Hey rock and rollers! We had the chance to pick Em Fern's brain about making art, influences, and plans for the future. We also are happy to be uploading a virtual gallery of Em's pieces for you to take a look at it!
Enjoy!
Introduce yourself! What have you been up to lately?
Hi! My name is Em and I live in Minneapolis. I play bass and sing in a band called QQQL and have been starting to make my own solo music lately. I also make fliers, do drawings and collages, and work on a zine called Scream Queers with my friends El and Mikki.
Who are some of your musical and non-musical influences?
Musically: Girl groups from the 60's, 80s/90s twee (the Pastels, Tiger Trap, anything on Sarah Records), various punk, post-punk and powerpop (Kleenex, Pylon, X-Ray Spex, Girls at Our Best, Shivvers, etcetcetc), and current ""egg punk""/"bedroom punk"/whatever you wanna call it like Neo Neos, Erik Nervous, Liquids, Warm Bodies and Lumpy & the Dumpers.
Artistically/aesthetically: Nature especially carnivorous plants, flowers, insects, deep-sea creatures, slime molds, and fungi; punk flyers/zines/album art/fashion; skateboarding; the Arts and Crafts Movement; the Golden Age of Illustration especially Aubrey Beardsley; professional wrestling; technology especially if it is defective/obsolete/"glitchy"; old cartoons; Sanrio; lots and lots of different movies and books.
I've been jamming your song 'Sally Albright', tell us a bit about it!
I'm glad you like it! That is the first song I recorded using my new Jaguar I got off Craigslist recently. My friend Connie helped me with producing it. The lyrics are inspired by one of my favorite movies "When Harry Met Sally" (1989). I really recommend everyone watch it, even if you don't really like romantic comedies.
Your Modern Lovers cover is awesome. Why'd you choose that song?
Thank you! I have just always loved that song and decided to cover it since I was bored. I love Johnathan Richman's lyrics because I think he does a good job of making the personal, universal. I've seen him live twice and both times he was done by 10pm and I was able to go to bed at a reasonable time.
What's your process for making art?
It depends on a lot of things. For collages, I sometimes find something really cool in a book or magazine and want to build around it. For example, a few months ago I got a bunch of weightlifting magazines for free off Craigslist and I used those to make valentines, and before that I found this sick book called "Living Things that Poison, Itch, and Sting" that I used a lot of pictures from. I have this fucking cool picture of Martin Kratt holding a tarantula I have been trying to develop a collage around for about three months now. For drawings, I practice in my sketchbook almost every night, just messing around with ideas. Then if I like something I will try and develop it into a bigger/more complete piece. For flyers, I usually start with the text since I like for it to be the focal point, and then go from there.
Any themes or messages that you're trying to convey with your pieces?
I'm not explicitly trying to convey anything in particular, but I try to put my feelings into my art/music and hope others relate. I see art, writing, and music as ways of connecting with other people even if they are around long after you are dead and you will never meet them and I think that is one of the most beautiful things about life. I guess if I tried to convey a message it would be for people to be brave and honest about their feelings whenever possible and to question old habits and traditions that may be holding them back.
What advice would you give someone just starting to make art or music?
I think I have better advice about visual art than about music, because I've been doing it for longer, but as far as I can tell the learning process is pretty similar for both. Practice practice practice until you feel like are gonna puke then practice some more. Have an alarm or something every day that tells you when to practice (I say as I have been snoozing mine for 3 hours). Copy people, you admire at first and steal things from them to develop your own style. Even if you are very talented you must accept and embrace that you will suck at first and probably for a long time. and you have to be patient. Visual art specific: learn human/animal anatomy and draw from life as much as possible!! And smoke weed.
Lastly, what can we expect next from you?
I made a promise to myself to release one song on Soundcloud every month this year, but I might increase that because of the quarantine. I'm working on a bunch of other stuff but it's all secret, sorry >:)
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