and energy passionately listening to tons of music… gospel, jazz, some pop and especially a lot of modern orchestral music at night with a good set of headphones. It was always such a relief and pleasure to disappear into those vivid worlds. When I got out of school I wrote a very ambitious screenplay, but didn’t feel I had the ego-security to raise the millions to make it. So I devoted myself to the much more private, freely adventurous art form of music. Since then, “film” equipment has become much more affordable and I am wandering back towards that original dream.
Q: What was your recording process like for My New Head?
A: My New Head really just spilled out of me over the winter of 2018. I’d get an idea for a melody, record it into my phone, and then go on long walks during which I’d challenge its form and grow it into a composition that I found satisfying. Lyrics came simultaneously, which is not often the case for me, as did the whole format of the album. Anyway, I spent 2018 recording very elaborate demos. After a successful 2019 Kickstarter Campaign I had the money, for the very first time, to choose engineers and studios to record most of the instruments, now with real (and mighty talented) instrumentalists. The last stage was the mix process and that, honestly, was pretty hardcore in difficulty. I get very obsessive, and have zero engineering background, so it’s a lot of tweaking. Actually “Waiting for Seth,” despite being a very short song, was tweaked for over a year with over 160 previous mixes!
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: Honestly, it’s just about keeping calm and going at it with a kind of un-needy attitude towards discovering the songs. I am obsessed with melody, and with the idea that a good melody comes from a place outside yourself, kind of similar to the place dreams come from - maybe from the unconscious, but certainly a collective one. A great melody is similarly difficult to capture intact as it is to remember the uncanny details of a dream. I find it’s best to keep physically active, either with a walk or doing some kind of thoughtless physical chore, to be able to connect and keep connected on that instinctual level to the music as you experience and imagine it.
Q: What are some of the themes that are touched upon your release My New Head?
A: Vanity, selfishness, anger, hatefulness... all the things I’d recently realized (thanks to the eating of a first magic mushroom) that I’d soaked into myself and were weighing me down. The overwhelming theme of the album is honesty, rebirth and creative freedom.
Q: What are some of the challenges you have encountered as musician when dealing with a world that focuses more and more on the attention economy?
A: All of the above, ha! Yes, vanity, selfishness and the natural self-hatred that forms as you realize you are focusing on things that are way too shallow and meaningless for far too much of your day! Although I owe the birth of my career to the Internet, I am at odds with social media, streaming media and the (IMO) horrible effect it’s had on the artist/audience relationship. I truly do wrestle daily with just giving up all of my social media feeds. The other side though is that I’ve met so many amazing artists up in social media land. It’s really too bad... it certainly could be a garden of delights, but due to corporate involvement and focus on marketing it has become a kind of horrendously shallow landscape.
Q: Does hearing your release on vinyl feel different than listening digitally?
A: Absolutely. And to be honest, the first reason why I wanted to release on vinyl was just for the kind of listening habits record-loving people have, far preferable in my opinion! But in the beginning I assumed there would be some small bit of loss... when the test acetate arrived, and the music I’d been listening to over and over in digital for a year and half played now on vinyl, it felt quite superior! First of all, it has an actual physical presence, not the abbreviation of one. That aspect may be subtle, but really it’s not, it’s rather substantial. A well-made and well-mastered record has actual body! Secondly, the dynamics are intact, so it gets quieter and louder and that makes a big emotional impact. Thirdly... it is attached to the magic talisman called a record... a thing of beauty into which the owner can beam their thoughts and feelings. Maybe you love it (the talisman lights up with warmth and energy) maybe you hate it (it emanates an evil stink and you are tempted to crack it into pieces before burying it in the garbage). But I love that intensity.
Q: What else should we know about you as an artist and your music?
A: Not much more. I think my work perhaps requires repeated listens to get all the stuff I’ve put into it. I also make my own videos and have done so professionally for quite a long time, so there’s a lot out there to take in, if you like my material. I recommend listening with good headphones or monitors from start to finish. My New Head is also somewhat short, so what do you have to lose?
A: Vanity, selfishness, anger, hatefulness... all the things I’d recently realized (thanks to the eating of a first magic mushroom) that I’d soaked into myself and were weighing me down. The overwhelming theme of the album is honesty, rebirth and creative freedom.
Q: What are some of the challenges you have encountered as musician when dealing with a world that focuses more and more on the attention economy?
A: All of the above, ha! Yes, vanity, selfishness and the natural self-hatred that forms as you realize you are focusing on things that are way too shallow and meaningless for far too much of your day! Although I owe the birth of my career to the Internet, I am at odds with social media, streaming media and the (IMO) horrible effect it’s had on the artist/audience relationship. I truly do wrestle daily with just giving up all of my social media feeds. The other side though is that I’ve met so many amazing artists up in social media land. It’s really too bad... it certainly could be a garden of delights, but due to corporate involvement and focus on marketing it has become a kind of horrendously shallow landscape.
Q: Does hearing your release on vinyl feel different than listening digitally?
A: Absolutely. And to be honest, the first reason why I wanted to release on vinyl was just for the kind of listening habits record-loving people have, far preferable in my opinion! But in the beginning I assumed there would be some small bit of loss... when the test acetate arrived, and the music I’d been listening to over and over in digital for a year and half played now on vinyl, it felt quite superior! First of all, it has an actual physical presence, not the abbreviation of one. That aspect may be subtle, but really it’s not, it’s rather substantial. A well-made and well-mastered record has actual body! Secondly, the dynamics are intact, so it gets quieter and louder and that makes a big emotional impact. Thirdly... it is attached to the magic talisman called a record... a thing of beauty into which the owner can beam their thoughts and feelings. Maybe you love it (the talisman lights up with warmth and energy) maybe you hate it (it emanates an evil stink and you are tempted to crack it into pieces before burying it in the garbage). But I love that intensity.
Q: What else should we know about you as an artist and your music?
A: Not much more. I think my work perhaps requires repeated listens to get all the stuff I’ve put into it. I also make my own videos and have done so professionally for quite a long time, so there’s a lot out there to take in, if you like my material. I recommend listening with good headphones or monitors from start to finish. My New Head is also somewhat short, so what do you have to lose?