We've become what we are: fiio is our FM4 Soundpark showcase this January

When is music real, when have you found your own voice? Fiio is our featured Austrian artist for the first month in 2024.

Written by Christophe Sebin

He started listening to music with a red CD player. And with two CDs, one by 50 Cent and the other by AC/DC. Strong crossover, first hip-hop, and first love of rock. That time in the nursery, then in an indie band and as a fan of Alex Turner and the Arctic Monkeys. There are also similarities: with Fiio, as with Alex, sound, form and style go together, all equally important. Rock and roll with a concept.

2021 was with us “Tourist” He was already a hit, at the time on the heels of cloud rap and new sleekness. A tourist in your city, riding a double-decker bus on the Opernring, this is what Vienna looked like at that time. Today everything is different, and so is the sound of fiio. Here is the descriptive word: “real”.

fiio carries basic honesty with it. He immediately says that he can't dance well. But that doesn't matter anyway because he prefers going to bars rather than clubs. He had crazy stage fright and still has a little bit of it now. And about his music before: “I made 'Tori', and I never heard it again. Not once.”

Making music means giving the world melody. Things are different now than they were three years ago. Fiio had to find his voice, he says. This takes time and often luck. Now he has arrived and is writing songs that he enjoys making and in which he recognizes himself. His album is called “We Just Become Who We Already Are,” which fits well.

He wanted to move to Berlin himself, but now he sings songs about people who do. “All your friends want to go to Berlin. You treat yourself through the screen.” His songs are what you know about yourself. There are lively characters who want to please each other and thus never say what they really think, or more importantly, what they want. It makes sense, of course, and was also mentioned in the Federal President's New Year's speech: people should talk to each other more.

Songs are therapeutic, they let you know how you feel. Announce what you can't even say to your closest friends. “This is our problem with people right now, where people don't talk to each other and engage in honest, emotional dialogue,” says Fiio. Of course, this doesn't come with a finger in the air. It's hard for Fiio himself, so he's trying to work on it.

Lana walked it

Honesty is a fundamentally endearing quality, knowing what you want to do in the future. On January 27, Fiio will play at FM4's birthday party at the Ottakringer brewery in Vienna. And then we think big: we're already working on the next album, that's the idea New York University Arts Band. So if strokes come to mind, that's appropriate. “Even if it's an incredibly unique idea, there's a big risk of it being copied. And because this doesn't exist in German, we said: 'We'll do it now.'”

Only do it once, that's one of the most beautiful aspects of a classic rock and roll story. Just try it to get closer to what you really want to do and be. Fiio is very close. “All of a sudden I was standing there, wearing cowboy boots, with a bandana in my belt buckle, wearing nothing but a leather jacket and I said, 'Now he's here, this is who I am.'