Photo credit: Graham Kennedy
I recently spoke to Andrew James O’Brien of Fortunate Ones about their debut album and life on the road, ahead of their upcoming show in Wakefield at the Black Sheep Inn.
As we began our conversation, Andrew mentioned he was riding shotgun. It was Catherine’s turn behind the wheel. “We split the driving. It gives you something to focus on and breaks up the monotony of travelling.”
Fortunate Ones will be back at the Black Sheep Inn on March 6th 2015, headlining the historic venue for the first time. They will be joined by Jon Hynes (2014 Borrealous Music Prize winner). Unfortunately for you, unless you’ve got tickets, the show is already sold out.
Andrew had nothing but praise for The Black Sheep Inn. “We’ve played the Black Sheep many times, it’s one of our favourite places to play. They’ve got a great staff there. We owe a lot of our success to Paul. This will be our first time headlining.”
The duo is currently touring in support of their debut release The Bliss, which was recorded in Lake Echo, NS with Daniel Ledwell.
“The album was about a year in the making,” shared Andrew. “We decided to work with Daniel as we both loved his previous work. We had been touring a number of the songs prior to heading into the studio. We’ve played a number of festivals across Canada, the Newfoundland Folk Festival, as well as Winnipeg. We’ve also toured the UK and US with Great Big Sea.”
If you watch their EPK video about recording the album, they touch on the spontaneity of the recording process. When I asked Andrew to expand on that he explained, “The natural environment organically seeped into the recording. We were in the middle of the woods on a big lake. We setup mic’s in the woods, recorded fireworks. Being away freed us. We took breaks skating when the studio got tough.”
The album is pretty coherent in its overall sound. However Lay Me Down definitely stands in contrast to the rest of the songs. “It was co-written with Murray Foster (Great Big Sea). We wanted to write a song with a Newfoundland theme to it. It’s industrial sounding. We recorded the sound of rocks, chains hauling a boat on shore, shovelling gravel. It has a dark industrial vibe and feels like you’re on the shoreline,” Andrew noted.
“It wasn’t on the record originally,” he added, “But we decided to go back and record it due to the response it was getting live.”
We ended our conversation discussing what’s next for the band. “We’re adding a few dates on the back end of our current tour. Then we’ll be home for a bit. Festival season is coming. There’s lots of travelling ahead. We’re already obsessing over the next batch of songs.”
While you may not be fortunate to catch them this time around, it sounds like their travels will have them back our way in the near future.
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