Exclusive Interview with UK Based Producer Tom Ferry

TOM FERRY UNLEASHES THRILLING SINGLE ‘COME CLOSER’ WITH MARCUS MOLLYHUS & NOVA MAY

Tom Ferry is a hugely talented producer hailing from Liverpool, UK and a serious one to watch. Now signed to the reputable ChillYourMind label for a multi-single deal and a forthcoming debut album, exciting times lay ahead for Ferry. Showcasing his quality productions and remixes full of irresistible melodies on influential labels including Virgin, Ultra, Axtone and Armada, Ferry has now crash through 70+ million streams on Spotify alone.

With EDM mainstay Marcus Mollyhaus and feisty rising vocalist, Npva May, he’s recently launched new single ‘Come Closer’ so what a better time to get to know this rising star… Here he chats about self-teaching himself production, working with the legend Duane Harden, and how he still holds down a day job working in a grocery store…

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

Hey Tom, welcome to UFO-Network. Let’s set the scene… Where abouts in the world are you and what’s the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

Born, raised and still based in Liverpool in the northwest of England. I usually finish most nights by watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts, nothing particularly exciting unfortunately.

Congratulations on signing to ChillYourMind. Your latest single ‘Come Closer’ is taken from your forthcoming debut album. How do you get the creative juices flowing?

I usually just listen to music until something gets stuck in my head that I want to turn into a full song. I don’t listen to a lot of dance music though so it’s usually ideas stemming from all kinds of music. Marcus sent me a demo of Come Closer quite a while ago now and it’s been resang and also reproduced a couple of times in various styles, trying to get it just right and waiting for the perfect time to release it. I think the current style and with Nova’s vocals, is really is the best it could be. I’m really excited to see what it does!

Speaking of the new album ‘shapes’, what can we expect – similar vibes to your last single, ‘Underwater’?

There are tracks similar to Underwater! It has some incredibly summery, cheesy pop-house tracks all the way to quite deep and atmospheric trance vibes. The album starts in one way and definitely ends in another.

What was the legend Duane Harden like to work with on your track ‘Better With You’?

That was definitely weird as before that I’d never worked with any singers or songwriters before and had no idea what I was doing. We had a quick chat about the overall vibe and him and Joe Killington wrote the vocal tracks in what seemed like 15 minutes. It came together very fast and was definitely a cool experience for me at the time to work on something with Duane as when I was a kid, you couldn’t listen to music on TV or radio and not hear his track with Armand van Helden.

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You had a flux of remix requests from the likes of Felix Jaehn and Tritonal following your unofficial remix of Ariana Grande’s ‘Into You’, which Billboard charted in their ‘Top 8 Ariana Grande Remixes Of All Time’. What’s your approach to remixing?

I try and not listen to the original track if possible, just so the raw vocals are the first thing I hear and then I can try and imagine what would really compliment them; how the progression should be, what the arrangement would be like, what key vocal lines could be chopped into a hook etc. Then once I have a rough idea, I’ll listen to some tracks on Spotify playlists and see if I can get inspired from any of them and then start piecing it all together.

How did you get your first break? And what advice would you give to other producers just starting out?

I don’t know if I’ve had a break yet, or that’s how it definitely feels sometimes. I’d say good advice for starting out would be choose one DAW and one synth and learn them inside out. The basics of music theory can help you a lot too.

Let’s go back to pre-Covid times. Where were you DJing?

Not much DJing pre-COVID so thankfully lockdown wasn’t a big shock to me. I like DJing but it’s more of a side thing and production is what my main focus is in. I had a gig in Hungary in 2018 and that was definitely a really fun experience.

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We understand you’re a completely self-taught producer. What resources did you use to learn your trade?

I started around 2006 and the few YouTube tutorial videos out then were mainly hip hop orientated. There were very few sample packs and soundbanks available for specific genres too. It was a huge amount of trial and error and just figuring it out by experimenting. Although I taught myself a lot of the basics, I spend a lot of time these days watching tutorials and videos just to learn as much as I can. After all this time, however, I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

Where did your love of music come from? Did you grow up in a musical household?

Not at all. My mum and dad definitely had a great and diverse taste in music which helped, but I always loved music in the same way everybody does. I don’t know what triggered the idea of wanting to get involved in creating it but I’m glad I jumped in headfirst.

We hear you still hold down a day job working in a grocery store. When do you find the time to produce music?

It’s only 20 hours, thankfully. Royalties for producers are still not as fair as they should be and being paid on time from record labels is not something that ever happens, so it’s nice to have a safety net to make sure I can keep a roof over my head if a label takes 3 months to pay an invoice.

Tell us 3 unknown facts about yourself.

I write melodies all day as a job and I have never bothered to learn to play an instrument.

I don’t really listen to dance music even though it’s what I make.

My main interest outside of music is cars, specifically 90s JDM weirdness.

And your ultimate dream collaboration?

The obvious choices, people like Becky Hill and MNEK. Also maybe branch out and work with artists in other genres like Justin Vernon or John Mayer could be really interesting.

Finally, what should we look out for from now until the album drops in September?

There are two more singles to come before the album launches completely so I’m really excited to see how they do after the great reception of the first two.

Thanks for speaking with us Tom!

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