{"id":325,"date":"2019-06-27T14:58:14","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T18:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/?p=325"},"modified":"2019-06-28T11:35:57","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T15:35:57","slug":"an-interview-with-finnish-synthwave-producer-ferus-melek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/2019\/06\/27\/an-interview-with-finnish-synthwave-producer-ferus-melek\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Finnish Synthwave Producer Ferus Melek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ferus-Melek-1-1024x680.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ferus-Melek-1-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ferus-Melek-1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ferus-Melek-1-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Ferus-Melek-1.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ferus\n Melek is a Finnish synthwave producer who creates what he calls \n&#8220;pre-apocalyptic synth music&#8221; that has a retro &#8217;80s flair to it. In an \nemailed interview, we discussed his influences and approach to creating \nmusic. We also talked about his latest album <em>We Don&#8217;t Belong Here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Karl Magi: How was your passion for making music first kindled?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ferus Melek: I was a pretty typical kid who listened whatever I could\n get my hands on. After putting some serious pressure on my dad, he \nbought me the Commodore64 which was my gateway drug to synthetic sounds.\n At first I just played games, but pretty soon I realized that I was \nmore drawn to those catchy game themes composed by legends such as Rob \nHubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Daglish. Then I found some crappy music \nsoftware and started doing my own little tunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later on, I started playing in typical school bands, mostly drums and\n bass. Eventually all of those bands ended up being dead and buried, so I\n went back to world of synths and sequencers, but the spirit for music \nwas lost. I sold all my gear and totally forgot music for almost a \ndecade, until the flame was rekindled back in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: What are the elements of synthwave music that drew you into making it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: You could say that <em>synth<\/em> is my first love because I \nstarted making music in \u201886 with very plain synthetic sounds as I said \nabove. It\u2019s kind of coming back to something familiar and yet doing it \nvery differently, but I don\u2019t know if I ever really made a conscious \ndecision that synthwave was something that I wanted to do, it was more \nthat my music has some synthwave elements which seem to be suitable for \nthe synthwave audience. For me, it\u2019s basically just synth music, I don\u2019t\n need any more labels for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: Who are the artists that have inspired you as a musician?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: There are so many and most of them are not even synth-related. I \nlike the composers who have the ability to build worlds of their own \nlike those iconic game music composers that I already mentioned, but \nalso artists\/bands like Nik Kershaw, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Goblin, John\n Carpenter, Vangelis,  and Jarre. Don\u2019t forget about the heavier \ninfluences like Black Sabbath, Kiss, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, and Iron Maiden. What a\n mess actually!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: In general, how do you go about creating new music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: It\u2019s different every time I guess. Sometimes a short piece of  melody or bass line hits my mind and I put it down. Sometimes I just get  a plain  4\/4 beat running and start jamming something over it. It is  actually great that there is no formula for inspiration<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-soundcloud wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-soundcloud wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Corridors Of Power by Ferus Melek\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F628803066&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/hubpages.com\/hubtool\/edit\/5434311\">Edit<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\">Stats<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\">Questions<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/hubpages.com\/hubtool\/delete\/5434311\">Delete<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\"><\/a><a href=\"mailto:?subject=An%20Interview%20with%20Finnish%20Synthwave%20Producer%20Ferus%20Melek&amp;body=I%20thought%20you%20might%20enjoy%20this%20article%3A%0D%0A%0D%0Ahttps:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/\">Spinditty<\/a><em>\u00bb<\/em><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/\">Genres<\/a><em>\u00bb<\/em><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/electronic\/\">Electronic<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An Interview with Finnish Synthwave Producer Ferus Melek<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Updated on June 9, 2019\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/usercontent2.hubstatic.com\/13577405_100.jpg\" alt=\"KPM2017 profile image\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\">Karl Magi   more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karl has been a freelance writer for over 10 years. He&#8217;s passionate about music, art, and writing!<a href=\"https:\/\/spinditty.com\/genres\/An-Interview-with-Finnish-Synthwave-Producer-Ferus-Melek#\">Contact Author<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/usercontent1.hubstatic.com\/14555572_f520.jpg\" alt=\"Ferus Melek\"\/><figcaption>Ferus Melek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ferus\n Melek is a Finnish synthwave producer who creates what he calls \n&#8220;pre-apocalyptic synth music&#8221; that has a retro &#8217;80s flair to it. In an \nemailed interview, we discussed his influences and approach to creating \nmusic. We also talked about his latest album <em>We Don&#8217;t Belong Here.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Karl Magi: How was your passion for making music first kindled?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ferus Melek: I was a pretty typical kid who listened whatever I could\n get my hands on. After putting some serious pressure on my dad, he \nbought me the Commodore64 which was my gateway drug to synthetic sounds.\n At first I just played games, but pretty soon I realized that I was \nmore drawn to those catchy game themes composed by legends such as Rob \nHubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Daglish. Then I found some crappy music \nsoftware and started doing my own little tunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later on, I started playing in typical school bands, mostly drums and\n bass. Eventually all of those bands ended up being dead and buried, so I\n went back to world of synths and sequencers, but the spirit for music \nwas lost. I sold all my gear and totally forgot music for almost a \ndecade, until the flame was rekindled back in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: What are the elements of synthwave music that drew you into making it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: You could say that <em>synth<\/em> is my first love because I \nstarted making music in \u201886 with very plain synthetic sounds as I said \nabove. It\u2019s kind of coming back to something familiar and yet doing it \nvery differently, but I don\u2019t know if I ever really made a conscious \ndecision that synthwave was something that I wanted to do, it was more \nthat my music has some synthwave elements which seem to be suitable for \nthe synthwave audience. For me, it\u2019s basically just synth music, I don\u2019t\n need any more labels for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: Who are the artists that have inspired you as a musician?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: There are so many and most of them are not even synth-related. I \nlike the composers who have the ability to build worlds of their own \nlike those iconic game music composers that I already mentioned, but \nalso artists\/bands like Nik Kershaw, Ultravox, Duran Duran, Goblin, John\n Carpenter, Vangelis,  and Jarre. Don\u2019t forget about the heavier \ninfluences like Black Sabbath, Kiss, M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, and Iron Maiden. What a\n mess actually!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: In general, how do you go about creating new music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: It\u2019s different every time I guess. Sometimes a short piece of \nmelody or bass line hits my mind and I put it down. Sometimes I just get\n a plain  4\/4 beat running and start jamming something over it. It is \nactually great that there is no formula for inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/69_mAyANRcg?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"390\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: Tell me more about Decay of the Mainframe. What are the ideas behind it and how did it evolve?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: There&#8217;s a place called Octoparis in a distant future. Humans, \nboth living and the dead are long gone and the evil mainframe rules the \nglobal network of computers. Until one day&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we dive into the concept of the dramatic structure (which has six \ndifferent phases) it\u2019s pretty obvious that you can use that in order to \nmake an EP by starting from the  introduction and ending up with the \nresolution. I had that in mind when I wrote six songs for the album, but\n I had to take one song down because it just didn\u2019t work with the \nothers. When I look back now after a year from its release, it still \nfeels very cohesive as a whole (and if you skip that \u2019a\u2019, it\u2019s \npronounced \u2019asshole\u2019\u2026well\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: Tell us something about your upcoming album <em>We Don&#8217;t Belong Here<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: I will release it on June 19th and it has nine songs with total \nrunning time of 28 minutes, so it\u2019s really easy to listen and forget\u2026or \nkeep repeating I mean!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no big theme this time, just the best songs that I wrote \nbetween December 2018 &#8211; March 2019. The sound I was looking for is more \norganic than before and with the influences I went even further than the\n \u201880s. For the first time, I also made some songs by jamming with \ndifferent instruments. Thematically, the dystopian future is left behind\n for now, as I was reflecting more on what\u2019s going on in the world \ntoday. Thus the emotional range on the album might be even bigger that \nearlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I think this is very different kind of beast than <em>Decay of the Mainframe<\/em>, which I did not want to re-create. I just wanted to have some serious fun and I really did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: What are your future plans for your musical career?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: I have too many plans in my life already, so I\u2019ve been trying to \nmake less plans with my music, but my short-term plan is to release my \nfirst full-length album in June with some kind of a promo video and \nafter that I will start building my live-set. Hopefully I will have my \nfirst gig in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: What do you think about the state of the synthwave scene lately?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: I don\u2019t know, I have a lot of catching up to do! In 2019, I\u2019ve \nbeen mostly living in isolation because of the album writing process, so\n I\u2019m not really on the map. I think there are plenty of great synthwave \nsongs around but less enjoyable synthwave albums. The artists seem to be\n more production oriented geeks compared to other genres at the expense \nof actual song-writing skills and that is something we should practice a\n lot more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Producers like to talk about their latest toys, but for me the more \ninteresting topic is what made you do the song and what it makes you \n(and me) feel, not so much the technical side. When you get a rich and \ninteresting composition, it takes a lot of pressure off from the \nproduction, but if your composition is boring, repetitive and plain \nempty, you have a lot of work to do in order to get the listener \nexcited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>KM: How do you recharge your creative batteries?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">FM: I don\u2019t know, do I recharge at all? For me, it happens by doing \nsomething else entirely or doing nothing at all, which is obviously damn\n hard but I am getting better at it. I\u2019m not the first person who finds \ncreativity out of solitude and boredom. The mind starts to create \nstories when you have zero stimulation around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ferus Melek is a Finnish synthwave producer who creates what he calls &#8220;pre-apocalyptic synth music&#8221; that has a retro &#8217;80s flair to it. In an emailed interview, we discussed his influences and approach to creating music. We also talked about his latest album We Don&#8217;t Belong Here. Karl Magi: How was your passion for making [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[39,38],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musicapp","tag-retro","tag-synthwave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}