An Interview With: Frettz

What’s up guys! I had the opportunity to interview Frettz who is a upcoming artist originally born in London, but is now living in Spain. You might be familiar with his single “Can’t Take It” which has amassed over 800,000 streams on Spotify. We spoke about his inspirations, his upcoming releases and how he has made a name for himself during this challenging digital era of music. Hope you guys enjoy the interview!

Q: Happy to have connected with you Frettz! Tell the people a little bit about yourself!
Frettz: Yo! I’m Frettz, I’m 20 and my real name is Arun. I’m from London, originally Trinidad, and I’m currently based in Malaga, Spain. I’m a producer rapper and I’m also self engineered, I focus mainly on alternative music so that basically means nothing in specific, but my recent projects have been mostly “Chill or Melodic Drill” .

Q: You mentioned you moved from London, England to Malaga, Spain! How would you describe the music scene in Spain?
Frettz: So I haven’t actually had that much experience with the music scene in Spain as from what I’ve seen it’s mostly reggaeton which I can’t say is my favourite genre, as well as rap battles which just doesn’t give me that creative fix that producing and taking my time with lyrics does. Although I do often find incredible artists I don’t feel the same community as there is back in London, but like anywhere else talent is right around the corner with artists like Morondo Patser, Isaac, Uzielli, Alex Ramos, 108Chris, Daby and YSM Flip all making a name for themselves.

Q: What made you want to pursue a career in music?
Frettz: I was always really into music, playing guitar from a young age and always wanted to compose guitar pieces, in 2018 I started producing beats with my own guitar loops, once I realized I wanted to pursue my passions full time I joined the London AMP Academy in Stockwell and learnt to; Produce, Record and Engineer all my music.

Once I completed my course I went around to different studios looking for work experience, and also did a DJ course kind of unrelated to my life now but it was a good experience.

In February 2020 I released my first song I had made in college as a leap of faith to “rip the band-aid off” and start releasing often. 

Music had always been a passion of mine, and the fact what most referred to as my hobby grew into my main source of income is insane, I don’t want this to come across like I only care about the money because I really don’t, but if there is chance I could live out the rest of my life focusing on what I love then god knows I’m going to try. Self belief is a huge part of who I am as an artist and what I aim to express and encourage in others through my music.

After about a year of consistent releases it really started to pay off, and the numbers started to grow, I didn’t see anything really crazy until I released Can’t Take It which was when I really started to receive love from fans and make my own audience in the alternative rap/drill genre.  

Q: You mentioned you’re now a full-time artist, what was the hardest thing about attaining that goal that many upcoming artists fail to achieve?
Frettz: That’s a good question to be honest off the top of my head I can’t really say.. All of it? None of it? It’s weird because it is all work and you have to treat it as such to grow but if you’re not enjoying the process you can get caught in a rut which is pretty hard to get out of without a spark. It helps to have a team to organize you and keep you on the right track. 

One thing I feel many fail with is to invest in themselves, there are so many platforms with fans just waiting to discover your music and thanks to my team all the revenue I’ve made from streaming royalties, engineering, producing, features etc has been put back into promoting my platform. With the exception of some nice shoes and a hoodie from time to time.. “for music videos”, at least that’s the what I tell the team.

[Photo of Frettz]

Q: Alright let’s talk about the actual music. What’s your creative process like?
Frettz: When it comes to making my music, producing the beat is normally the first step, that or hitting up my boy UnknwnMadeThat one of the few producers I work with. I never really write anything until I have the beat ready so that I have these melodies going round my head before even starting but I don’t really have a process like some other artists. I guess something I tend to stick to is to go with the flow, if you’ve got to force it better to let something else out and let inspiration carry you.

Q: While diving into your discography, I noticed you have a heavy drill influence, who are some artists that inspire your sound?
Frettz: My inspirations really have as wide a range as my discography, from US artists like XXXTENTACION, Tyler the creator, Dr Dre, Trippie Redd, J Cole and Joey Bada$$ to UK artists like Skepta, Eden, Tion Wayne, Mostack, MHuncho.. I could go on. 

When it comes to my main influences within UK drill I would say they are mostly Knucks, Tion Wayne, Digga D and K Trap, I don’t think I have a melodic inspiration within the genre, it’s more a twist I add of my own.

Q: Who are some people on your team that have helped you achieve success in your musical career?
Frettz: So my team is honestly a huge part of Frettz, I owe a lot of what I have achieved to the people around me like my brother and manager Jay Splitz, my close friend like family & vocal trainer/consultant Isaac Onuk, my audiovisual director Alba Harden, producers like UNKNWN and KSWN and it might not be cool to say but my parents who believed in me when I said I wanted to chase my dreams of becoming an artist.

Q: Are you working on anything new at the moment?
Frettz: My most recent drop was “Needed Most (Achoo)” featuring my guy Emalay, self produced and mixed, then sent off to Zionrecords to master in order to achieve a tactile analogue sound. It was released on the 15th of September and I’ve actually got a house remix featuring Jay in the making which in fact by the time this is out it should have been released to all platforms. Of course I have music in the bank, enough for a couple different genre albums even, but I don’t really feel that my audience is ready for full length projects just yet.

Q: If you can, tell us a funny or dope story that you’ve encountered during your rise to fame/success?
Frettz: This is actually pretty recent so the funniest thing that’s ever happened is one of my old old like childhood friends got a call from his dad saying he was in a McDonalds in London and they were playing a song of mine that he’d seen on my mums Facebook and I just think that’s wild shout-out to that McDonalds manager or who ever run the music, something else that was pretty cool someone I was speaking to found their brother listening to my music and he didn’t know she knew me or who I was.

Q: Is there anything else you want the people to know?
Frettz: Be yourself and trust your gut. People come and go so never change for anyone, and your gut ALWAYS knows wassup.

That concludes our exclusive interview with Frettz. I would like to thank Frettz for his time, and Jay Splitz for connecting us! Be sure to keep up with Frettz, and check out some of his music I attached below! Cheers.

Watch “Can’t Take It (Feat. Jay Splitz)” Here:

Follow Frettz:
https://www.instagram.com/frettzofficial/
https://twitter.com/Frettzofficial

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