– Preston Frazier 

I have the great pleasure of interviewing producer, guitarist and writer Fernando Perdomo. We last talked in June of 2024 about his wonderful album, ‘Self’. How are you? 

 – Fernando Perdomo

I’m fantastic. I’m this has been a really inspiring year so far. It’s been my most chaotic music period, but I’m really enjoying making so much music for everybody and I’m getting some great feedback on the ‘Waves’ project.

The ‘Waves’ project started right here in Miami and it’s a major stepping stone right now in my career to be able to make so much music and get it out of my system.

– Preston Frazier 

We talked last year about ‘Self’ , which is  a wonderful album with a great range of styles, prog epics, singer-songwriters songs and instrumentals.

This year you have been even more productive. By the time this interview comes out you will be held way through your twelve album ‘Waves’ series.  How did you come up with this concept, Fernando?

– Fernando Perdomo

I didn’t come up with it, it landed on my lap. I had created Waves One last year, and that project was going to be coming out on another label, and when that didn’t work out, I was going to release it on my own, and I had another cover for it, and it was around Christmas that I set the text message to my friend,

Joe Galdo, who is a former producer, studio owner, drummer, extraordinaire, and I sent him a Christmas message. He wrote back, having a great time retired in Ormond Beach. He sent a picture with the caption, ‘ this is my view’.

It was a panoramic photo of the beach that’s outside his retirement house. That’s the beautiful photo, which I used for 

‘Waves one’. I asked Joe if I could use stand he said sure. 

Now, here’s the funny thing. The next day, he sent me, randomly,  11 more photos and said, ‘are you sure you want to use that one? These are better! 

I said, ‘wait a minute. I’ve got 12 of these amazing photos. Can I use all 12 of them and release 12 albums this year?’

And he said, absolutely. 

 These photos are spectacular.  I never thought that Joe Galdo would be my Storm Thorgenson.

– Preston Frazier 

 What impresses me most about the Waves series thus far is that the music is so consistently good and it helped bring you into the theme of Waves.

You produced a lot of music which you put on your Patreon page for your followers there, which is totally different.

I know it’s amazing you can produce so much music and such a variety of it.

 – Fernando Perdomo

Well, I live in a studio. My joke is that if I sleptwalk, I’d run into a drum kit. 

My whole thing is I live for it and nothing inspires me than putting a guitar in my hand.

 I come up with stuff every day.

 I immediately write and record. The process of creating these songs is usually very rapid and It usually starts off recording a guitar part to a click track and then I get behind the drums and that’s what songs really come alive Then I start adding bass, other guitars,  keyboards. It’s a pretty rapid process.

One of the things that I realized recently is when I’m releasing 120 songs this year, I can’t repeat myself.

So it makes me more inspired to create new sounds, try new gear, try new plugins, try new stuff, and explore genres that I haven’t explored yet, because there’s nothing worse than getting a CD from someone and finding out that they’re just going through the motions and repeating the winning process from the last album.

I feel like there’s a progression going on. Every album has its own vibe. ‘Waves 5’, is the best one yet, because it’s, I’m really going there with styles and stuff.

There was a popular video I posted last month about me being on tour of Marshall Crenshaw and being in Minnesota where somebody told me I don’t look like a Fernando.

It inspired this Western sounding standoff sounding song, it’s on the record. I got a guitar from the family of Jesse Gress, the guitar player for Todd Rundgren, which inspired “Meditation for Jesse Gress”.A lot of the songs come from recent interactions. 

– Preston Frazier 

Bringing  it all together as a theme and do that consistently for 12 months. That just seems like a really heady task.

– Fernando Perdomo

Well, it is. You know what? I’m the man for it because I, every day that I’m creating music a good day.

Every day that I’m in my studio is a good day. Even if I’m working for other clients doing music that’s not necessarily my vibe.

When I got off the Cruise To The Edge and I immediately moved into a world of Americana. I was mixing a record.

The first session I did after Chris to the edge was mixing a record for a guy named James Houlihan .

It’s a John Prine type of Americana record. Then I went  to working with another singer named Dina Marie, who’s a folk artist.

I love the variety of my world because I get to do Prog-Rock I get to do rock, I get to do folk, I get to do Americana, I get to do a little bit of everything.

The  ‘Waves’ albums have a quick turnaround. 

Mastering engineer Zach Ziskin is my rock. He’s got a Grammy having worked with some pretty huge people. And he’s a big part of my sound.

‘Self’ was a record that was mixed by Zach as well. I can’t afford to hire him to mix these records.

He just sends back a perfect master of  the ‘Waves’ albums however. 

– Preston Frazier 

Let’s jump into some of the songs from  the first 5’ Waves albums.

Let’s start with the last song, “Deep Sea Diver”.

– Fernando Perdomo

That’s my epic. I  wanted to create a song that had multiple parts and i wanted to give somebody a little bit of value.

– Preston Frazier 

I’m gonna go to one more song and “Wave 5” . Tell me about “Meditation For Jesse Gress”. 

– Fernando Perdomo

I love the fact that there are some tracks by the band The Raspberries that do lean into that prog thing. there’s so many prog elements in some of their song.

Jesse Gress was the player for Todd Rundgren  and for about 25 years, Todd’s personal right-hand man. He was a very talented writer too.

He wrote for guitar player magazine and he wrote books and he was a specialist art on the style of Jeff Beck.

He passed away after a very valiant fight with cancer in 2023 and his wife  Mary Lou who used to be Todd’s road manager . After his death Mary Lou Was selling some of his equipment and I was able to acquire his number two guitar. It’s  a cool Fender Strat. 

 It’s an incredible guitar and I used it a lot on ‘Waves 5’. “Meditation For Jesse Gress” was the first thing I wrote on the guitar and it was some meditation sounding so I thought it would be really cool to start the record.

When the musician passes away he or she lives on in their music and their instruments and I feel like his soul’s in that guitar so it’s really been inspiring to play Jesse’s guitar and that’s our Waves 5 is dedicated to Jesse and Mary Lou.

– Preston Frazier 

You mentioned when you write a song you just pick up the guitar and start working on some chords.

Did the process change  from beginning of this series to now? 

 – Fernando Perdomo

I’ll do a song, start on guitar. Some of the songs might start with a drum part. Some of the songs might start with groove.

So most of the time I pick up a guitar, I come up with an idea, and I start working on it.

The process is so easy, because my workstation is my studio. 

Every time I come up with something, I could capture it in the best quality.

I came up with the idea, I came up with the licks, and I just started recording, and I started filming.

– Preston Frazier 

In terms of sequencing of your Waves series, how do you decide what song goes were. 

 – Fernando Perdomo

“Deep Sea Diver” was originally going to be the opening track.

 I was thinking of having it start heavy, and “Meditation for Jesse Gress” close the record, but  I thought, let’s build the energy and have it start soft and then eventually grow.

– Preston Frazier 

Let’s go back to “Wave 4”, track six, which is “ The Most Beautiful Giant (tallgirlkatie)”.

– Fernando Perdomo

I love Instagram and one of the things about Instagram is there’s some very amazing, inspiring and very interesting women one of them was the woman who been making international news because she is a seven foot tall.

Her videos are so funny because she’s always doing stuff that exaggerates the fact that she’s so tall.

I just thought, I kind of write this little tribute for her. And it was a really cool thing because I kind of imagined living this world as the tallest woman in town.

When I think of London, The Who come to mind.  I was inspired by The Who.  It’s something that Pete Townsend would write. One of my favorite things about Pete Townsend is he was always writing about other people and one of my favorite songs of theirs is called “Glow Girl”. It’s about the girl who goes on a plane flight which crashes.

 It’s describing a plane crash from inside and I always love that one because it starts off with her packing and it’s like I love the way he describes  these people’s lives.

– Preston Frazier 

Let’s jump to ‘Waves 3’.  How about the track which is ‘The Fifth”?

 – Fernando Perdomo

 I wanted to create something that has musical fifths in it. The guitar is tuned In fifths, which is something that I’ve done a lot.

There was a song on ‘ Out to Sea 3’  where I did it  with a 12 string acoustic.  I tuned it in fifths and it’s something that I’ve always loved.

There’s a band called Space Opera and they play 12 string guitars tuned in fifths and it’s a beautiful sound because with one guitar You can achieve that. 

I did it on here using a program using plugins from a company called Neural DSP. There’s a plug-in where I could do the fifth tuning without having to use a 12 string even because it’s very challenging to keep a fifth guitar in tune .

– Preston Frazier 

Let’s go to track number six, “Dos Mutantes” .

– Fernando Perdomo

That one is inspired Brazilian psychedelic music from the 1960s.

  It’s a disco vibe. Weird in the Prog-Rock world…

 – Preston Frazier 

Let’s go to ‘Waves 2’. How about the song, “Black Mountain Blue Sky”? 

– Fernando Perdomo

That song was inspired by  New Zealand. I was in New Zealand for the New Year’s and I was playing a festival in New Zealand.

I flew  out on the 30. 

I flew in a time warp.

On arrival I asked the flight attendant what year am I landing in?

She said 2025. It was my first time ever not experiencing a New Year’s countdown, because everyone was sleeping on a plane.

And then I landed in New Zealand, and I played this festival. And it was the most beautiful, naturally the most beautiful place in the world. The stage had this huge black mountain behind it with a blue sky. 

That’s one of the songs that I wrote on the porch of the house of a guy named Craig Smith, aka ‘the Wonky-Donkey’ man, who is the, who wrote the number one children book of 2018, and he has this beautiful house in Queensland that overlooks the mountains, the blue sky, the golf course.

I wrote six songs on his porch, on his beautiful Australian guitars, and I had recorded some of the guitars at his house, because I had a free day there before flying to the airport.

– Preston Frazier

Let’s jump to the f’irst album in your series, ‘Waves’. 

Tell me about the song, “ Mine Reader”. 

– Fernando Perdomo

 I like the idea of having a song that sounds like magic and sounds like  your mind is being read by someone and I also wanted it sound like it could be the soundtrack to a movie called ‘Mind Reader’. That’s the vibe.

Creating instrumental music is an art form, and I love it. 

 – Preston Frazier 

Do you have any plans of pulling particular songs out for a package of wave out a way of One wave album or maybe a vinyl release.

 – Fernando Perdomo

I’m thinking of having a fans vote on the best songs from the ‘Waves’ series.  I’m working on a number of projects too

Including a rock opera.

 There’s also a new project that me and Dave Kerzner and Billy Sherwood of Yes are working on. That’s going to be really cool.

Dave has two new solo albums coming out soon, and I have worked on a project in Holland called Private Plain, which is a Yacht Rock project.

I’m going to be on the Blue Cruise in August playing with my Yacht Rock group.

– Preston Frazier 

I’m looking forward to the second half of the ‘Waves’ series. Thanks for your time!

– Fernando Perdomo

Thanks Preston