Ontario Americana Artist Fraser Teeple Shares Broken and Proud Track “Went Off”

Shaped by two decades of work as a climbing arborist, London, ON’s Fraser Teeple approaches music like a tradesman: he respects the strong tradition he stands within, and works carefully and with dedication to master the skill of telling a story, creating an image, or crafting a melody.

His upcoming album, We Built a Fire, sees Fraser collaborate with producer Matthew Johnston at Slow Magic to create a record that is at once ethereal and rooted, dirty and clean. Something that feels built in the tradition of songwriters like Bonnie Raitt and Bruce Springsteen, but sounds completely like itself: northern, soulful, gritty, rural, well-traveled, honest, desperate, hurt, generous, hopeful, warm.

The music Fraser makes is tied to the country music tradition, in that it tries to respectfully hold a light to stories of broken people, of anti-heroes, and of folks on the outside. He delivers his songs with as much soul, courage and vulnerability as he can. The gritty and soulful new single, “Went Off,” taken from We Built a Fire, offers an observance of the opioid and cost of living epidemic ravishing North America.

I wrote this song after watching people in my neighbourhood – the decaying east end of a middle class city – end up carrying the judgment of the people around them, through some brutal match of choice and bad luck. – Fraser Teeple