Jon-Rae Fletcher Solves Problems With Maria

02/25/09 3:55pm

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

At certain times in our lives we reach turning points where everything we previously knew changes and we're forced to pause and reflect on what to do in the future. Jon-Rae Fletcher knows this all too well.

Any Toronto music club-goer will tell you Fletcher and his country/soul band The River used to be a big name on the local indie scene. But Fletcher disappeared into thin air a few years ago, which was strange because 2006's Knows What You Need was such a success.

Fletcher has since re-emerged as a solo artist and is making a comeback. He released Oh, Maria via Weewerk Records earlier this month and, of course, there's a reason why he was away for so long.

Fletcher's marriage ended and The River broke up right around the same time. So he moved back to his hometown of Kelowna, B.C. to ponder what to do next while some former members of The River formed Toronto country band One Hundred Dollars.

"I was pretty low and I had to leave Toronto to get my mind together, and so I moved back to Kelowna to my home," Fletcher says. "I started working and I met a girl and moved to Canmore. I lived in Canmore for about five months and then decided to move to Victoria."

Jon-Rae And The River's style ranged from country to gospel to soul, and their lyrical themes were just as broad. Their 2005 Old Songs For The New Town debut album mainly featured country songs about Christianity and Jesus, while Knows What You Need was a more soul-based record that focused on sex.

During Fletcher's aforementioned period of change and personal upheaval, he began working on the songs that would eventually become Oh, Maria, his first solo effort after the break-up of The River. The record is distinctly different from Fletcher's previous work because it features none of the upbeat party songs that were so characteristic of Jon-Rae And The River's style.

To cope with everything he was going through, Fletcher did what any musician does during a period of turmoil: he channelled his experiences into new songs.

"The songs sort of came together right after I left Toronto," Fletcher says. "I started thinking about them and I sort of went on a writing tangent, I guess, and they sort of had this prevailing theme of happiness and darkness, and I continued to write over the next year — different songs — but they all seemed to have this theme, or sort of overarching symbolism."

While Oh, Maria is lyrically intense, it's more introspective and minimal in terms of its music. Most songs are folky with quiet arrangements. That's partly intentional and partly because Fletcher recorded the disc with very few musicians at his disposal. He also recorded it in four hours.

Fletcher holed himself up for an intense session in Victoria with New Pornographers keyboardist/vocalist Kathryn Calder, bassist Crystal Dee Denham, Ladyhawk guitarist Darcy Hancock and trombonist Denver Rawson. Fletcher originally wanted to record the album in one take "without pressing stop," but he thought that was perhaps taking things a bit too far.

"It doesn't come across, but there definitely was some tension in the recording," he says.

The quick recording session is also representative of how Fletcher wanted the album to sound. Since Oh, Maria is a solo album, he opted to record the disc live off the floor. While the four-hour session was done out of necessity, it seems to have worked out nicely because Fletcher wanted the focus to be on the songs instead of their performance.

Fletcher sees the differences in material as being both representative of the changes he's gone through and having grown as a songwriter.

"The thing is that it's so different from The River because The River was so party and all about, like, having a good time. This album is more introspective and more of a coffee than a beer."

Fletcher has never been stylistically static, and he doesn't intend to repeat Oh, Maria and record the same album over again. Lest you think he'll disappear again, however, he has a few different ideas that should keep him busy. Fletcher mentions a few country songs he's written for one project, and calls them "straight-up country, like, 'I'm so sad' sort of stuff." He also mentions another project that might involve his family.

"I'm hoping to record an album entirely of hymns. It's going to be gussied up with a rock 'n' roll band, and maybe I'll get my mom to sing on it and my dad to play violin. I'm hoping it's going to come together in August, but at this point it's gone beyond an idea and into the more planning stages. But there's still some things that have to happen for it to work out."