Issue #15 Featured Artist: Paul Hernandez
by Paul Hernandez
Transcript below
Where did your musical journey begin?
So, my first introduction to actually performing and getting involved with music was through a church community called More Than 12. That’s where I started to rap. That was actually my first time really, rapping in front of people and mostly free styling. They gave me opportunities to perform and lead worship and it was actually through the spontaneous times of worship that I was able to freestyle and really just begin to get creative. Through that, that opened up a huge door for me to really explore some of the gifts God gave me, and really tap into my creative side. I never knew that I would be involved with music in any way and that was just never something I had in my upbringing. So this was really a life changing experience to really see that God called me to use my gift -and even bring it outside of the church.
What’s one passion you have, apart from music?
So this is a passion that’s kind of developed over time- and that has just been to really love and appreciate animals. I’ve owned maybe a cat growing up- and a hamster. I had a hamster and his name is Fidget, my friend named him. And that, those were really my only pets I had growing up. It wasn’t really till I got married that my wife and I really started to connect more with animals. And it's more so because her career path took her down a very veterinary road, she became a veterinary technician. Ever since then, we’ve always been surrounded by animals and we eventually ended up rescuing three of them. We own two cats we rescued, found them in a construction warehouse, and we rescued one dog from Texas. Their names are Finn, Sloan, and Luca and we love them very much and it’s through this whole experience of just being involved with animals- owning them, rescuing them, my wife working with them- that I’ve personally really become attached to them and I’ve learned to just appreciate them. And you know it’s God’s creations, as companions, and friends. You know it’s an amazing thing to really be able to bond with them.
Have you always been a creative?
As I mentioned before I’ve always had a creative upbringing. I love the fine arts, I love projects where I got to color and create, cut out magazines and high school. I’ve always loved them and always just excelled in arts all the time. And it was not until when I actually met this guy in high school, he’s one of my best friends, his name is Dario, we started playing these games on private servers. Playing World of Warcraft with my Guns Online- that I’ve Gun Abound, I don’t even know if you know any of those games, but we just like hosting this online game and we created this community and it was through that I learned to design logos and banners. I made theme music for everything. Everything that I had to do with the design of the website and the game was something that really, really intrigued me. That’s kind of where I learned all my skills to create. It was from there that I’ve been able to apply that stuff to my music- cover art, when I make promo material, marketing material, it’s just always been something I love and it’s just an amazing thing to have that hands-on connection with a craft that way.
So another thing I really enjoyed is when I lived with my grandparents and my grandma is a painter/sculptor she’s just an all-around very creative person. So I really feel like a lot of that was passed on to me especially when I went to school, she really was kind of teaching me how to excel in watercolors and in painting, then when I had his project we just kind of went over and above. It was really making me take my projects to the next level. So that was just something I’ve always been on. It's just having a creative attitude towards life in general so I just love to create and that’s something I’ll always do and I can showcase through my music.
Anything else you want us to know?
One last thing that ties into the creative aspect has just been doing funny impressions. And you guys have seen some of them already. And I know you’ve laughed at them. In my past, I would do all these funny accents. In high school I had all of these friends from Philippino, East Indian, Chinese- and you know we joked around in those days. And they would get me to imitate them, teach me words in their language, and just kind of throughout life I’ve always had a desire to just kind of imitate cartoon characters and funny things and funny lines from movies. And you guys see how I post some of them. So those are one of my great passions is just doing impersonations, impressions. Ultimately my goal is just to really make people laugh, I love when somebody laughs and I love when I can get a good reaction out of them too. So yeah, those are really some of the things that I love to involve myself with and keep the creative fire going inside of me and I hope ultimately that you just learned a bit more about me and some of the things that I love. So bless you guys and have an amazing day.
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