Q&A
From recording in the ground zero of rock to paying tribute to prog’s greatest underdog, Fernando Perdomo’s music is powered by unpredictability, his childhood record collection and the love of a great melody.
The ever-prolific Fernando Perdomo brings us up to speed with his latest news.
It’s tempting to believe that Fernando Perdomo never sleeps. In addition to being a multi-instrumentalist and playing guitar with the Dave Kerzner Band, he owns Reseda Ranch Studios in California – “It’s wonderful to be able to roll out of bed and make music,” he says – and is a tirelessly prolific producer and songwriter. He released two excellent albums last year, Zebra Crossing and Out To Sea, and a sequel to the latter is already on the way.
How was it recording Zebra Crossing at Abbey Road? It was a lifelong dream of mine. Abbey Road is not the easiest studio to book – it’s very busy – and the one day that they were able to give me was July 25, 2018. Being a complete Beatle nerd, I popped out my book Beatles Recording Sessions and I found out that July 25, 1968 was the day the original version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was recorded. I had a eureka moment: I needed to do a version of that song, 50 years to the day. I called all my friends from London and the surrounding areas and we put together a band and did the song in the last two hours of the session. The soundtrack of our lives was made there, whether you’re a Beatles fan, a Pink Floyd fan, a Kate
Bush fan: it’s where everything happened. To be making music in the ground zero of rock’n’roll and prog, it was definitely full circle for me because even before I became obsessed with prog and Yes and
Genesis, I was a Beatle freak and I’ll always be a Beatle freak. It was incredible to be able to walk into Abbey Road for the first time as a client. Whenever I visited London, I would just walk over the zebra crossing and stare at it from the outside. Your music goes from power-pop to prog and beyond. What fuels your eclecticism?
When people ask me, “Did you go to school? Did you study this?” Man, my instructor was my record collection. I’m from Miami Beach, Florida, I come from a Hispanic family. I didn’t grow up around rock’n’roll – I discovered it at a very early age through MTV of all things. My family used to go to thrift stores and flea markets. Back in the 80s, you could still buy records for 50 cents, a dollar, and I would take home five to 10 records a week from the age of six. I was buying anything that looked cool. That’s how I became a Curved Air freak when I was eight years old, and a King Crimson nut, listening to Chris Squire’s Fish Out Of Water on the way to school. Right now, I’m very lucky to say that I’m making music that pretty much represents every side of what I like. I make power-pop, I make progressive rock,
I make instrumental prog-fusion-jazz stuff. I produce folk and Americana records, I produce TV music. I’ve written classical stuff. A great artist that I think is my template is Todd Rundgren, because he has similar influences. One minute he’d be doing Hello It’s Me, and the next minute he’d be doing The
Ikon, 30-minute long progressive rock. When you listen to my stuff, even though it’s very different from Zebra Crossing to Out To Sea, it all has the same heart and soul. I’m obsessed with melody, with hooks, with passionate performances, and that’s really the essence of what I do.
Watching you onstage with Dave Kerzner, you clearly love performing too?
Dave Kerzner has changed my life. He is so incredible and so talented and so good at bringing people together. It’s amazing to say I’ve played on records with Steve Hackett, Keith Emerson, Marco Minnemann, Simon Phillips… all these people that he puts together. I’ve been playing live professionally since before I was recording. I love performing, I love the feedback from the crowd. On the other hand, I don’t love the technical side of it, because lots of things can go wrong. It’s gotten around that I’m unpredictable onstage and I like that because one of my biggest pet peeves is bands that play the same thing every show because they’re playing to tracks. I feel like that’s not what live rock’n’roll is about. It’s all about an experience that could be one of a kind. I’m a little old school: I don’t like running tracks, I don’t like using extremely modern equipment, I like vintage guitars that don’t strictly stay in tune. I like taking advantage of the limitations of live performance and making it unpredictable and fun.
Your track The Architect pays tribute to Peter Banks. Was he a hero of yours?
He is such a great guitar idol to me because in the world of progressive rock, everybody loves the underdog, and he is the ultimate prog rock guitar hero underdog. He was the original guitar player in one of the greatest bands of all time, yet he’s constantly forgotten. One of my earliest purchases was the Yesyears boxset and it starts with stuff off the first two records. I immediately lost my mind about how cool the guitar playing was. Then I found Flash, In The Can, and that became my favourite record very fast. One of the things that’s cool about Peter Banks is he was never alienating to the pop crowd because he was always more heart than technique and that’s basically what I’m going at. I’m not a super-skilled player, I’m not very fast, I don’t do tapping, I don’t do sweep arpeggios, I’m more of a classic rock guitar player that dabbles in prog. That’s the thing: I identify with Peter. It’s just so sad that he passed away, and when Yes got inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame he was forgotten. When I went to do the Out To Sea record, the first thing I did was The Architect. I thought, “The world needs a tribute to Peter Banks.” Now I’m recording his music with Mark Murdock of Empire to create a celebration album under the name The New Empire. I want to build more awareness for him because he was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Zebra Crossing is out now via The Right Honourable Recording Company. See www.fernandoperdomo.com for more information.