You could imagine, “oh he plays funk and uses the synthesizer, he must only listen to James Brown or Prince or Michael Jackson” but it goes way beyond that. Like let’s say I only listen to James Brown. RH: I think it just influences my mind instead of a therapist or maybe just any other thing I’d rather engage in, it’s just to look at something that someone created that has a passion behind them doing it.ĭC: Yeah, it’s like artists inspiring artists. I love the surreal painters.ĭC: Does art ever influence your music then? It’s just all the modern art museums that I’ve gone to like the contemporary collection in Houston. RH: Yeah, if you were gonna blanket it, yeah. Especially if it’s contemporary.ĭC: Is contemporary your favorite kind of art? I am super influenced - it’s kind of like a brain massage, it’s therapeutic to come to a museum with a lot of space and huge art. RH: Yeah I live, here we’re at the Modern Art Museum, I live 10 minutes away at most from here. But Fort Worth, and I live here in Fort Worth, seems to have not too many.ĭC: So you’re stationed here in Fort Worth? I would say there’s a lot of R&B acts in Dallas. So I think that that’s been incorporated into the whole thing for years since the genre came to be. There’s a lot of that which, let’s say the guitarist who play in the classic popular funk groups definitely have blues and some kind of jazz influence in their playing. I know Quaker City Night Hawks are sort of the southern blues-y rock band. RH: I don’t know if there’s too much of it. It just has the anticipation and the build up.ĭC: So you play more in the DFW area, what is the funk scene there like? And sometimes it feels awkward to be dancing super hard and then realizing, okay, I could save this, I could have a more dramatic, still, statuesque kind of feel to the whole performance and all of a sudden burst into something. RH: No, I think from just seeing videos of the performances. So, you know, here and there learning how to control when I should be moving or when it’s more, I guess not necessarily appropriate, because you don’t wanna see someone being all over the place the entire time. So if you haven’t seen me play live, I’m basically moving the entire time. I keep the live performance in mind while creating songs.ĭC: When you are performing live, do you incorporate some sort of dance? I think dancing in general has something to do with why and how I make music. But my Latin roots – my dad’s from Columbia and my mom’s from El Salvador – and all the Latin music, all the Latino music I listen to at home definitely has something to do with it. I’ve been listening to hip hop a lot, I think because of the dancing. RH: I would just say just to keep it general. Whatever the album sounds like, however I preform, it’s very inspired by that era of music.ĭC: What are some of your biggest inspirations? I listen to a lot of funk and disco inspired stuff. I wanted to be a singer.ĭC: So why the change in genres? What made you want to get into the funk genre that you do now? RH: I guess there was a point in time where I had vigor to create my own music. So, I was 16 and I’ve been playing guitar ever since, so little by little accumulating other skills.ĭC: What made you take the leap from Neon Indian to what you do now? Up until moving to Colorado when I was 16, where there weren’t a lot of, or any music schools in public Colorado and I guess instead I started something else up that wasn’t a sport and ended up being just playing guitar. I don’t have family who are musicians so I grew up in Houston loving dancing and that’s what I wanted to professionally be. RH: I was dancing when I was younger and I never ever thought of music. So what made you want to start getting into music? I think Flying Lotus was pretty much the only person I saw.ĭC: It is a pretty cool performance. I came here, since I didn’t have to perform, I went straight to the Green Room and took pictures with the photographer upstairs and ate a bunch, you know I kinda stayed up there accidentally for a long time. I kind of didn’t get to see many people yesterday. RH: I would say the Flying Lotus performance was really good. How have you liked it so far?ĭC: What have been your favorite artists to see? Local artist Ronnie Gierhart decided to forge his own path when he left electro-pop group Neon Indian to start a solo funk career under the name “Ronnie Heart.” At Fortress Festival, The Daily Campus had the opportunity to talk with him at the Modern Art Museum about his music, influences and the art of smoothie making.ĭaily Campus: We know you’ve been at the festival even though you got canceled. Ronnie Heart at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Photo credit: Kylie Madry
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