Spotlight On... Ferester

There’s something so utterly familiar about Spencer O’Grady’s music as Ferester. His single High Hope is a spacious, rugged and beautifully paced folk song where the gaps are just as powerful as moments of full instrumentation, if not more so. With it, Ferester shows a real knack for songwriting further exemplified across his latest EP, Days Go By, pointing to a promising future. With a live performance due on Friday 15 August as part of this year’s Wide Days: Made In Scotland Gigs showcase, we catch up with O’Grady to talk influences, inspirations and what's next.

First thing’s first, I’d love to know where the name Ferester comes from, what’s the meaning behind it and when did you start making music under that moniker? Was there a reason you chose that over just using your name?
This is definitely the question I get the most often! 'Ferester' is actually my grandparents' surname so it's a bit of a tribute to them. There wasn't much reasoning behind not using my own name to be honest other than the fact that I felt as though the name Ferester really resonated with the project when I started it a couple years ago – though a lot of the time if you google 'Ferester' it actually comes up with my grandmother's real estate business instead of this project so I may have shot myself in the foot with that one!

Your music is rooted in Scottish and American folk – what artists have influenced your songwriting growing up and in recent years?
Bon Iver has probably been the biggest consistent inspiration for me over the years – mostly in the way that he uses incredibly melodies to capture these almost intangible feelings of wistfulness through lyrics that are so meaningful yet so abstract and beautiful. Hozier is another for similar reasons. In recent years I've been inspired by a lot of folk/country artists like Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan and Gregory Alan Isakov as well. 

In a relatively short space of time, you seem to have gained quite the following – what have been your highlights so far as Ferester?
The social media algorithms really do work sometimes! Getting over a million streams on my song Renegades on Borrowed Time was definitely a really cool moment – it's been a goal for as long as I've been releasing music to have a song stream over a million times so it was special to finally see that happen. Being featured as Track of the Week a couple times on BBC Radio Scotland has also been a cool moment for me and to have had such a welcoming reception from them over the past few releases has been amazing. Touring with Tophouse earlier this year was also a lot of fun, as it was the first time in a while I'd been able to play my songs in front of some big crowds and the reception from those shows was incredible.

I've also received countless messages from people telling me how much my music has meant to them and that it has even helped them through difficult moments in their lives which, for me, is infinitely more meaningful than the numbers, likes, follows etc that we all obsess over on socials. More than anything, it shows the positive impact that music and art can have on people's lives, and to even be playing a small part in that for some people is incredibly profound for me.

You’ve just released your Days Go By EP – what are some of the themes found across the record, what inspired its creation?
This EP really covers it all for me. It starts out with the titular song that explores my fear of commitment and of letting people in. Hue explores love and heartbreak, it chronicles that feeling after a breakup where all you can think about is how much you miss being that close with someone. High Hope is my ode to the Scottish Highlands and my personal favourite on the EP – being out in the mountains is my happy place and is like a form of therapy for me, so High Hope is my attempt to distil that feeling into musical form. Whisky Tide was born out of a long distance relationship where there was a lot of angst and uncertainty and it was written as a reassurance and reaffirmation of love. Violet is probably the most straightforward love song I've ever written and Volcano was just a lot of fun because I really milked the volcano metaphor for it all its worth.