Pacific Records sweetheart, Alfa, goes into detail about her relationship with piano company, Kawai, how she succeeded in her Kickstarter campaign and her plans for an album and tour in Asia. PLUS a live acoustic performance of her song "Missed Opportunity."
Read More: Signing Story: Alfa
Music Connection: Tell us a bit about your endorsement with Kawai Pianos.
Alfa Garcia: Yeah, absolutely! Kawai is amazing. They create a very, very beautiful line of acoustic and electric pianos. They’ve just been so supportive for almost two years now, so they’ve been helping me out, giving me some gear to tour with and to play with. This year at NAMM I’m gonna be playing their signature MP11 electric keyboard at the Grand Plaza.
MC: What is it that you love about Kawai? Why them over other pianos?
Garcia: When you’re an artist, you wanna work with people who seem like they really care about the product. Part of it is, of course, is that they make a good product but also they seem like they genuinely care. They don’t seem like they’re too big to overlook things; even though they’re a well-known name, they still have that personal touch. They just feel like family to me.
MC: You’re performing tomorrow and it will be streamed live. How do you feel about that?
Garcia: It was definitely a little extra pressure that it’s streamed live. I found out two days ago, but I think it’ll be fun.
MC: It’s not your first time you’ve performed at NAMM. You performed in 2014?
Garcia: This is the first time I’m playing the main stage here, so even though I’ve played a couple of smaller demos here, this feels very different.
MC: It seems like you did a lot of the stuff by yourself to get an album going—a Kickstarter campaign. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Garcia: I’m just not really good about leaving things alone. (laughs) I kind of over work. I Kickstarted my previous independently released album, which is called World Go Blue, and yeah I got a certain amount of backers to put that all together. Now I’m actually working on my next record through Pacific Records, which is a label out of San Diego.
MC: What’s been your experience with NAMM? How has it helped you and your career?
Garcia: You know I had no idea about the world of NAMM until maybe four or five years ago, and for me it’s just nice to see the link where musicality and artistry ties into a more tangible, corporate entities—not meaning “corporate” in a bad way, but just saying that music isn’t necessarily all heady but there’s something more concrete too.
I don’t know if I’m making sense but it’s just nice for me to see there’s this very tangible industry that really backs artists and really backs music and is for the promotion of music. So it’s not just us hanging around saying, “Hey, man, we love music!” but there are these companies that are really making it happen.
MC: What advice would you give to other artists that are on their way up—like you once were—what would you say to them?
Garcia: Like I still am! I don’t know I would just say if there’s a product that you really like and love to play it and you’re looking to hopefully get them on your side, don’t be afraid to reach out to a company and say, “Hey I love your product. Is there any way you can help me out, we can help each other out.” You won’t ever know until you ask.
MC: Any upcoming tour plans or any other projects that you wanna talk about?
Garcia: Besides the album which is pretty much this huge endeavor right now, I’m working on hopefully touring Asia very soon.
