We had the pleasure of interviewing Fortuan, and here’s what they had to say:
Q: What was your inspiration for “River”? And what does it mean to you?
FORTUAN: The inspiration was the river Danube which flows through Slovakia where we are from. It’s a majestic body of water that never stops, same as the people living around it, it’s a metaphor for a person’s life. The river Danube passes from the Black Forest in Germany to the Black Sea in Romania and goes through all sorts of climates and conditions in a similar manner as a person’s life goes from birth to death. Two black ends with a colorful palette in the middle.
Q: At what point did you feel “Okay. This is great. I’m gonna put this out there!”?
FORTUAN: We have a very detailed process of putting out music. First, we create our pre-production demo where we try to come up with a meaningful song structure in terms of songwriting – the chords have to feel right, the vocal melodies need to be catchy and we are trying to go for a certain vibe. Once that is done, we record everything on a mobile phone and listen to this demo for about a month. In that stage, we stop looking at the song as the creators and start looking at it as listeners. Do we feel bored at certain points in the song? They have to go out. Are the transitions between the sections fluid and smooth? If not, it needs to be changed. Once this process is done, we record everything semi-professionally on our home-recording gear and tune up the recording. We add vocal harmonies and we start to tidy up the sound palette of the song. Do we really need all the instruments to play everywhere or do we want certain elements to stand out? We are also adding various sound effects or at least ideas about these sounds.
Once we have a semi-professional demo, we send this demo to a professional that we hire through Soundbetter.com, a producer to let us know if he/she thinks the song is good. We take the advice and add/remove certain aspects and only then do we go to a professional studio to again re-record everything. At this stage, the main singer needs to have sung the song at least 100 times to make sure the delivery is top-notch (but that already happened thanks to the previous stages) and everyone needs to be 99% certain about their instrument parts. Once we record everything (we still make changes even in this stage), we send the audio files to a professional mixing engineer (sometimes the same person as the producer) who mixes the track for us. Then we let another person do the mastering on the track and the track is done. It’s very tiring, but worth it. 🙂
Q: That sounds intense! But it paid off : )What drives you to create music?
FORTUAN: Music is a great way to get rid of stress, to relax, and in a certain way, to give meaning to the life we live. It serves as the legacy we will leave behind once we are not here anymore and at the same time it gives us the opportunity to express ourselves in a way that no other medium could.
Q: What do you enjoy doing outside making music?
FORTUAN: We are a group of very different people but we all enjoy great food, lovely company, travelling, and exploring the world.
Q: What’s your all-time favorite song as a band? Why?
FORTUAN: I believe that when we say we really like Toto – Africa that nobody will complain. It’s a great song with great harmonies and the way the chorus is written often serves as the encyclopedia example of how to write great music.
Q: What would you like to tell your supporters?
FORTUAN: We would like to tell our supporters nothing but thank you. When people appreciate what we do, it gives us the energy to continue and it elevates us when we consider giving up. When someone recognizes what we do, it really does wonders.
Interviewed by Zoey King
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