Meet Derek Ferwerda

[RJ Guitars]

(Edit - Oct. 29 - 2008 -- I've added Derek's Introduction letter in front of my original post - rj )

AmpGarage forum,

Derek Ferwerda is a kind and Humble guy who was befriended by Ken Fisher many years ago. Derek has been sharing stories with me for some time now and wants to share some of those stories with you. I'll be posting more in the near future. He is a fascinating guy and you will enjoy reading his stories, the first told here in his own words.

rj



Dear All,

I have decided to address all of you in an opening letter as there has been many efforts, by several of you, to contact me regarding Ken Fischer and Trainwreck Amps. I have only begun to mourn Kenny as I consider him to be my brother, soul mate, mentor and friend. Talking about him has been very difficult for me. It is in the spirit of introducing all of you to the “Real” Trainwreck….Ken Fischer, and continuing his passion, that I want to communicate with all of you.

Many of you are in the same place as I am, with a forever void in their hearts. Many of you have never met Ken and wish they have and unfortunately some of you won't really care about Ken Fischer, you will only want access to as much Trainwreck information as you can. If any or all of you want to truly and intimately know “Trainwreck,” how it came about and how these amplifiers continued to improve, you can not separate these Amplifiers from who Ken Fischer was.

Kenny’s Genius, his acute musical and patient ears, his kind egoless heart, his total surrender to pure tone, his willingness to be passionate yet not dogmatic, his willingness to hear and consider any and every opinion, his never ending sense of humor, his constant willingness to be right or wrong, his efforts to help any and everybody and most of all his humble desire to create something that he revered beyond himself is the reason that Trainwreck’s are the most spectacular amps in the world.

You have to know Kenny to know Trainwrecks. I will help you meet Kenny and keep him and his heart alive.

Bless you all.

Derek Jan Ferwerda



From Derek:

I have owned 4 trainwrecks total.

Heather, 1986 Express with a pacific transformer

Nicole, 1988 liverpool

Kelly, 1990 Express

Amanda, 1990 Rocket

I sold all of the amps except for Amanda.

It was not a financial decision to sell them. I just didn’t play anything else except the rocket.In 1993 I made one call to Ken and I told him that all I do is stare at 3 Trainwrecks and only play one of them. He said that he didn’t even own anything else other than his rocket so I got rid of them as the wait list was almost 8 years at the time. Once I got the rocket, I was done playing the rest of them. It was the producers idea to use the express on all the liquid earth solos on the 1992 record.

I will go into the detail of my friendship and history at a later time however it was my years of interacting with Kenny, in his basement listening to sound variations, that led him to tell me that he was building me a “one of a kind” amp. I remember the day like it was yesterday. Sometime in early 1988 I believe, we were sitting around playing through three different cabinets. They were my 1968 ampeg v4 cabinets that were all outfitted with pre-Rolla 30 watt green back celestians. We were using 2 different liverpools and 2 different expresses. After about 4 or 5 hours of this. Kenny tapped me on the shoulder and snickered, saying nothing. He was one hell of a tease and he loved it. He said QUOTE” Ya want the prime evil?” I looked at him puzzled which was generally the case with me and him. And I said, “what the $%&* are you talking about. He said, “do you remember the prime evil rocket that I have been talking to you about.” I said, “yes I do.” He replied, “good for you, because I am building you one.”

1988-1990 were the most anxiety ridden years of my life. I had to deal with Cindy Lauper, Joe Cocker, Village People, Tommy James and the Shondell’s AND deal with calling the tease every week to check about this prime evil crap. He would just snicker and torture me. This guy had me in the palm of his sado-masochistic hands and he loved it. Everybody I was on the road with was about to lock me up. I am being serious about this. I was impossible to be around sometimes. Somewhere in the beginning of 1990, he called me up and said, why don’t you come over when you can. Never a reason, just a request. We had something called message machines then. When I called into mine, I would hear a snicker, then a hang up. This tease knew I was in California and was playing this amp over the phone for me. He was looking forward to my anxiety coming home as it was a bus tour. He would play this amp over the phone on my message machine. Remember that land lines were anolog then and you could actually make tonal distinctions over the phone. Kenny knew this and he played the amp over the phone. But he didn’t just play the amp. He put it on the far side of the basement, were it wouldn’t cause the phone diaphragm to compress, so I could hear how this dynamic amp worked over the phone, during my anxiety ridden trip home. This was a friendship born in years of fun torture on his part. He loved I mean LOVED doing this to me.

When I got home and called Ken, he knew I was home by the background noise and didn’t answer the phone when I called. A-hole! He would just wait for me to come over.

I remember the day that I got this amp, not because I remember a specific date, but because I drove to his house exceeding speeds of 90 and 100 miles an hour. Of course I don’t speed I mean I really don’t speed. My wife calls me a grand mother. However in 1990, I received a $200.00 speeding ticket on the Garden state Parkway in Clark New Jersey while Ken was home Snickering with my amp. The only reason that I didn’t get my license revoked is because the state cop who pulled me over was the older brother of a friend of mine. I blew right through 2 speed traps at the time. If he didn’t ticket me, it would have cost him his job. Oh, did I tell you that during my trip home, Ken told me that he wasn’t going to sell it to me because it took too much work to make and it had cost him $1,180 in parts. He didn’t snicker when he said that. So I was even more anxiety ridden. Of course, though, it was a set up.

When I first played through the rocket, tears came to both of our eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. His fun jovial side took a back seat for a very profound moment and he leaned over to me and said, “I always wanted to make this, but I never found anyone that surrendered to tone like you do.” “I have watched you develop into a pure tone based player and pay the price for fighting for good tone.” “Thank you Derek.” I remember that all I could do was embrace him tearfully and thank him for creating in me, a musical soul.

Kenny then announced that he was going to make a second one and give me the better sounding of the 2. True to his word as ALWAYS!!! One month latter I had a rocket and he had a rocket. He also made a stunning announcement that he just wanted to have the one rocket out there. I begged him to reconsider as this sound needed to be heard as much as possible. Right at this time was when Ken started to become sick and he and Trainwreck were forever changed.

The face plate on my Rocket (Amanda) was painted for him by a friend as a warm and kind gesture from Kenny to me. The face plate is a small duplicate of a much larger painting that was recreated by the original artist. Kenny wanted the “only Rocket out there,” to have a unique face plate. This artist, a friend of Kenny’s painted the original and full size rendition of this painting to enter a national art contest and won. The original painting hung in either the Guggenheim or the Met. for awhile. Kenny asked her to copy her own painting and she did. He never told me what or if he even paid anything for it and always dodged the issue. I later found out, while looking through his books, that he paid $500.00.

This is what Ken Fischer was like………. I am sorry, but I have to stop writing for a while.

I want all of you to know what an un paralleled human being this soul was. I owe every note that I hear to his love and friendship. Blessings all of you.

Derek Ferwerda

[skyboltone]

Wow, wow, wow.

Thanks RJ and Derek! Brings tears it does.

[doctord02]

Way cool. I can believe it, for sure. Thanks RJ. Keep Derek talking; we need that stuff documented for posterity.

[M Fowler]

Great story guys I read every word in anticipation for the next. This is the kind of information I enjoy when not reading how to build amps. Please continue when you can Derek.

Mark

[hitchcaster]

thats pretty darn cool... thank you for sharing that

[angelodp]

I am staring at my Rocket and can appreciate this homage to great tone.

Ange

[Allynmey]

RJ, Derek is a nice guy. I spoke to him a few weeks ago about his amp. He loves his Rocket!!!! Last year he wanted to have it serviced but wouldn't ship it. He wanted to fly here from Georgia and watch the work be done and fly home.

I've talked to him a few times over the last year or so. Very nice guy!

Allyn

[rooster]

Yeah, how do you not love a story like this? Thanks for sharing this!!

[Orleanska]

Thanks RJ and Derek!

regards
Denis

[kec]

Very touching story Derek. Thanks for sharing.

[sst4270]

Crap. I'm all welled up at work.
That was one of the most moving stories I've read on this forum.
I do truly TRULY hope that Derek shares more with us.
I'm just finishing up a Rocket this week (thanks for the fmrs Allyn!!).
Can't wait to show you guys. I've got a special piece of wood selected for the cabinet.
I'm very anxious to hear her come to life. I've been using the photos from Allyn's last posted build as my primary guide (they've been invaluable)
Hopefully Sunday it'll be complete.

Steve

PS Thanks so much RJ & Derek!

[fishy]

Thats a very cool story. For those of us who were not fortunate to know Ken, it provides some insight into what kind of person he was.

Thanks for posting and I hope we have the opportunity to read some more from Derek

Pete

[Ron Worley]

Thanks RJ, it's really good to hear (read) these things about Ken. I have both of the Novella albums and they got amazing tones on both. Now I know why!

Ron

[RJ Guitars]

Thank you all for the encouraging words, I have relayed them back to Derek and he is quite pleased and yet retains his humble posture.

He provided me an Introduction letter that I edited in at the front of that first post.

rj

[Normster]

Thanks, Derek, for sharing that experience. Your thoughts about what drove Ken to build amps reinforces a philosphy I've tried (and often failed) to live by for many years..."Don't seek to imitate the master, seek what the master sought."