They have an amazing camaraderie and a magical stage presence that even total strangers come up to them to shower them with compliments. The Fernandes Fusion music band loves performing together as one family, their voices blending together seamlessly and naturally and it shows.
This Bengaluru-based band comprises Joe Fernandes (34), Dawn Fernandes (32), Christina Fernandes (30), John Fernandes (27), Michael Fernandes (26), Stephanie Fernandes (25) and Sean Fernandes (23) who have been rocking the city at high profile private gigs and at popular night clubs like Hard Rock Café, Beer Café, Beer Republic and more. We speak to the young city band on how they create an experience to remember with their experiments with fusion music.
It’s surely a family that plays together and stays together and through their fusion music, they’re connecting with many people. “Some of us also can play several musical instruments. So during band shows we can trade instruments and the show will carry on just the same. Once in a while, our natural competitive nature will come out and we will try to outdo each other with our vocal prowess, leading to pretty impressive performances, in a general spirit of fun,” says John.
Growing up, they were homeschooled as they travelled around a lot and lived across India, before settling down in Goa. “Homeschooling was great, as we had a lot of opportunity and time to learn music. It’s also one of the main reasons we’re all close as siblings, as we did everything together growing up. Our biggest musical influence was our dad, who taught us the basics of everything, though some of us had professional training from time to time. John and Mike also formed a band with two of our best friends in Goa when we were 11 and 12 and played at a lot of venues in Goa. Our brother Joe was the one who trained us as a band at that time. If you’ve seen our dad play on stage, you’ll know it’s impossible not to be blown away by him as he gets completely lost in the music. He has a unique style of writing songs that is almost just like poetry put to music and some of the covers he does are performed with such brilliance, you can see people in the audience just sitting there hanging on to his every word and gesture. Dad, with just an acoustic guitar, harmonica and his voice, is pretty hard to beat,” states John.
Confessing that taking up music professionally for each of them has largely come down to the absolute joy of doing what they love, says Christina, adding, “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own set of difficulties, but the passion that we have for what we’re outweighs any of the challenges. Most of us perform every day either in Bengaluru or across India. During our time off, we learn new songs. Like any good Goan would, we enjoy a cold beer or two and take as many trips back to Goa as we can. And of course, we absolutely love karaoke!”
