Paco Hernández is a progressive guitarist from Murcia, Spain who recently hit the online instrumental guitar scene. His performance videos have already received tens of thousands of views since they first appeared on YouTube just a few months ago, and word of mouse has been traveling fast about this exciting new virtuoso. He’s been featured in the Spanish “Guitarra Total” magazine, and several popular guitar websites across the net. His debut demo, entitled “Heaven or Hell”, was released last year, and now he’s agreed to stop playing long enough to do this exclusive interview with me.

 

 

 

IC: Your debut demo, “Heaven or Hell”, has recently been released for free download at guitarristas.info. Congratulations!

Paco: Thank you very much!

IC: How do you feel now that it’s out? What has the response been like?

Paco: Well, the response has been pretty good. As a matter of fact, I won the demo contest of the prestigious Spanish magazine, “Guitarra Total”, and I was featured and my demo reviewed in the August, 2006 issue. I´ve also received very good feedback about the style of my composing. But afterwards, as I listened to it and learned new things about recording and playing, I decided that "Heaven or Hell" was not a competitive attempt (hence the lack of promotion on my part aside from some forums and magazines in Spain).

IC: So you're working on a follow-up album?

Paco: Yes, I´m not satisfied with the last demo, so I´m working on a new one.  This time with much better sound and playing, and with this one I will definitely bear in mind the international scope and seek the proper label. Some of my last songs, like “Faustian Nightmare” are going to be part of it, as well as re-recordings of some songs I consider the best from the last demo. This new demo is going to be appropriately titled “Second Opinion”, and I hope it's released around Summer. I´m going to send it to various labels. It would be like a dream come true if it makes it into Lion Music. I think that would be the ideal label for my music. But I also think it is almost impossible to make it there, because number one, their release schedule is very busy, and two, the artists there are incredibly good. At least I´ll try. And, as far as side collaborations are concerned, I´m going to record the lead guitars for a new CD of the progressive American band “Neon Knight”, who are currently working with Mathias Holm.

 

 

IC: How old were you when you started playing guitar, and what led you to play instrumental guitar music?

Paco: That´s a long story! To make a long story short, I´ll say that I began studying keyboards at 5 years-old, and ended up studying theory, piano, and singing. By the time I was 14, I was interested in film composers as well as new age music... but then a friend of mine introduced me to rock music from Europe.  I just dug on the general metal scene.  I started listening to everything from Helloween to Dream Theather, Manowar, AOR, Testament, Nightwish, and everything in between. Since I began listening to rock music, I always felt curious about playing the guitar; the sounds it made were inimitable by keyboards, and I thought it would be really cool to learn to play. But the real culprit of me taking guitar very late, at 17 (I´m now 25), was - as often occurs - Yngwie Malmsteen. But, unlike other people, I never dressed like him, nor did I buy his guitar and do the Taekwondo kick / throwing the guitar thing.  [Laughs]  What I mean is that I never idolized him. There was a legend circulating of Yngwie being some kind of unreachable God, and from the very beginning I took surpassing him as a challenge. It was, obviously, an impossible task, but soon I forgot about that as I learned new things. It was then that I not only discovered the Shrapnel virtuosos (Moore, Macalpine, Tafolla) and the virtuoso scene in general, but I also opened my ears to other styles like jazz, fusion, blues, flamenco, classical guitar, etc...

IC: How much time do you spend practicing and playing nowadays, and how does that compare with your practice schedule when you were younger?

Paco: Well, back in the day, there was a time when I did the 10 hour Vai thing; it was like a hunger. I'd pick up the guitar at 9 AM and play till bedtime. I even carried it at the bathroom sometimes! That's the way I used to spend my school vacations!  [Laughs] 

 

IC: I wish I hadn't asked!  [Laughs] 

 

Paco:  [Laughs]  ... Right now, my practice schedule is no longer 10 hours, and I´m more focused on composing. It doesn’t matter how good your technique is, because without a solid composition it means nothing. I’m now studying an incredible opus, Samuel Adler’s "Study of Orchestration". A titanic instructional with 6 CDs around this matter, with lots of sound examples and videos of all the pieces of orchestra, its sounds, its combinations… It’s amazing.

As far as technique is concerned, I developed it in a curious way that reminds me of the incredible virtuoso Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa. She didn’t like to play piano when she was younger, and even though she was a monster pianist, she really wanted to be a world-class chess player. So what she did was put a good book - instead of a partiture - in the piano, in order to deceive her parents, who believed that she was sight reading!  She was really practicing random monster licks while enjoying her favourite book! I´m not comparing myself to Valentina... it would be like comparing a Goddess to a worm... but well, I did essentially the same thing, but with movies. I'd just take my guitar (unplugged of course, because my brother was there) and practice the licks that I needed or wanted to work on, while I enjoyed the movie. Of course, later I polished them with the metronome and with distortion on. This method has been really useful to me. I avoided the more boring part of lick practicing that is mindless mechanical repetition. Some of my friends think I'm insane, because when there's a movie playing and I don’t have a guitar near me I feel very strange! I´ve sometimes thought about carrying it to the cinema, but I doubt they'd let me in!  [Laughs]

 

(Well... he managed to sneak his ESP into a church!)

IC: Okay, what’s an average day like in the life of Paco Hernández? Are you trying to be a professional musician, or is it just a hobby right now?

Paco: Right now I´m studying for my Ph.D. in Philosophy. Luckily I have a very good scolarship to work on it. So basically my days are spent on researching, reading, and writing. But there is always room for the guitar and music! Some days I focus on songwriting, others on technique, or improvising… I would love to be a professional musician, but right now it´s a hobby. If the opportunity came to make a living with the guitar, I wouldn´t think twice! For now I´ll get my second demo released, and we'll see. I also keep a close eye on my Myspace profile, and things are going very well!

IC: How is the instrumental guitar music scene in Spain? Is there much of an audience there for that kind of music?

Paco: As everywhere, there are very good performers, but it's pretty underground. They must tour with the pop stars to make a living. But here where I live, in Murcia, it's even worse. There are some good guitarists around, and although there are fans, there is practically no rock guitar scene. The “solitary genius” types end up marching out of here.

 

IC: Have you performed your music for a live audience?

 

Paco: I have performed live (with guitar) only on 2 or 3 times.  Mainly because my philosophical studies demanded so much time, and I couldn´t get to know the right people. Anyway, I have performed live a lot of times, but playing organ for weddings.  It was horrible because you couldn´t make mistakes in the wedding march, with all the cameras recording the event, you'd ruin a key moment of the video memories of a family!  [Laughs] 

 

As a child, I was a soloist singer in choir. Unfortunately, my voice changed; I now speak like Darth Vader or some bad guy from a movie. [Laughs]

 

Oh, and I also often teach Philosophy at the University, to cover my Ph.D. Director´s class holes when he must attend conferences or trips. So basically I don´t have this “forum-phobia”.

 

IC: Your six-part neo-classical epic, entitled “Faustian Nightmare”, was just released online. What is each part of the song about?

Paco: Well, this is a song I´m very proud of. This is the perfect example of what I like: Chops of Doom and all that stuff, but always at the service of an elaborate, catchy and passionate composition (at least, the best I can deliver). The division of the piece into different parts responds to one of my writing methods: Imaging a story and trying to write music to it. In this one, I was inspired by Goethe´s famous book, "Faust". Since his opus is very long, I just took some key moments that interested me. For example, the rationalist hunger for knowledge of Faust (part III of my song) and the intelligent evilness of Mephisto (part IV). There are so many issues in the story (the trips of Faust and Mephisto, love, deceptiveness…), it would require an entire CD to cover.  Because of that, my song is just entitled a mere premonitory “Nightmare” Faust has in his chamber... I´m almost mad!  [Laughs]  But the thing is that this inspires me to compose. Maybe someday I´ll record an entire music tribute CD to “Faust”…

 

(Paco Hernández's “Faustian Nightmare”)

IC: Tell us a little about your guitars. 

Paco: My main guitar is an ESP Horizon FR II, with a Dimarzio Tone Zone and a Paf Pro. I really like the sound. It's very rich and clear, with definition, and not too much gain. But I recently purchased a 7-string. It´s an Ibanez Prestige, which I customized with a pair of EMG 707 pick-ups.

 

IC: What inspired you to get a 7-string?

 

Paco: Well, the main (not the only) culprit of me buying a 7-string was Rusty Cooley. I remember the first time I saw his instructional videos.  I thought, “Wow, what a technique! It would be so cool to display it in my compositions”. So I basically worked on his instructional stuff from top to bottom. I love the idea of having no boundaries on the guitar, taking everything to the extreme, and using every technique available. But for me, that's attached to wanting to be able to play whatever I might need for my songs, so I don't have to limit my imagination because of my technique. While working on Rusty´s stuff, I got a point where my ESP guitar couldn´t deliver what I wanted to hear, so I went for the seventh string and the high gain pick-ups.

IC: Aside from music and literature, what inspires your songwriting?

Paco: The process of writing can come to me in very diverse situations. For example, there are times when a melody comes into my head, I don´t know why, and keeps hanging around (I have great ease mentally singing and remembering musical ideas). Other times a song starts when I'm coming up with funny chorus lyrics with my friends, and I try to put a melody to it.  Or I just open the digital partiture on Cubasis and begin to write, or take the keyboard and try some chords and sounds… because I rarely compose with the guitar. In my composing method the guitar almost always comes the last; so a lot of times I find my music more difficult to play than other people's. ... Curious, I must learn to play my own stuff!  [Laughs]  

IC: I noticed that one of your songs, “Oceanic Passion” was dedicated to Shawn Lane. What are your feelings about Shawn’s music?

Paco: Well, there´s a little story behind this one. It´s a very old song (about 5 years); I composed it a year before I knew Lane´s stuff (when he was still alive). I was surprised that the mood and the melodic spirit of the song was in some ways similar to Shawn´s stuff on “Powers of Ten”. So when he passed away (I knew of his death in the middle of a Andy Timmons concert here) I decided to dedicate it to his memory.

(Paco Hernández's "Oceanic Passion")

 

Shawn was one of those very rare talents with physical ease on the instrument and a great sensibility for music. It is a shame that a lot of people see him as a mere shredder. It's true that lots of videos of him on the Internet are too focused on this vein. It´s also true that his technique was probably the best in the electric guitar realm (his exercises and licks are difficult even when played slowly). But rarely was this monster technique fully displayed in his compositions. There you will find good melody, knowledge, combinatory chord taste, and musical sensibility. Those were some of the most inspiring things about him. My favourite CD of his is “Powers of Ten”. I love all the songs on there. Although I also like a lot of his CD's with Jonas Hellborg.

IC: This is an instrumental guitar site, so what instrumental albums are you listening to right now, and which are your all-time favorites?

Paco: As far as instrumental guitar music is concerned, recently I've been listening to Kiko Loureiro's "No Gravity", Guthrie Govan's "Erotic Cakes", Terry Syrek's "Aum", Pat Metheny Group's "Speaking of Now", Gil Parris' "Strength", and Allan Holdsworth's "Secrets" and "Hard Hat Area". 

My all-time favourites are Steve Vai´s "Passion and Warfare" (which in my opinion is still unparalleled in imagination and genius), Liquid Tension Experiment 1 and 2 (outstanding musicianship and awesome songs on those CD's), and Tony Macalpine´s "Maximum Security" (neo-classical rock at its very best).

IC: Thanks for doing this interview, Paco!  I just have one final question: What’s the one thing you want people to know about you?

Paco: I would be happy if people don´t see me as a mere shredder. I love to shred, but for me that's secondary. It´s funny because, for example, my two shred videos on Youtube are the most viewed and commented on of mine, and I only recorded them to test my recently bought 7-string guitar; nothing serious, they are full of mistakes. However, the “Oceanic Passion” video or the Kiko Loureiro improvisation are rarely viewed and are commented on much less! Fortunately, I´ve found that on my Myspace there are a lot of people who tell me that my music has depth and passion, or that it has inspired them, made them imagine stories, and immersed them.  Someone even told me that “Oceanic Passion” made him cry! When people tell me things like that, they just make my day.

 

IC: Only death metal music makes me cry! Well… that and when someone forces me to listen to popular music on the radio.  [Laughs]  Thanks again, Paco!  I hope you get a nice record deal for your next album later this year. 

Paco: Dave, thank you SO much for the interview!! Best of luck with the website!!