Interviewer: Rene Bedolla
Quick introduction.
Yes. Yes. My name is Fingy. I'm a producer, DJ, vocalist, sonic creator of sorts.
All right. All right. Can't wait to see which version of you we'll see tonight.
Um, we're going to do kind of both. We're doing slight DJing, slight production, and doing my best trying to meld the two.
When did you start DJing?
Well, I got a turntable in the ninth grade, but I didn't understand how it worked. So then I stopped. So I was like 14 and then I picked it back up DJing uh at the very beginning of 2020, end of 2019.
How hard was it to convince your parents to get you a dog?
They didn't. I bought it myself, but I took my mom to uh my mom took me to Guitar Center and I was interested in it and I got the super marked down Typhoon controller for like 70 bucks. And at the time I was watering plants for like 20 bucks a water for my neighbors. Self-made. Yeah. With with a lot of help as well.
All right. I'm going to pretend like I don't know this already, but where are you from?
I'm from Los Angeles, California, baby.
So, how was that move from Southern California all the way out here?
It was smooth, honestly. Uh, I think I I moved during or the my first winter was the polar vortex. So my first winter was like just shocked my system and made everything else quite bearable. So it wasn't it wasn't too tough.
Did you find that the winter was like a pretty good creative point in your like yearly production schedule?
Honestly, I feel like winter break has usually been where I stop creating and I rest. But it's also been because I've been flying back home and just spending time with my family and friends. Uh, but I think as a recent, at least these past two years, it's been incredibly helpful with the creation process.
I know you've been traveling a lot lately and something that came up when I was in your project, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Did all the songs come about in Chicago or was this something that you were like piecing together as you were traveling?
That's a good question. I have to think about them all. Broke. Okay. Sound bath in my room. Broke the bank in my room. Uh, and uh ADG is cool in my backyard. Neck hair started at Classic Recording Studios in like 2019, but still in Chicago and bedroom and Tik Tok. Uh I mess up in my room. Easy. That started in Boston, Massachusetts. Uh visiting my friend McKenzie who's singing on it at Emerson. And then I adore you. Also in my bedroom.
Interesting. So, wow. This goes like way back. I didn't expect to see that a little bit. Oh, yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about the project?
Mhm.
Well, it kind of covers approximately 2 and 1/2 years of my older adolescence, early adulthood.
And it's been the first project where I've given enough time to allow primitive creative pre premonitions to have enough time to manifest in my life while I'm still making it to continue to process that in real time. So, it's a project that does a pretty good and concise job at capturing my subconscious state and emotional state over these past two years and a half. I'd say from about beginning of 2022 to the middle of beginning of 2024.
Interesting. Like the first time you played it for me, like whenever you came over that one time like a year, a year and a half ago, it sounded so intentional. Like it sounded like there was such a good throughine that I put it all together that I would have never guessed that it took, you know, like a few years piece together. Especially the first track soundtrack like I don't know. I remember the first time I listened to it, it's very much like a I felt like I was walking into a space and I don't know if that was something you were thinking about like actually creating a space rather than just like being sound.
Yeah. So, I don't know. It was like very like church-like in my head. Yes. I don't know.
You want to talk a little bit about the writing process for that track?
Yeah. So that track and I mess up are very similar in the sense that they were both done in one night in one moment. And it was funny cuz broke the bank had been something that I made and then returned to 6 months later and then decided to build out and similar to broke the bank a lot of other tracks like I adore you which you saved the day in the guitar. Uh those tracks took so much time and so much revisiting whereas Sound bath and I mess up were just moments in my room where I felt something, I tried something and it worked. And sound bath was amazing because I just had this like I had this synth VST pulled up and I put some processing on it and in one moment and I don't I don't play the piano but I kind of have some muscle memory to figure out certain chords and shapes. And that was one take where I just randomly placed my key my fingers on the keys and it made beautiful sound which literally almost never happens uh on accident and that was on accident and I just held it out and then I knew immediately I was like this needs to set the tone for broke the bank and that was that all happened in like maybe 30 minutes.
That's crazy because it really does. Like I said, I felt like I walked into some space and then I'm hanging out for the duration of the project in there. I don't know. Even the like the vocal stacks that you did with CC on broke the bank like it felt like I was in a church, you know, very churchy. I don't know. That was that was like really cool. I remember speaker just blasting. Mhm. Then the transition into this more like dance stuff. like how did you think about that as being like where it was going to go after you had those first tracks?
No, as as it was kind of coming together, I was having a rough idea of how I wanted it to flow and neck hair was tough because it is different from the rest of the tracks whereas it is really the only like dancy track. So, I needed to figure out a way to put that make that flow. And it's always, you know, easy to do a little voice moment and have that work. And I was intentional with that voice memo as well within what I chose specifically and how it like adds to the themes project the project's theme. Um but yeah, with necro I was like it has there needs to be a breathing moment before it because no matter what goes into it, it's not going to flow. Yeah. Yeah.
But that's interesting. I don't know. At what point do you feel like Yeah. this collection of songs and this is a project. You know, you make music. You're just sitting down at night making whatever. You like what you're making, but you don't know that there's like Yeah. something that's cooking all together. Yeah. At what point did it become clear that, okay, I have to put this all together?
Maybe. I don't have a hard date in mind, but it would have probably had to be around the end of summer 2023. I think I was working on a bunch of things for a while and I think I had it was when I it was when I started I adore you and it was really not that much was there but I knew from the wind up of it and the lyricism of it I was like this is saying something that I know is reminiscent of a lot of things I've been trying to say but this finally does it. So when I made that, I knew that it was significant enough that it would help be a major narrator in a larger project. And then I started looking back and saying, okay, what works with that? And it was, you know, the music I had been working up on up until that point.
When did you know it was finished? Cuz I know we spent like 10 hours out one day. Yeah. That was like the last It was what, February? Yeah. 2024. Was that like the last that was the end?
Like that like I I had everything ready except for maybe final mix tweaks by um January 2020 and then I recorded the drums on I Adore You in Los Angeles in the musical directors of the Eagles recording studio cuz my friend was randomly housesitting. Just dumb LA shit, and uh recorded the drums, had everything ready, but knew I needed I adore you to come to something. And then I talked to you. I was like, you're you're the person for this. And we did that session at your house. We did the session in Audio Tree Studio. And then we mixed it there. I did I did final tweaks after that session in February. And then did the final mixing touches in Audio Tree mid-February. And then I was rushing cuz I had a friend's birthday party and I bought a mini prosecco and I was like, I'm going to drink this procco when the mixing is done and I have to finish soon because it's my friend's birthday party or birthday dinner and I did the last tweaks. I listened through it. I was like, it's done. Pop prosecco. Went to Club Lucky for dinner.
The crazy thing is that it took us longer to figure out how to track the guitars than-
Bro, passing signal through that SSL console. It was one of my greatest life's achievements. probably quite a day. Yeah.
But where do you think you're going to take your music now that we've seen this project?
I'm going to take it hopefully to the people that need it. You know, uh I'm trying to do more allowing opportunities to come to me rather than pushing for them.
How did it feel to let other people touch something that I know is a crazy vulnerable for you? Like just not just the subject matter, but your art, you know?
Yeah, it felt really liberating. For the longest time, I have not collaborated because I haven't had people in my life that I trusted with my art and I also had a bit too much of a control complex on it. But over that span of time, I met some of the most amazing people and musicians ever. So, uh, it all came naturally through us being friends and wanting to do something with our time and to have their, you know, input on the project be so profound and a nature in which I couldn't replicate by myself. I felt so grateful because it truly literally would not be the same thing without them.
So, how did you, for example, with all the vocalists, how did that go? Or was it just you had the track and like do whatever you want or did you have like a direction that you wanted them to go?
Every time is different because every vocalist is different. So like neck hair was something that I I wrote and sang but then didn't like my vocal delivery and wanted more of a jazzy delivery and met someone on TikTok by Mads and they're just super talented and I hit them up like, "Hey, I have this track. Do you want to sing on it and you can change it if you want to?" And they're like, "Okay." Okay. And they did it and sent it back and it was amazing. Whereas like Broke the Bank was just a one day of sitting down with CC and flushing out demos and ideas and comping our vocals and then just letting that sit for half a year and then coming back and then reanimating it through the arrangement.
No, just like from personal experience with that, it was really cool to just have you come and be like, "All right, let's see what we can do with it." Yeah, you just kind of had like the structure, but the parts weren't all there yet. It was really fun to do kind of really involved with that. I never really had that sort of experience with all right, play whatever you want, right? Especially having the project start with such a, you know, ending playing very sound scale to ending with like shredded guitar. Yeah. I don't know. It was really cool that collaboration led to that. Yeah. But talking about your production, what are you producing currently?
I'm working on a mixtape. Uh it's called Club Etiquette and it's quite literally a mixtape. I'm taking a lot of samples from arguably some of the greatest dance tracks ever cross genre and taking the best elements of those and putting them together to make these mashup tracks. Because when I make music, it's more songs. And when I DJ, I'm playing other people's tracks. and I really wanted to be able to play my own music and I tonight I'm playing SoundBath because it's calling for it but any DJ said that's never going to happen. So right now I'm working on that and also slowly releasing all the music videos we made for the project. Starting with Broke the Bank on Wednesday.
Where can we find them?
YouTube, Instagram. Yeah. Fingy. Oh shit. True. YouTube. Uh yes. Fingy. Well, on YouTube, I guess it would just be Fingy and then all my social media is Fingy is me. I don't have X cuz fuck Elon Musk, right?
But in terms of your production, are you still working Ableton or are you like flopping around between
I'm locked in on Ableton. I learned a bit of ProTools in my higher education, but I'm not multitracking like that. So, it's fine. I'm really I'm on Ableton and I'm also trying to like bring it back to how I started by creating music that is not really questioned or overthought and just trying to go off of straight feeling and limiting myself to like one to three sessions per song. So this year I'm really production wise returning to how I started.
And in terms of hardware, are you using any instruments when you're producing? Are you using keyboards or are you strictly just sticking to what Ableton has to do?
Um, I have instruments at my disposal, but I I'm just I'm a computer producer at its core. So, I'm pulling well, especially for this project, I'm pulling samples from other songs, and I'm using my splice samples and some of the original drum packs my brother gave me to start producing in the first place. And sometimes I'll I'll hop on a synth, but yeah, even so, I'll use a MIDI keyboard most of the times, and it's I'll use a MIDI keyboard sometimes, and it's mostly through uh some VST I have in Ableton.
I only asked that because I feel like a lot of people have this idea that you need it to start making music. But really just having an idea and poking around some pretty music.
Low key, the less the better, man. I a lot of creatives I talk to once upon entering more resource that they've had before the more and more they start to realize like actually the less time I have the less instruments I have the more I'm able to you know push something out.
Last question to this thing. If you could play anywhere it could be venue or city where would you play?
Ibiza, bro. Like I don't know why, but like I have this image in my brain when I ever think when I ever think about being like a DJ at my peak and I'm doing a daytime set, palm trees, beach, people are in flip-flops and it's like it's foreign and I'm in a crowd that thoroughly appreciates and holds infrastructure for the DJ industry. So fuck it. We got to make that happen.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, man. It's a pleasure. Can you find her? Can you use me everywhere? And you know, love yourself. Yeah. Sorry, bro. Thank you.