An Interview with Fae King, October 2024
Tell me about your sound! How would you describe it? Who/what are some of your main inspirations?
The sound of Fae King is what you get when you let your lead guitarist write your songs. I would describe it generally as melodic metal, with fantasy undertone. All instrumental, with a heavy focus on guitar. My influences span pretty far across metal, but some of the major inspirations include outfits like Sodom, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Death, The Sword, Enforcer, and recently, Buckethead.
What got you interested in metal? Who/what motivated you to start this project?
What first started my fascination with metal was the guitars and the way these artists utilized them. When I had first picked up the guitar back in 2018 and was just beginning to explore the metal world, I was magnetized to bands like Helloween, Iron Maiden, Edguy, and Savatage because of the way their music uses powerful melodic guitar passages to convey either a storyline or some sort of emotion, sometimes both at the same time. From the very beginning I knew I wanted to write stuff like that, music that can tell a story, or at least convey some sort of feeling in person. That’s why I wanted to start Fae King, because if it’s only for me, then what’s the point? I want others to interpret what I create, to make their own story from it. Otherwise it feels meaningless to me.
If you could open for any musician/band, who would it be?
Buckethead, maybe he’d let me wear the bucket.
What does making music mean to you? What got you into it/keeps you continuing?
Music to me is one of my creative outlets for my feelings and ideas, like many others. I feel like without it, I would just swell with all of these feelings and have no place to put them. I would have all of these ideas to share with the world, and they would just rot inside me. I already have creative outlets elsewhere that are public, but this one is mine and very unique because it is all my input, my thoughts, my own space to express myself. I think every human deserves that, y’know?
How do you keep yourself motivated and inspired/how do you work through creative blocks?
Sometimes I switch projects, sometimes I’ll jump mediums, but what helps me the most is to just keep writing. I’m a storyteller primarily, so not writing or creating anything just makes me feel worse. I like to keep trying to power through it, otherwise it seems like the creative block lasts longer.
Tell me about your creative process! Is it more organized & session based or more sporadic and fleeting? How does this process shine through in the finished song?
My creative process is all about problem solving I notice. Songs usually start as a jumble of ideas that I need to workshop and assemble into a main idea or theme, and once that’s done, it just snowballs and grows. That’s why with some songs, there’s lots of moving and overlapping parts. If you were to play some of those songs live, you’d need three guitars! Most of my best riffs come on a whim, so that’s how I write.
What are some of your rituals/inspirations when writing music? (do you listen/pull inspo from other artists? Do you have a specific place you like to write at? etc.)
I love to try and pull inspiration from places I haven’t before, it gets me into thinking outside the box. Same with changing up the environment of where I write. Sometimes if a riff isn’t coming to me, I can go sit out on the back deck in the summer or the garage in the winter and write there. Just something to break up my thought patterns which I tend to fall into.
Which song of yours do you consider to be your favorite? Why?
Currently, my favorite song is yet to be released, but of the ones I have publicly available, my favorite track is March of the Fae King and for two reasons and a secret third reason: the first is that the song was made for someone deeply special, and the second and more subjective reason is that I believe it tells a very beautiful story, one of love overcoming all. I had a lot of fun figuring out all the parts for the piece, I had so many ideas that it kind of turned into a puzzle. And that’s the secret third reason, March of the Fae King highlighted my favorite part of the creative process. Figuring out how it all works together.
What are some of your current big goals? What does the future hold/what are you working towards right now?
The most current concern of mine is establishing this project’s presence. It is likely that there will be a single containing a handful of songs that may be coming in the future, and this will hopefully coincide with this project’s appearance on social media and spotify!
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