Fern Talks Social Club Misfits’ New Album, Hurricane Irma, & Becoming an Actor

Fern of Social Club Misfit’s chatted with Rapzilla about everything from the Friends and Family tour, to a new solo album, and on to his aspirations to act. So sit back and strap in because Fern hits a lot of topics in this one.

In case you didn’t know, the film “Canal Street” is dropping in early 2018, and one-half of the Misfits is acting in the movie.

“I want you guys to support it. You can’t even walk out on me, I’m in like the first scene,” Fern joked. “Come see ya boy, I’m doing my best to uplift the culture.”

Fern, who is usually rocking mics on stage with Marty, fell into “Canal Street” through what he calls a “happy accident.”

“We initially made contact with director Rhyan LaMarr for another movie called ‘Restored Me’ in 2014. We put some music on the soundtrack,” he said. “They wanted us to play ourselves in the movie and we couldn’t really align the times. There were things going on that didn’t pan out.”

Fern explained that around six or seven months ago he started seeing “Canal Street” pop-up on Facebook. After seeing LaMarr’s name attached to the project he reached out to wish him well.

“I texted him to congratulate him. I told him I was excited that all these things worked out and sorry it didn’t work out last time,” said Fern. “I said, ‘If there’s ever another role or something you think I’d be interested to play, let me know’. He texted me back five minutes later and told me there was something he had in mind.”

Fern asked that the director type it all up and send it to management. If everything worked out and he didn’t have to compromise his faith, he was down.

Everything worked out. Fern was in Chicago a few months later filming his part.

Fern’s part sees him as a talking head named Sam Emerson. He’s a multi-platinum recording artist who was part of a panel discussion with a news reporter to talk about the events going on in the movie. There’s an injustice going down, and he’s adding his angle to it.

“It was my first time being in a movie and I definitely caught the acting bug,” Fern admitted. “I also placed a song on this movie as well. I wrote a song and pitched it and everyone was fired up about it. This will be my solo song on the new Social Club album. The crew is actually going to film the video for it. It’s an exciting time for me because I never knew how I’d get myself into the conversation.”

Fern believes “Canal Street” is very relevant for the times we currently live in. He said the movie is basically the tone of the country now, divided and on edge.

“If I can be part of the conversation and open up the dialogue, then I want to be a part of it. I feel like I stand in the middle. I’m a minority, I’ve been to prison, I grew up modestly,” he said. “My parents worked their bones off to give us a good life. There’s such a divide and I want us to stand united. I want love and togetherness.”

Speaking of a solo Fern song…the rapper wouldn’t rule out a follow up to his 68 & Douglas EP. “You can never close the door on a Fern record.”

Fern shared that he and their current tour DJ, Ray Rock, were just looking for beats the other day.

“My pen is always flexing, I’m always writing, I’m feeling different ways. I have over 200 verses in my iPhone. I’m trying to tell Sway, he said, ‘Another time’. There’s no timeline, but I won’t be surprised if I start cooking up.”

Many of those great verses will be on the new Social Club Misfits record which Fern predicts to be dropping the first quarter of 2018.

“It’s cinematic more than ever. I really feel we made an audio movie with this one,” he revealed. “The Misadventures of Fern & Marty was our first corporate debut but it wasn’t our first musical debut because obviously, we have 10 to 11 projects independently. We were able to show the diversity and we were able to give them a big plate of food and showed them range. It brought us notoriety and opportunity. There’s going to be a lot of placements. Why not be the light in the television or movie world. Social Club will be there for the glory of God – frontline.”

They’ve been performing their first single off the record, “Dive,” while on tour. There’s another new song dropping on November 3rd (“Say Goodbye”) and they are going to perform it the last two weeks of the tour.

As of right now, Social Club Misfits are wrapping up their Friends and Family Tour with Andy Mineo and Wordsplayed.

“39 days on the road and the chemistry has been impeccable,” Fern stated. “Everyone on the tour has been A-1 in their capabilities. We’ve had the best of the best. It’s helped the chemistry of the tour to be legitimate friends too. Everyone is respecting of private time as well.”

He continued, “I’m one of the only artists on tour who has children so to be away is tough. My wife has been away from me for 1,000 days when I was in prison, so 39 to 1000 is peanuts to an elephant. As far as my kids, I’ve never been away from them for this long. If it wasn’t for FaceTime…and shout out to Steve Jobs, I shed a tear on his birthday, I’m really thankful for it.”

Fern said he thought about the music of artists such as Johnny Cash and other old-timers who made some dark or sad music. He now understands a bit of the hardship it must have taken to be away from family for so long.

His family puts the iPad at the dinner table and they eat together.

“I’m like, ‘Santino eat your macaroni baby.’ I don’t miss a beat. It’s quality and we’ve been able to make it through.”

While on this tour, many things have happened in the world. There were hurricanes, earthquakes, and a mass shooting in Las Vegas.

“We were at Rock the Universe a day before the hurricane hit Florida. We are also Puerto Rican, so we have family there, we were in Las Vegas a day before the shooting, so we were emotionally affected by that,” Fern said. “I was just there with my wife walking around taking pictures at Mandalay Bay. My kids could have lost both of their parents. Waking up that morning was so surreal.”

He also said when their tour passed through Houston, they made sure to just be an encouragement to everyone there.

“Let them know they weren’t alone. We wanted to bring them a time of joy and laughter. We genuinely love and spend moments with family and misfits.”

Fern and Marty’s Florida homes were in the path of hurricane Irma. God protected them, their families, and their homes.

“Besides my little plantain plants, my house is fine,” said Fern. “My house has been there since 1958, it went through Andrew, Wilma, everything and now Irma. My father raised me there and I took over. Not one house on my block was affected. I didn’t have power for eight days. It just tests our patience.”

“But we’re from Florida, we’re always going to persevere.”

Be sure to catch Fern make his acting debut in “Canal Street” in 2018. Stay tuned for more updates on the Social Club Misfits album.

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
RELATED ARTICLES

Most Popular