Throughout 2010 I was on a world tour with the beautiful, Australian singer Sarah Blasko. We played almost 200 shows that year and most of the songs on this record were written during that period. They developed in sound checks, in band rooms, in hotels, on trains, in vans, or humming into iPhones. In early 2011, while still on tour in Australia, I got together with two of my mates to sneak into a university studio where a friend of ours had been studying musicology. Our friend’s course had finished months ago but he still had the keycard and security code that opened the doors to the studio. We snuck in around 11pm and would record all night till 4am or 5am, turning off the lights and hiding every 2 hours while the security guard cruised by. We did this for three nights and I recorded the guitar and vocals for around 14 songs.

2011 saw more touring and a little more writing. I recorded more songs in London, this time in my bathroom, two of which (Here Stands The Broken & Swim Through The Mouth Of The Whale) ended up on this album. I thought these and my Uni studio sessions would just be demos, but they sounded pretty good and everyone I played them to said, you should use them as your album. So I did.

Not to say I recorded this whole album in the shower. These songs needed a little more rhythm and pulse, so when I finally got off tour in early 2012 I went into Decibel Studios in a snowy Stockholm to record some extra bits, including bass, drums and the amazing voice of one of my best friends: Sarah Blasko.

I brought my album back to London to mix at Urchin Studios in May 2012, and there you have it. Simple and easy, like I’ve always wanted but never fully achieved in my past recordings. Most of what you hear is first take, all the vocals were done either in a bathroom on a borrowed mic that would sometimes electrocute my lips, or in a little wooden room I had to hunch to fit into. I’ve always felt like I’ve been guilty of over thinking my recordings but this all happened without me even realising it.

This will be the first album from me as Fletcher (Ben has released music with both Bluebottle Kiss & The Devoted Few). Upon Ayr is the album title - a nod to one of first recorded uses of the name Fletcher, in a south-western town of Scotland, Ayr.

-Fletcher

Fletcher’s Upon Ayr will be released in Australia on Friday March 15 through Dramatico/Warner Music. Check out the video below which features his tune Open Up paired with one second snapshots he filmed each and every day over the past 7 months.

‘As the great Bueller once said: Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it… This video is me stopping and looking around.’ - Fletcher

Open Up HD from Benjamin Fletcher on Vimeo.