December 28, 2003

Interview with Fergie Fredriksen

It seems that there are very few of us that have one true calling in life, and even less who find that calling; but in speaking with Fergie Frederiksen I believe that he is certainly one of those people. His ability to laugh and look on life with a light heart, full of hope and excitement for the future shines like a beacon in the night to those of us still in search of our dreams. Fergie has a well rounded approach to life; dare we say he has truly Struck A Balance, or would it be better to say he has reached a point of Equilibrium? Be sure and check out his great website at http://www.fergiefrederiksen.com and we hope you enjoy his open and sincere replies to our questions...

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Kathy: Good morning Fergie, this is Kathy with Strike A Balance.

Fergie: Good morning Kathy, nice to talk to you again.

Kathy: If you're ready I'm all set with the questions.

Fergie: You bet, thanks.

Kathy: Fergie Frederiksen is a name synonymous with many outstanding moments in AOR history, we know your voice to be one of character and passion; would you please describe yourself: the man behind the music in your own words?

Fergie: Wow! Well, I know that my word's golden, when I give somebody my word they can pretty much count on it and I pride myself on that. I do not agree with some of the things that happen within the industry; people promising something and not coming through. I also pride myself in my choice of friends; I have wonderful friends, quality friends, and for that I feel lucky and I think that maybe that says something about me.

Kathy: It's a great trait, you have true friends.

Fergie: I know I'm a good father (laughs) there's no doubt about that, my boys are happy and healthy. I am also religious but not a fanatic about it.

Kathy: You "Strike a Balance!"

Fergie: Right "Equilibrium!"

Kathy: Question number two; In your career we have enjoyed listening to you with Toto, LeRoux, Trillion, and Mecca along with your solo releases, what are you currently working on and what are your feelings about the bands you have worked with?

Fergie: What I'm working at now is trying to get together with Ricky Phillips, Jo Lynn Turner and Glen Hughes to do some writing and trying to do some things here at home; we are going through a build out. I think the next thing you'll see happen with me is probably going to be involved with those three guys as far as writers. Jim Peterik has always offered to help out writing; he is just a wonderful guy and a wonderful friend. Basically either a Frederiksen/Phillips record, which is really where I do want to go, or something on the solo end with either Ricky, Tommy Denander, or myself producing it.

Kathy: Great names! Is that part of the build-out, your own recording studio?

Fergie: Sort of, so to speak, it's more of a vocal studio than anything, just a writing area.

Kathy: A music career appears to be an uncertain and constantly changing path with high and low points, good and bad - would you have it any other way or have you enjoyed this "magic carpet ride"?

Fergie: I tried having it another way - and it didn't work (laughs), I was not a happy individual and I found out that for me to be who I am and exist with a degree of happiness and fulfillment that I needed to still be in music. I count my blessings everyday that I have a chance to play with great guys and these all-star bands. I'm very fortunate to be playing with the likes of Randy Misner, Amesly Dunbar, Michael Monarch, Glen Hughes, Mike Reno, Alex Licherwood and Jo Lynn Turner, to name a few. I am very fortunate to be able to make a living playing in these bands and enjoy the travel and the golf, because I'm a golf fanatic, everybody knows that!

Kathy: I didn't know that...

Fergie: Well now you do, Mike Reno, Alex Licherwood, John Cafferty, myself and Toons, we're always hooking up at different places to play golf. The World Classic Rockers kid me all the time; "am I in it for the golf or the music?" - and it's a toss up!(laughs)

Kathy: Actually you know I went to see Huey Lewis and the News and during one of the breaks they mentioned that they had played golf that morning and of course everyone wanted to know what course and who had the best game (laughs) ...

Fergie: Oh yeah Huey and his guitar player and I think a bunch of other guys in the band love golf.

Kathy: Apparently they do!

Fergie: Well it's a great combination I mean if you're out on the road what else are you going to do; go to the Mall? (laughs) I'd rather be out on a beautiful day looking at the indigenous species of plants and birds. I have played golf and music everywhere from Dubois to Guam, Asia to South America, South Africa. Once you get out there, you're able to get an idea of what's going on around the area.

Kathy: OK, next question: We're hearing that there is an up coming release -possibly a new LeRoux album coming in 2004 - we know that you have suggested that you're new material will have a heavier edge; is this true of the LeRoux release, if there is going to be one?


Fergie: Well you know, I think that's the case. I think what will happen is we will try and stay true to "Last Safe Place" and of course "Still Fired up" as far as the workings of the writing and stuff like that. Tony Hazelton and Leon both live in Nashville now, and they are very accomplished writers, especially Tony; he's got like ten top ten hits; he is phenomenal. So I think everybody, including myself, will probably take a look back and try to recreate the way we felt back then and try to make it as much fun as we had before. Because that's really what it's about, it's so important to me to enjoy the people that I'm playing with. The reason I say that is because; with the lack of budget for these albums nowadays you need to look at the most important thing as being the legacy that goes with the album, not the money. Unless something really freaky happens you're not going to make a ton of dough, so you really have to enjoy what you are doing, respect the people you are working with and have fun with it.

Kathy: Right, kind of a labor of love...

Fergie: ...a labor of love, right. So if that were to happen, like Leon has been threatening it will, I would be there in a second! People have been coming on board here and there and now I guess we are just waiting for the phone call that says "Let's get together for three weeks, write and cut the tracks, do the vocals and then we can put the pieces together..."

Kathy: Okay, so who's the one that has to really say that?

Fergie: Well I think the money has to be there, when the monies there I think I'll get the call. Leon and I talk about once a month or so trying to sort that out.

Kathy: Okay, a little bit more on LeRoux, we know that you always look back at that and your previous time with the band as a very positive time, how did that endeavor actually come about?

Fergie: It was kind of neat actually, Kansas was managed by Bud Carr and so was LeRoux when Steve Walsh had left Kansas. I was living in LA at the time and got the call to go try out for the band. It came down to John Elafante and myself in the end, due to the fact that John did play keyboards and has a wonderful voice I didn't get the gig. Right after that though, Jeff left the band LeRoux and I was called again, barely a week and a half after I heard I didn't get the Kansas job, to go down to Baton Rouge and hang out with the guys from LeRoux to do some writing and see how that would turn out.

And I said, well what the heck you know, because I listened to what they're doing and liked it. Oh' I gotta tell you a cute story, this is really so cute, Leon Medica calls me up and he says, "Hey Fergie I'm sending you a tape, it's got some songs on it and I want you to learn em all right away. The last thing we did was a song called Adickey," I asked what was it called, he says "Adickey" - I said a dickhead? "No" he says, "Adickey!" - a dick head? "no" he goes, "addicted, A-dic-ted!!!" -Oh! So every time we would do that song on tour Leon would look over at me because of course it goes, "I'm addicted baby" but he'd say "I'm a dickhead baby!" (laughs) Every night he would do it with just a big ass grin on his face...So, I don't even know where we were. (laughing)

Kathy: We were talking about how you got involved with LeRoux....

Fergie: Yeah then I went down to Louisiana and did about ten days with those guys, we wrote about five things, and they had another singer from New York they were looking at, but they decided to go with me and it was like vada ving vada voom.

Kathy: Great, it's amazing how these things work. On your website, (http://www.fergiefrederiksen.com), we have heard that Tommy Denander and you are interested in making an album, is there any progress on this or can you give us a hint?

Fergie: Well, like I said before it's one of my three possibilities that I'm looking at but at the moment my time is taken up with the build out of the house and everything else along with that. We've been evacuated from the house because of mold. So we're living here in a cottage, which is like out of a Norman Rockwell painting in Mayberry USA. So you know it's been quite hectic figuring out what's the next step.

Kathy: Equilibrium is a great record and one for everyone's must have list, how did you feel about the outcome of this album and when can we expect one to follow its success?

Fergie: Equilibrium, I did a bunch of songs that Magnus Suadaquist, who was with MTM at the time had formulated. If you saw Magnus' house (he's recently married a couple of years ago) he has a whole wall that is just demos, it is an amazing library of demos. So Ricky Phillips and I we decided to make more of a slick west coast Rock 'n Roll record using great songs from other people and also of course writing with Jim Peterick and Ricky. I was satisfied with the outcome, but it wasn't really me in the fact that the next one I do I will be writing probably ninety percent of the melodies and lyrics and be involved from the get go with the songs. It will be heavier, more of what I want to do.

Kathy: Okay, Good I'll look forward to it. The adaptation of Michelangelo's Adam, used on the cover of Equilibrium is stunning, and very thought provoking, will you tell us how you decided on this image and your interpretation of it.

Fergie: Well actually to be totally honest with you there was one album cover - I previewed like ten and there was another that was my first choice. It was a picture of a little kid lifting about three thousand pounds of weights and that was my favorite because it was less thought provoking. When I saw the Michelangelo adaptation, the first thing that I connected with was the fact of the robot arm, the technology of today, with the artist rendition of Adam from centuries ago connecting the new world with the old world and trying to display that there is a connection there - because everything is connected - and Equilibrium is basically how you perceive these things and how you operate within your life. I believe everybody tries to achieve equilibrium, we all touch on it from time to time but there's very few people that could ever say that their life is totally balanced. I think it's more of a goal for everyone than a reality, but it's good when we touch on it.

Kathy: I think those are very true words, You have said that you think it is better for you to work with a group or at least to have the album sound like it is a group; could you elaborate on this and tell us what you think the benefits of collaboration are?

Fergie: The way I see it when you're doing a solo project is; if you don't do the pre-production, where you actually get into a rehearsal situation and run through the songs to work them out you are limiting yourself. By taking the abilities of other artists and collaborating with them you bring in pieces of their style and are less likely to make a mistake with the wrong stuff. For example, if Ricky Phillips and I were doing Frederiksen and Phillips we would want to start out with at least a week and a half of rehearsals because the quality of players that we would involve would be people that we would really enjoy being around and to find out what their take is on it. This way you don't miss something when you go to record, so you don't look back afterwards and have somebody say, "Oh man, I could have done this!" Collaborating ensures that you will look at all the possibilities and have fewer regrets.

Kathy: Good, Good. On the subject of collaborations, what are your feelings as to the increase in collaboration albums as opposed to more traditional bands, i.e. Khymera, Phantom's Opera, The Once and Future King, even World Stage or The Voices of Classic Rock? I mean it's a change, they kind of get together a bunch of different artists and then they make an album-

Fergie: I think that's great, I think it's out of the fact that it's available and people have looked at that. For people who maybe haven't had a chance to collaborate with a lot of people it's a wonderful thing. Myself; I do get enough opportunity to do that if I so desire, and it doesn't mean that I won't in the future, it's just the next thing on my agenda is more of a solo or Frederiksen-Phillips release; again for the legacy, not for the money. To be able to get some songs that I really believe in and cut the vocals with the style and everything that I want to have translated. I've turned down a few offers, but at the same time but I think it's a great thing.

Kathy: You took some time off from the music industry, as a result of the nonsense involved in the music and recording industry, which many artists speak of. What are your feelings on the industry today as far as the hoops an artist has to jump through to get their music out?

Fergie: Well it gets down to that same thing we talked about before; budgets and availability of money to make a good record. To walk away feeling like you didn't waste money, or that you had enough money to consider that your family's behind you to go do it. You have to keep in mind the technology that's appeared in the last fifteen years makes it so that budgets can be cut while still achieving great audio. Because of computers and the different software that's available; Pro Tools, Quebass and the like, great things are possible. The one thing I think that inhibits our creative abilities is the lack of funding to get these things out. I'm thinking of going internet based on my next record, instead of having to deal with contracts and labels. Of course, the funding for that is going to be all out of my pocket which is fine as long as I do that with the right idea of having the fulfillment and the availability to get the record out. Then doing interviews with people like you to let the public know where it is, and how to get it. I think that's going to be a wave of the future; the internet is a tool that I believe we as artists have not even begun to tap.

Kathy: While it is definite that you are on many peoples list of those who have inspired them, we don't know who you regard as your inspiration; who do you credit as being your inspiration both musically or personally?

Fergie: Well, if I were to go musically, it would definitely be the Beatles ... I would think early Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Gentle Giant, Genesis, and Kansas of course.

Kathy: All good ones!

Fergie: Things that were on the verge of classical rock that had great melody lines, lyrics and then also had musical nuances that traveled through the gamut. They weren't restricted to a three chord, four chord arrangement. It showed off the abilities of the people who were playing it, so I really enjoyed that stuff. And then I think emotionally or connecting with personally Jeff Bicar was one of my biggest influences, once I had a chance to hang out with him. Patrick Leonard; who I worked with in the band Trillion, has written some wonderful songs for Madonna, Jewel and other artists as well. And the guys that I played with in LeRoux, and some of the people I've met along the way that have nothing to do with music, that are just solid people, that give you support through your day to day life rather than reflecting on a business type of deal.

Kathy: Sometimes you say, it's all about the music, and sometimes it has nothing to do with the music

Fergie: Exactly, and if you miss that, then I think you're missing a lot.

Kathy: From your website we see that you admire Jewel as an artist; are there others that you enjoy and what is it about them that you respect?

Fergie: There are a lot of artists that I enjoy, Train is one. I enjoy a lot of the heavier but still pop CD's that are out, things that you hear on some of the new music stations. There still are players out there that are able to do what they do and look good doing it; they play their instruments and you can tell they practice. You can tell they have a heart and soul and I think when I hear things like that, it's uplifting to me. With all the hoops and that I jumped through in my career, it's nice to see that that's still lingering on. With solo artists, like Shania Twain, I think she's great, a little "poppy", but still, with her and her husband working together you know it will be good. I think there's a lot of good stuff out there, Eminem, I dig him, I think because, granted it's rap, there's a lot of content. Kid Rock, I really like him, because I think he takes both genres and combines them pushing the envelope as much as possible. I mean you've got Aerosmith and all these cats that are still rocking and you know Tommy Shaw from Styx is a good friend of mine. Tommy's a wonderful guy, just a great human being.

Kathy: And a great performer! Okay, one final question ... On a closing note, do you have anything to say to your fans?

Fergie: Well I'm flattered that people would even consider using the term fan when my name is involved. I'm very humbled by it and appreciative of that. I thank you for the legacy that I have for my children and for myself. I hope that my future releases will be accepted by the fans and are something they enjoy. Because that's really the biggest form of flattery, someone imitating you or saying they're a fan, and I don't look upon that lightly and I really appreciate that. So in a nut shell, Thank You,

Kathy: Well thank you so much for your time and I hope all goes well for you and wish you the best.

Fergie: Not a problem; take care.

Posted by Kathy at December 28, 2003 11:34 PM