Exposed Vocals Interviews Felix M. Valentin
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Felix M. Valentin: I grew up in a small village in Bavaria. Living in a musician´s household naturally exposed me to a broad offer of sophisticated music of any genre. I became a maniac at age 14, since then I have practiced 5 to 8 hours each day, on weekends back then up to 10 or 12 hours. Having had the chance to take lessons from renowned teachers and celebrating first success with my band projects lead me to the possibility to study music to make it the central point of my life.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Felix M. Valentin: F.M.V. is just my three forenames. The band project „ANKLAM“ refers to a town in North Germany, at the Baltic Sea. To me it is connected with the awareness of our European pre-christian culture that made our forebears survive for thousands of years, even in Norway during the ice age.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Felix M. Valentin: I have ignored the ways of the internet for long, but we all have to go with the time if we do not want to be left behind. Giving away hours, days and weeks of hard work for free makes every human being feel ill in the first place, since our complete existence is measured by how much money we make. No worker of any kind would gladly work for no compensation at all for people he/she does not even know. Yet most people seem to think that art is something that should be free for all and the artists have no right of being „paid“ anyhow, since being an artist is a „fun job to do“. Anyway I deem the worth of our very existence is not measured by the amount of valuable paper we bunker in dubious safe-houses, and I think giving away some of my work for free on the internet can be a good way of gaining something that is much more valuable: The possibility that a lot of people can listen to my work. I see the great artist David Firth as a pioneer in this spectrum. One case is clear: Despite the social media with their free accessible music being a lovely way of communicating with people who make and listen to music, we artists have to make a living. By splitting up my work into stuff I demand money for and stuff I make intending to give it away for free I took a direction that makes me feel well.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Felix M. Valentin: Sit in the studio and make a CD, and get a label code printed on it. Many labels make a very nice and loose contract for this, because without a LC no radio station will take interest in your work. About gigs, be aggressive! Get on the organizer´s nerves as much as you can, and do not let organizers or club owners talk to you in a rude fashion. Most of them will treat you in a horrible way, and you will get used to responding in the same way. It is absolutely not nice, but if you cannot haggle in such an ugly way, those people will throw you around like a ball.
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Felix M. Valentin: Inspiration can be gathered by thoughts and ideas of any kind. In my case it can come from dealing with philosophical or scientific issues just like contemplating nature or using certain emotions or observing social matters. The musical expression usually starts with a scale and its iconic harmonic dimension that i love, for example Olivier Messiaen´s symmetric modi or traditional scales. Another starting point is a rhythmic idea I like to deal with, for example bringing together even and odd meters, or a certain musical form. One example would be my chamber cantata, I used the last paragraph of Charles Darwin’s book „origin of species“ as lyrics and wrote music according to the text using different techniques of composing that I like.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Felix M. Valentin: A website is currently being set up, now I use social media like YouTube and the chinese pendant YouKu, of course soundcloud, Facebook, twitter, google+, Qzone and so on. I try to be present in most of these kinds of sites.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Felix M. Valentin: I would never take a year off. Speculation like that is not my thing.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Felix M. Valentin: Play gigs and make the people see me, direct contact with the audience and announcing where my records can be heard works best.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Felix M. Valentin: I will go on making ANKLAM-records for free, and I will push forward different projects, such as my gypsy-klezmer-jazz band TROIKA KLEZMERON, my classical trio ENSEMBLE VIGOR and many other things.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Felix M. Valentin: I would not exist.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Felix M. Valentin: No need for juggling, just live.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?
Felix M. Valentin: I will engage more in putting some records and information on the social media, just stay tuned, let see what happens.