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Do you keep up with the latest hot acts and artists in the mainstream music world?

OrtegaI'm not obsessed as I used to be about it, but I do like to hear anything that's good that's new.

You mentioned Stevie Ray Vaughan. Does that music inspire you in any way?

OrtegaI wouldn't really say Stevie Ray Vaughan. If that stuff that started to creep into my music, I would sound like an idiot. If I try to sing rock 'n' roll or blues or play jazz, I sound dumb. I just don't have it. I don't know if I can develop it or not, but my voice just doesn't run itself in that kind of stuff. But I think with a lot of the music I listen to, some of it does end up inspiring me or inspiring thoughts about what songs could be about.

Is there something you know about songwriting now you wish you would have understood years ago?

OrtegaJust that it takes time to get it right. It's not so much about cranking out the song, but about getting to the core of something. And you can write a whole bunch of stuff on the way to get there, and it can even be good stuff, but it may not be what makes it a good, true song.

I've also learned that you have to let go. There has to be a certain amount of letting go of your ego. I don't know. There's a nugget to be got at, and that's what you're after. I like to surround myself with good critics—Peter and Elaine, John Schreiner, my wife—and run the things that I write past them. Sometimes it's really difficult. You think you've written something really great, and they'll listen to it and say, "It was very sentimental," or like "You have one good line in this whole song." And I really enjoy that kind of feedback. It's part of the process. I know plenty of people would never want to have that kind of thing in their life, but for me it works very well.

How hard are you on yourself?

OrtegaWay, way too hard. I'm ruthless, and that's why so much stuff gets written before I'll write down a chorus. That other stuff is just junk that I'll never come back to. Whereas I think the key is to go back to it and let it grow into something.

What comes first, the lyrics or the melody?

OrtegaIt can go both ways. I find it a lot easier to take some lyrics and set them to music than to have a melody and chords already in place that you have make lyrics fit into. But I would say that's how seventy percent of the songs I do are.

Has it always been like that?

OrtegaIt's always been easier for me to do it that way. "Jesus, King of Angels" was an entire song before I ever had any words. And I knew how the melody was going to go and everything, but I had to fit the syllables, strong and weak syllables on the right strong and weak moments. It's very hard. I think that's my favorite. It's just so much agony. And then when it came, it was just kind of like all of a sudden.

What are the most difficult songs to sing?

OrtegaTo sing physically?

Emotionally.

OrtegaThe only thing I can ever think that I can tear up on in the middle of a song is one I wrote for my wife. Otherwise, I can be singing about death and whatever and I won't lose it. But there were a few times where I just got in the emotion of the song. I don't know why that is. It's a tender, sweet song. I sang it in Minneapolis one night and just started bawling. I think I sang like three lines and just had to play the whole thing instrumentally with audience clapping. It was last year on our anniversary.

Fernando Ortega's next album is currently slated to release on Curb Records in August of 2004. For more about him and his music, visit his artist page on our site, where you'll find a review of his most recent studio album, Storm. To listen to sound clips and buy Fernando Ortega's music, visit Christianbook.com

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