Konstantin Samoilov: I am with Christopher Frutos in Torrance, California. Chris loves "Grace" by Jeff Buckley. What do you feel when you listen to “Grace”, Chris?
Chris Frutos: I feel inspired. I feel a little sad, but also I guess a little, like, excited, and I like singing and that song's really fun to sing — but I’m not gonna sing it for you right now. But, like, it's fun to sing along when you're in the car or in the shower. That song has a lot of, like, mourning of a past relationship, it seems like. I mean, just cause from what I've, from how I interpret the song, it might be other things.
But it's a cool song cause it goes from very mellow and just like, very… Jeff is kind of whispering to you some stuff and he kind of says, like, “There's a moon asking to stay, far along…”, or — I didn't even pull up the lyrics cause I didn't even come that prepared. But he’s like, “There's a moon asking to stay / Long enough for the clouds to fly me away / It's my time coming, I'm not afraid, afraid to die.”
And it just kind of, like, puts you into… Just a quiet, like, I don't know if you wanna play the song, if that's how this format goes or whatever, but it just starts off kind of setting you up for something and then yeah, it has, it goes into more, like, energy slowly or in, like, I would say more of like a terrace.
Right? It's not like a straight line up, but it's like a terrace and like another terrace, if that makes sense. Does that kind of make sense? Yeah. I dunno if that answers the question. I forgot the question. I'm just talking about it.
Konstantin Samoilov: You got it. What do you feel inspired by when you — you said inspired, was the first thing you said. What inspired?
Chris Frutos: Well, I think the song hints at, or it's getting at him wanting to move on. He talks about it as in terms of death, but I think it's more so like going onto the next part. He's just like, he's not afraid to die. But another lyric that he brings onto that is he kind of is frustrated in that this stage he's in, or this… himself waiting to go.
It's coming so slowly. So he just feels like he's, you could say trapped, or kind of anxious. But I think from that anxiety comes inspiration. I don't know, I guess… there's parts of the song that also just kind of like push you, you know, they, they kind of just like push you forward.
Konstantin Samoilov: Like, when you feel inspired…
Chris Frutos: Go ahead.
Konstantin Samoilov: You feel inspired, like, career-wise or social more, or relationship related more?
Chris Frutos: All of 'em, I would say. Cause you know, I feel like there's sometimes songs that you just listen to and you feel something, even though they're talking about something else, like a song could be talking about, you know, booty and twerking and all that kind of stuff.
And for you, you just like, you don't even know what, what they're saying sometimes, you just like how it's going, you know, how the beat's going, how everything's going. So I guess you could say in any aspect it could, it could change, I'm not sure.
Konstantin Samoilov: And do you think about, like, one particular relationship from the past or like all, like whatever…?
Chris Frutos: As far as relationships… well, I was in a long term relationship for a while. Not in it now, it’s been, like, a year and a half now, but I guess I could think about that one. But I think all my relationships, just little ones I've had before and after that.
Maybe it's just more so myself. I think the more important one is the relationship with myself. Yeah, that's probably a big one. I mean, that's the one that stays with you, right? Always.
Konstantin Samoilov: Do you know anyone else that's super into the song that you've, like, talked about it with?
Chris Frutos: Oh, yeah. My friends from high school, they're the ones that really showed me Jeff Buckley, like, in high school. And I mean, I love the… mainly the main album he released before he died, which was in like ’95, which is called “Grace” as well.
Do you know about this album? Have you heard it yourself? Sure you must have.
Konstantin Samoilov: I've heard “Grace”, you showed — I ended up listening to “Grace” because of you. I've not heard the album yet.
Chris Frutos: Oh, how'd you… If you don't mind me, like, I hope it isn’t a waste of a show, but how'd you feel about it? How'd you like the song?
Konstantin Samoilov: I… so, it was immediately sort of classic in tone, like sort of the early nineties.
I was just looking at it, the Wikipedia page, and I like that — one of the genres it's in is Celtic Rock. And I didn’t, like, perceive it beforehand, but then when I read it, I was like, oh yeah, it totally has, like, Celtic elements. And I like a lot of that type of stuff, so it made me like it more.
Chris Frutos: What is Celtic Rock, if you don't mind going to, like — what are those sounds that you're…
Konstantin Samoilov: It's those instruments. It's those typical sort of Celtic instruments that permeate in a lot of different genres and stuff. And I just have like an addiction to those. I'll have to look up exactly what it is.
Chris Frutos: Is one of 'em like an accordion kind of instrument? Because there's this other song he has called “Lover, You Should've Come Over”, and the beginning has that, like accordion, or not an accordion…
[Konstantin note: turns out it’s a harmonium!]
Nevermind, not to get into that too much — like, what's one instrument that is Celtic, if you might happen to know?
Konstantin Samoilov: Harp.
Chris Frutos: Okay.
Konstantin Samoilov: Yeah. What's a song that's like the complete opposite to “Grace” that you also love?
Chris Frutos: Oh man, that's a hard one because, as I said, “Grace” has so many parts to it that belong to so many emotions that — there's no opposite to, you know, I mean, a song that I could think of… let me see. Let me pull up my library. Try to just… cause I think I know what you're getting at.
I mean, as far as like genres and... steering away from the emotionality that it has, maybe something that wouldn't, so I mean… “Just A Stranger” by Kali Uchis, why not. And I'm not even sure why anymore. I mean, I guess you don't — it's just a fun song —you don't get into… it's fun, but it's also, I wouldn’t say — I mean, it's passionate, too. I mean, all songs are passion, have passion in 'em, so it's hard.
You know, that's one thing about coming into this medium, you know, music, and not something like movies or shows is like, there's actors involved and they're performing and they're, it's like they're telling you how… or like they're acting, like in the end they're still acting some emotion or some concept, you know?
But like music, it just always seems like the artists who sing it always feel that stuff. You know, they actually are that stuff, you know? And when you see a movie, it's almost like like a composure of emotions, but behind it and what's actually in front of you is not really any of that. I mean, that's what kind of tricks you, I guess.
But I don't know. I feel like with music, it's more real. It's more… yeah, it's like there, it's really there, like right behind, you know, the voice or behind those instruments and all that. Maybe just more so like when you sing, more than anything. You see people rocking out with their guitars and the drum, everything, really any instrument, but mainly singing, I feel. It really comes from the soul, you know? So tying that in, it's hard to say like, oh, this song doesn't have passion. That song doesn't have this, that, so it's kind of a hard question really, I think.
Konstantin Samoilov: And the high school friends that showed you “Grace”, like, do you feel sort of connected to them in that way, and…
Chris Frutos: Yeah. I mean, I think we all have our own, like — I see blue, you see blue, but I think in the end, we all see it differently, but yeah, like when we're together, we're in a car, the album “Grace” definitely would come up. I guess another band that we really got into together is Deer Hunter. I like Act III the most, that's probably the one I listen to the most. And it's surprisingly… a lot of high-pitch voice — you know, Jeff Buckley has really, really high highs, and those lows are there as well. As far as like his, what do you even call it? His range.
Konstantin Samoilov: And when is the next time you expect to listen to “Grace”?
Chris Frutos: Oh, dude. Tonight sometime’ I'm sure. I mean, it’s just fun, I mean, that song is just great. “Wait in the fire, wait in the fire...” Yeah, it's good, it's a great song.
Konstantin Samoilov: Cool! Well, Chris, thank you very much.
Chris Frutos: Thank you, man. Nice speaking with you, dude.
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