Herman Martinez

Interview With Herman Martinez

SBS:  Welcome to our pages!  Whether you’ve been here with us in some way before, or you’re brand-new to the site, it’s probably best to get an introduction from you so that we get everyone on the same page to start.  Tell us a little bit about the history of your music, and what’s happening with it lately!?!

Herman Martinez:  So this project started between 2013 to 2015 when Ahmed Mahmoud offered to produce and record an album for me.  We experimented for a while and recorded a bunch of songs that would become my debut album Solopsi Radio.  Around the same time I moved from New Jersey to Georgia and continued to write and record with Chase Cassara in Athens and Ahmed continued to produce and mix music for me remotely.  Now it’s 10 years later and I’m finishing up my 5th album and I think it’s my best work yet.

SBS:  Let’s talk about the before and after of where you’re currently at.  What’s something about the music that you’re making now that you don’t think you could have done five years ago, and what’s something you think you’ll be able to do with your music five years from now that you can’t do today?  How have you grown as an artist/band, and what steps do you take to continue your artistic evolution?

Herman:  Some of the songs on this new album are actually songs I started about 5 years ago and were never happy with till now, and there are songs I’m messing with now that I’m sure won’t see the light of day for years.  Maybe they need time to marinate or maybe they just mean more during certain phases of my life or career.  I’m working on my posture so I’ve grown at least 2 inches as an artist.  I try to absorb as much art and music as I can.  I do tattoos for a living so I’m surrounded by artistic types and creative people tend to stimulate each other.  I do most of my writing at work in between appointments.

SBS:  If you were to assess the overall health of the independent music scene right now, what would you say?  What are the positives and the negatives about the current state of independent music, and what do you feel like artists & bands can do to contribute to the community & help it grow beyond the music being made?  If you’re not actively looking to listen to the music of other independent artists/bands, is it really all that fair to expect anyone would listen to yours?  How do you help the scene around you grow?

Herman:  Shit man, I don’t know if I’m the one that should be answering that.  I’m a hermit; I just kinda appear and play places sometimes.  Networking has always been a weakness for me.  I’m also in GA trying to play my psychotic gibberish music to people who like country.

SBS:  What do you consider to be the biggest accomplishment or achievement you’ve had with your music to-date?  How do you personally measure your own success – is that something that even can be measured?  Is it awards, accolades, chart position…or is your definition of success based on something entirely different?  Should success, however you define it, be something that artists are continually focused on – or is success something that naturally occurs in the course of doing what you love to do?

Herman:  I’m not sure if I’ve accomplished anything.  Maybe time will tell.  I just hope I don’t suck.  As much as I’m tempted to give some pseudo profound definition of success, I’ll just say that I’ll feel successful when I can use any of my art to give my family a good life.

SBS:  When you’re working on something brand-new, and something about it just doesn’t feel like it’s coming together the way that you think it should, how do you know when it’s time to give up on it, or how do you know that it’s time to dig in even harder and find a way to make it work?  Are there distinct red flags you can hear when something’s not working?  What are the signs you look for that tell you to stop forcing the material?  What would actually encourage you to keep going with the process instead?

Herman:  When I’m working on an album, I’ll create a playlist on my phone of mixes and demos.  If there’s a song that I consistently skip, I’ll put it on the back burner while I focus on the songs that hold my attention better.

SBS:  One of the points of general consensus in the art of making music, is that we all get our sound from somewhere…we hear what we like, then more often than not, we take tiny pieces of what we love to find our own voice & approach to go on and make music in our own way.  Essentially, what I’m saying is that it’s absolutely natural to be inspired by other artists/bands, and almost every artist/band ends up having that inspiration show up in their own work in some way, shape, or form.  What the real key is though, is retaining your own organic perspective – you still wanna be original too, right?  So how do you go about doing that?  Are there artists or bands that you know have been an influence on your style & sound?  How were you able to incorporate that influence without becoming too noticeably derivative and still be yourself?  Should we embrace and celebrate our influences more than we do?  It’s almost like we try not to admit influences exist in the pursuit of being original, but it’s like, bruh…if it’s there, we can hear it.  We all borrow something from those that came before us to some extent, don’t we?

Herman:  So on all my albums there’s at least one song with the line “every song you’ve ever heard.”  That’s kinda what you are as a musician, a composite of every song you’ve heard.  I think all songs come from the same place.  In my head I see a giant source of music, like a black hole or some entity that doesn’t understand itself yet.  And it’s like every song we write stirs it a little.  It’s why I keep my lyrics somewhat positive.  I want it to know I’m a friend.  Also I like Wu Tang Clan and 8 bit Nintendo music.

SBS:  Has there ever been a time where you wrote something inside one of your songs…maybe it’s a lyrical line, or maybe it’s a riff of some kind…something that you did, where you surprised yourself?  I like to think we all have a moment or two where we can stand back and be amazed by something we created, and appreciate the fact that maybe, just maybe, we exceeded our own expectations of what we thought we could accomplish – you know what I mean?  Get as specific as you can so the fans out there know what they should be paying attention to when they hear it – what’s your favorite thing that you’ve written on the inside of one of your songs, and why does this particular piece resonate so much to you?

Herman:  I was mainly a guitarist for a long time but over the last few albums I’ve been writing more songs on piano.  Sometimes I’ll write something really cool and I feel grateful that I bought that craigslist piano that one year in North Carolina with the broken keys and dragged it to work and drove everyone crazy with it while I slowly leveled up.  I didn’t think 10 years ago that I would become a functional piano player.

SBS:  I’ve been having a lot of great debates lately about whether or not everybody that’s making music has the right to be heard…and you’d probably be surprised by how different people seem to feel about this issue.  I know where I stand on it, and I think you can all probably get an idea of what my position would be from this free interview we’re doing here & the way we run things at sleepingbagstudios…but regardless, I’m putting this question out there to you, because I’m interested in YOUR perspective.  Just because you’ve made a song, does that mean people should listen?  If your answer is yes, do your best to explain why you feel that way & why we should make a sincere effort to listen to the music of others.  If your answer is no, explain why you feel that way, but also explain why people should still be listening to your music if that’s the case – what would make your music the exception, and not follow the rule?  Is there any value to an idea that’s not finished, or a song in its demo stages, or maybe something that’s not recorded in a top-shelf studio or with good equipment – somebody still took the time to make that song to the best of their ability with the means they had to create it – should that be listened to, or not?

Herman:  I think there’s a lot of gray area there.  Some music definitely deserves to be heard but isn’t.  Some music is a blight to anyone with ears but goes straight to the top.  I think anyone who plays in service of the giant black hole space creature from a few questions ago should at least get heard once.  The real question is ‘does it deserve to be heard twice?’

SBS:  There are ups and downs in the dynamics of almost every album we listen to, with very few exceptions.  Even those exceptions, probably still come down to more of a personal preference about what we enjoy about music and how we personally hear it, rather than anything being completely and totally “perfect” – you know what I mean?  Does an album actually need to have some kind of up/down dynamics in terms of what’s appealing to the masses in order for the best of the best songs in a lineup to be fully appreciated?  Wouldn’t every artist & band avoid the ‘down’ side (less accessible/less popular for example) if they could?  Does the ‘down’ side represent something else perhaps, like the story of an album or journey of an artist?  Is the ‘up’ side of a record as potent or noticeable if it doesn’t have a ‘down’ side to go with it?  Would a completely balanced album somehow be boring if it didn’t have the ups/downs that most have?  Do we HAVE to like every single song on a record for it to be considered complete?  Are the dynamics of an album something anyone can really steer in the direction they want to, or are all artists & bands simply going with the strongest material they have created at the time?

Herman:  I think it just has to be interesting.  All my songs tend to be little mini albums anyway.  Why worry about up and down when music can propel you forwards and backwards in time.  I do however strive to make an album where every song is god tier.  I’m sure you’ve had that moment where someone puts you on to an album and it’s a pivotal moment in your development as a human being.  I would love to write something that powerful.

SBS:  I wanna send out a shout-out to YOU from me personally – I appreciate everyone that has taken the time to talk tunes with me throughout the years, and I appreciate the time YOU have taken with this interview too.  Because this one’s a little different in the sense that it’s been sent out to multiple people and is a little more generic in that regard, I have no doubt whatsoever that we probably didn’t get to talk to you about something you wanted to talk about – so let’s fix that!  This final space is what we call the SBS Open Floor – a spot where you can say anything else you want to say to the people out there.  It can be anything at all…your main websites…something else you want them to know about you and/or your music…your favorite bands in the scene right now…the secret 11 herbs and spices to the Colonel’s secret recipe – you get the idea, and it’s probably best you choose something that suits you rather than take any of my suggestions, but feel free to take the SBS Open Floor for a ride.  Whatever it is you want the people to know, now is the prime time for you to tell’em!  Thanks again for everything – keep in touch!

Herman:  No idea what to do with this podium so I’ll just space out and say random shit.

There’s an album called Troublemaker by Mister Educator that’s fucking brilliant.  He also has another project called Nostril with an album called Cleave.  Definitely check those out.

You can learn a lot of songwriting essentials from old school video game music.

My new album will hopefully be out by the end of the summer.  It’s a living thing disguising itself as songs.  It hears you too.

New Jersey pizza is the food of the gods.

Olives are grapes’ sweaty cousins.

My all-time favorite guitar player is Kaki King.

I’m neurodivergent AF.

My songs may appear to you in humanoid form, in your dreams or at the foot of your bed watching you sleep.  They’re just curious. 

Find out things about Herman Martinez from this multi-link:  https://linktr.ee/hermanmartinezartwork

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