Hey there. My name is Benjamin Fletcher but my friends call me Fletcher. I’ve been living in London for three years now. I used to be in a band called Bluebottle Kiss and then I used to be in a band called The Devoted Few and now I’m in Sarah Blasko’s band and my debut solo album ‘Fletcher – Upon Ayr’ is coming out March 15th… These Q&A’s always make me feel like I’m filling out a questionnaire for a dating website.

I’ll be launching my record in Melbourne on March 17th at the Workers Club and in Sydney on March 27th at the Vanguard. I’ll be back in Australia to do a bigger tour in a couple of months.

I’m a conventional type of guy, I like long walks along the beach at sunset and a good glass of red wine by the fire. Could I be the partridge in your pear tree?

First off, can you tell us about your debut album, Upon Ayr?

Upon Ayr was written over a couple of years of non stop touring with Sarah Blasko around Europe. I wrote bits and pieces of songs all over the place in train toilets humming into my iPhone, in band rooms in Poland, after sound-checks in a tiny town in the south of France, under the pier in Brighton… OK, OK we get it you were in Europe, bloody hell… Sorry.

I recorded allot of the album in my bathroom at home in London. Some guitars and vocals were recorded in a Sydney university music room over three late nights. Bass and drums were recorded quickly in a lovely studio in Stockholm while it snowed out side, and harp and bits and pieces were recorded at a friends studio in London.

It all came together over a couple of months and before I knew it I had an album. It kind of crept up on me, this record. The stuff I recorded in my bathroom and in the music room were just going to be demos, throw away versions of songs, but the more I listened to them and played them to friends the more I thought they had something to them that I wasn’t going to be able to re-capture if I re-recorded them in an expensive studio.

The artwork on the album was shot by an amazing photographer in London called Matt Booy (http://www.mattbooy.com). I had this concept in my head after seeing pictures taken by this great Japanese photographer called Natsumi Hayashi (http://www.yowayowacamera.com/). She has this great site where she posts pics of herself seemingly levitating all around the place. It really struck a chord with me and I started thinking of doing that for my record.

I basically had six months from when I finished the record to when art work needed to be finished so I spent almost as long creating the artwork as I did recording the music. Matt photographed me jumping all around London for months. I’m really proud of the artwork on this record.

You say that you were “painfully shy and withdrawn” before you discovered music. Apart from learning to play yourself, what artists helped to change your perspective?

When I was first learning to play music I would listen to nothing but Nirvana and The Pixies. I joined Bluebottle Kiss when I was 15 straight out of school so I listened to what ever the other older guys in the band told me to listen to. Sonic Youth, Rein Sanction (look them up, CRAZY sounding early 90’s band), Afghan Whigs and Hüsker Dü… Bands making sounds I’d never heard before. Experimental and loud noises that’s what helped me change my perspective.

You left home at the age of 15, can you tell us about that?

My mum was pretty relaxed about me moving into random friends houses. I had lots of older friends when I was a kid so I would couch surf around the place, have a room here and a room there. I had lived in so many different places by the time I was 18. I had good friends that would take me in, it was never about me running away from home or hating my parents at all it was just a freedom I embraced. I wanted to experience it all straight away and that meant leaving home and shacking up with friends. I couldn’t wait to be older… I can now though.

You’ve recently released the video for ‘Open Up’, where you took a second of footage each day for a year. Where did you get the inspiration for this idea?

What, you mean this one: vimeo.com/60148556 ?! I stumbled upon this story (vimeo.com/37792362) of a guy who had taken a year off work and recorded a second of his life for the whole year and stuck it all together to make this crazy montage of a life in movement. It stayed with me and I then I saw this young girl do the same thing but set it to a great LCD Sound System song (vimeo.com/34874881). I loved them and started doing it just to have my own one second a day video. It started as I was recording Upon Ayr and I thought it would fit quite nicely with my song Open Up. Which is all about movement and a life in the flash of an eye. The idea married the song.

And did you have difficulty remembering to get a second of footage each day?

At the start I did yeah. It would get to the end of the day and I would think: shit I’ve got to go out and film something… Some days there’s just nothing to film but that’s kind of the meditation in it. If the only thing you do is get up and go to work then come home and go to sleep you need to find the beauty in that, or at least find the interesting shot that ‘is’ that day for you. I’m still filming my one second a day I’m going to stick them all together to make a whole year and probably continue to do it for as long as I can be bothered. It’s a good way of noticing the millions of moments in your day.

You recently toured with Sarah Blasko who provides backing vocals on your album, who else worked on your debut?

Lots of friends. I called on lots of friends to help me out making this record. A great harpist from Brighton called Emma Gatrill, Fred Rundqvist and Fred Kinbom from Stockholm played drums and bass. Fred Rundqvist plays drums in Sarahs’s band. Blasko was living in Stockholm when I was recording there. She came into the studio and sung so beautifully. She also made us teas and gave me pep-talks when I thought what the hell am I doing…

Once upon a time you were a band called Bluebottle Kiss, how did being in that band help shape your new music?

I think I kinda answered that question above. I haven’t been in BBK since 2005 so it’s been a while now for it to shape my new music but being in that band really did give me confidence and a direction in life when I was young. Watching Jamie Hutchings create his music and his commitment to his art was inspiring and that led me to write my own songs. It took me a while to find my own voice but Jamie has always been supportive. He was at my first ever music recital when I was in year 10 at high school. I played Polly (the Nirvana song about rape, I was so edgy), and then as the curtains closed I said: wait I have another song.. Then I played R.E.M Everybody Hurts. Man I was so emo back then.

Tell us about the story telling on Upon Ayr. How much fact and how much fiction comes into play on your songs?

There’s lots of songs inspired by my favourite books. Big Sur by Jack Kerouac, You Can’t Go Home Again and Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe, Grapes Of Wrath by Steinbeck. But in all of them I put my self. I’m in the passenger seat with Kerouac as he leaves the cabin on the hill and speeds towards San Francisco, towards what he calls his destiny (which is really a couple of nights on the piss and an internal, existential battle with his demons). I’m Eugene Gant who is Thomas Wolfes’ alter ego in You Can’t Go Home Again. I really related to him as a lad in that novel and later in Look Homeward, Angel which is so heartbreakingly beautiful. The main character in Open Up is both Eugene Gant and me rolled into one. I’m the one of the lovers in Swim Through the Mouth Of The Whale. I’m the little kid in Here Stands The Broken which was kind of written as a sequel to Grapes Of Wrath. Grapes Of Wrath II – The Wrathening©℗™. I always put my self in my songs somewhere along the way. But songs like Don’t Breathe A Word and Strangers Sleeping In The Same Bed are not fiction at all. They all both unfortunate realities.

A few of your songs are said to be inspired by authors and characters from books, clearly you’re a fan of literary works, does this medium inspire you more than music itself?

I wouldn’t say more, no. But it does sometimes give me the jump start I need to get the song going. A particularly good phrase in a good book is usually all I need to get going. As long as I’ve got a good story in my head the rest usually flows out quickly. Lyrics are by far the hardest part. I feel like I’m coming up with riffs and melodies all the time but the hard bit is really to get what I’m trying to say out of my brain hole. Returning to a book I love will always yield something for me to go on. Even if it’s a morsel of a notion I often turn to my old favourites just to get the ball rolling.

What are your plans for the rest of 2013?

When ever I’m not touring with Blasko I’ll be playing my own shows about the place. My album is coming out in Europe too so I’ll be touring lots of over there. But I plan on coming back and doing a bigger solo tour here as well. This year is tour year.

Where we can see you play next, what releases do you have available and where can we get them? 

I’ll be launching my record at the Workers Club in Melbourne on March 17th. Tickets here: http://theworkersclub.com.au/

I’ll be launching my record at The Vanguard in Sydney on March 27th. Tickets here: www.thevanguard.com.au

You can pre-order my album here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/upon-ayr/id602551021

Fletcher – Upon Ayr comes out on March 15th in Australia and May 1st in the UK/EU.

fletcheruponayr.com

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine