Answers From Mark Ferris of For Tuesday
A conversation with Mark Ferris of For Tuesday.
Hi Pal,
Before we jump in, I’d like to welcome all new subscribers. We crossed the 200 mark a few days ago and it is because of every single one of you. See you at 300, hopefully soon.
About For Tuesday: For Tuesday is an eclectic indie rock project from Mark Ferris, the songwriter, instrumentalist, producer/mix engineer behind the songs. The project began as a series of music sketches on Instagram where Ferris explored the creative possibilities of cassette tapes, guitar pedals and synthesizers to make short-form tape loop-driven experimental music.
Inevitably the project birthed a series of singles integrating those Lofi tape sounds with an indie rock sensibility. In 2021, a solo trip to a cabin in the Appalachian mountains led to the development of an EP "Closer than a Brother", a series of deeply personal songs exploring themes of Christian spirituality. Most recently, this year was For Tuesday's full-length album debut with the release of "Zechariah" - a concept album exploring each chapter of the book of the same name from the Old Testament."
Introduction
My 2023 would not have been complete without For Tuesday’s music. If you’ve been here for a minute, then you know that his last album was my favourite of this past year.
This interview has been in the works for a few months and I’m just glad we were finally able to put it together. I hope that you enjoy the answers as much as I did.
The Conversation
Q: In a snapshot, how would you describe your 2023 and what were your major highlights?
2023 was a good year for me. It’s the last year of my 20’s, I turn 30 years old later this month, say happy birthday to me, I guess
[Editor’s Note: That was January]
.As For Tuesday, releasing a full length album, all written and produced by me has been a goal for quite some time.
I’ve worked my way up to it by releasing a series of singles back in 2020 during COVID and putting together my first real EP. That was a collaborative project with four or five different people as featured artists. It was called Closer Than A Brother released in 2022 on my Bandcamp. Naturally, my next musical goal was to finally create the full length album and that turned into the Zechariah project which I worked on for the past 2 years.
Q: Zechariah was inspired by the book of the Bible with the same name. What are the things about that book that drew you in and made you choose to make an album about it?
I knew if I was gonna put together this whole album by myself in a relatively short amount of time, I would need to place some creative constraints on myself or else —I was afraid — my songwriting process would be all over the place.
So at some point earlier on, I had the idea to do a book study where I would only be allowed to write songs directly corresponding to a particular passage of scripture as a real constraint to focus that part of the process on.
There was a lot of unrest — a sense of unease — that I had in the summer of 2022. It was the things that were happening in the world and around me that drove me to the prophets because I was looking for themes of hope and God’s character and Zechariah stuck out to me because it has those strong themes and a super powerful message of the gospel throughout its entirety. The book of Matthew references Zechariah’s prophecies frequently.
I was shocked to see how much Messianic prophecy there was in Zechariah, so that really hooked me as this amazing connection to the New Testament. On top of that, there is all this bizarre imagery that was really fascinating to me from a song writing perspective because Zechariah’s visions paint such a vivid picture that often felt different.
The vision of the horses, the golden lampstand, the woman in the basket; these are all such fascinating things that made the book stick out and made me think “wow, this is incredibly vivid” and I could really feel the potential to try to capture some of that in song.
Q: Experimental indie is an umbrella term that doesn’t do justice to the sound of this album. There are a lot of genre expressions on this record ranging from electronica and folk to indie rock and shoegaze. Can you talk to me about the creative process of this album?
Genre is tough. I always make a big playlist of inspirations before I start any new project and its always the most eclectic thing. I have a playlist right now for a new project and it has everything from folk music to Radiohead and Bon Iver to weird microtonal music I was getting into. Then I get into the studio and everything comes out and it’s just “me”. But its me, still influenced by all these things and that’s why I think genre is tough and I try not to worry too much about it.
In terms of the creative process (for Zechariah), I had a very strict process where I worked in these distinct phases. First, I had a research phase where I studied the chapter of Zechariah very carefully, reading commentaries, different translations and all that to make sure I had a working understanding of what the passage was saying. I think that was probably unique to this project because obviously I was going for this concept of a book study, and I wanted to make sure I was being faithful to what the book was really saying.
Then I moved on to a song writing phase by creating a very rough draft on voice memos on my phone — just vocals and acoustic guitar — and I did that for all the chapters. Some of those ideas were thrown away, changed or recycled but at least I had some kind of a starting point. After that I created a rough arrangement for each of those drafts with keys, guitars, bass, drums and I had a good picture of what the album would sound like.
I recorded my final vocals, worked on final arrangements, tweaks, sounds, mixing all that and I think this process really helped with the cohesiveness of the album sound, even if the project was stretched over 2 years. Each phase was happening in the same time frame, so when I was writing the original songs, I didn’t lose the inspiration and the feeling of the other songs that I was writing at the same time.
Also when working on the draft arrangements and textures and synth sounds; it was all happening adjacent to one another so I would actually flip between the different drafts and say “Oh, I like the synth sounds from this track” and when I bring it over to another track, it worked. I think that really helped with the cohesiveness of the project as whole.
Q: The release schedule of the songs felt a little random and slightly chaotic at times. I recognize that the songs were being worked on constantly and there were revisions along the way. Was there something deliberate about this approach or did things just end up falling into place in this manner?
That’s a good question about the release schedule because it was something that I kind of debated about a bit. First off, I’m just one guy — music is not my full time job — and I’m making songs in my attic over 2 years so it’s always going to be a little bit chaotic.
I’m not a professional, but I did intentionally do a waterfall release — that’s what they’re calling it. You see a lot of artists doing it nowadays where you kind of build interest in the project by releasing one song at a time and that way, the project keeps popping up in people’s like release radar on Spotify.
I wanted to try that out and I think it was a success because it seemed well suited to the kind of serialized album idea — doing one chapter at a time. I was happy with it, although, I wish I’d been able to do it on a more consistent schedule but unfortunately, that’s just the way life goes and these projects go.
Still, it was cool over the year to see people say “Oh! I forgot about this project”, and “it’s exciting that there’s another chapter out” and they can’t wait to hear it.
I would try it again, just a little bit more orderly next time.
Q: What’s your hope or expectation for the people who get to listen to this album?
My hope for people who listen to the album is that you enjoy it as a listener but that part way through, For Tuesday and music gets put to the side and that you can just really immerse yourself in the message of it and that the music is more of a medium for the words of Zechariah.
It is about the music and I’ve always obviously I’m a musical artist trying to make some beautiful sounds. So I’m trying to create something that moves you, but the real core idea of this project was that by sticking as closely as possible to the source material of the book, that it would almost be like a bible study experience for you as a listener.
So I really hope that that’s what you get out of it is that the music is a companion as you’re immersed in the prophecies of Zechariah and the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ ultimately — like I said — from the many messianic prophecies that are deeply throughout the book.
I hope you love the individual songs, I hope you put them on your favourite playlist, and listen to them all the time in the car and that’s great but I also hope that you get an opportunity to sit down with the full length album, maybe even with your bible and crack open Zechariah and read along because that was always my main goal starting out.
Q: To wrap things up, share any scripture that has been a source of encouragement in your life of faith.
A scripture I want to highlight — from Zechariah actually — is Zechariah 3. I’ll just read it to you first:
Then He showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the Angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him, and the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you o Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you, is this not a brand plucked from the fire. Now Joshua was standing before the Angel clothed with filthy garments and the Angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garment from him, and to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will cloth you with pure vestments”
This passage paints an amazing vivid picture of this courtroom scene with God presiding as the judge and Satan as the prosecuting attorney. Satan’s name even means the accuser. Then Joshua, the high priest — who is supposed to be this Holy man of God — standing in the dock as the accused criminal.
Satan is accusing him and it seems like he has an airtight case case because the priest is not holy, and he is clothed in filthy garments. But as this story turns out, the strength of the case is not what matters; the compassion of the judge is.
It is a vivid and amazing picture of the gospel message way back here at the beginning of the book. If you want to hear this passage in song, the track on the album called From The Fire, depicts the same scene.
Mark’s Final Greetings: Hey, thanks for the interview. Thanks for listening to the Zechariah album, I hope tha you enjoyed it and that maybe even God has blessed you through it or spoken to you through it in the past year. There’s more to come and you can follow for Tuesday on Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. Thanks again.
That’s all for today. If you’ve somehow still not heard his album or any of his music, check out the links below.
Listen to For Tuesday here:
Connect with For Tuesday:
Feel free to leave a comment. Also, I am always open to hearing from you so feel free to send an email to me at
stismavo@gmail.com