Adrian musician Jonathan Crayne records first CD, 'Oknow,' with help from friends

ADRIAN — When the pandemic started and people were off work, musician Jonathan Crayne saw an opportunity.

Crayne had played guitar in a few bands going back to when he was a student at Adrian High School and then Adrian College. He played percussion in the Adrian High School bands and was drum major of the marching band one year. He’s also acted at the Croswell Opera House and in college, played in some pit orchestras for musicals, and performed at churches he’s attended. Being in a band whose lead guitarist moved away — leaving him as the lead — motivated him to step up his skills. He eventually went to visit that guitarist, Brett Mayers, who was in a new band, Nolo, in Austin, Texas.

“I really loved leaving and not knowing what was going to happen,” he said.

He hit it off with the rest of Nolo’s members.

“They were wanting me to stay, but with the pandemic, I felt like I had to go back home,” he said.

He made his way back to Michigan and was living in Ann Arbor and lots of people were out of work because of pandemic shutdowns. He had some songs he wanted to record so he could put out a CD. So he and a friend from high school, Chris Momany, took the opportunity “to see what sounds we could get.”

“We kind of came to an agreement that we were going to try it out and we were going to do this thing,” he said. “Since neither of us were working, this was a perfect time to do it.”

He then brought in some other friends to sing backing vocals and to play some of the instruments. The result is the EP “Oknow,” a collection of six rock songs.

“I’ve always wanted to do something like this,” he said.

Making the record

Crayne played most of the instruments, but he asked Nate Zeulig to play drums on all of the tracks. Former Adrian College director of bands Marty Marks, frequent Croswell contributor Dave Rains and Siena Heights University director of bands Dan Kesterke also contributed on saxophone, keyboard and auxiliary percussion, respectively. Kesterke was Crayne’s high school band director. Zeulig and Samuel Millett sang backing vocals.

“Dan and Marty, they were my teachers, and Dave was my boss for my first pit orchestra I ever did, so for them to be like, ‘Yeah, let me be a part of it,’ was an honor,” Crayne said.

Millett and Crayne go way back, “and he knows how to harmonize real well with me,” he said.

“My friends are the greatest strength to me, just the amazing things that everyone can do, and when you put it together, you can make something really, really nice,” he said.

Another Adrian High School grad, Brandon Cooksey, mastered the recordings at Inc. Studios.

The songs have an early 2000s rock feel, which isn’t too surprising since Crayne grew up with bands like Weezer, Tool, The Killers and System of a Down.

“These songs are things that I thought that I would want to hear,” he said.

They didn’t record to a metronome or click track so the songs could have a more natural feel rather than being locked into an exact tempo.

“We wanted to make an authentic rock project,” Crayne said.

They started with the drum parts, then layered in the other parts.

“We started in July 2020, and I thought this project would have a five-month turnaround,” he said. But then people started going back to work, and then there would be delays because of exposures to COVID-19.

“It was one thing after another, so it really kind of took a long time,” he said.

He said this group of songs has a narrative.

“It’s got the rise and the fall and the hope,” he said. “Some of my songs, I think, are kind of sad, but I want to leave people with hope at the end of the day. Sometimes you need catharsis, but at the end of the day you just can’t forget what it’s all about.”

The oldest song on the CD is “Monotone Mtn.,” which he wrote when he was 14.

“A lot of people appreciate that song on an emotional level, so I just needed to have that one out in the world,” Crayne, 28, said.

He wrote “Broken Wing” when he was in college and playing in the band Wunderkid.

“I wrote that song in sociology class on one of my note sheets or something,” he said with a laugh. “I just wrote it all out.

“Sometimes it all just comes out. Not always, but that one is one like that, and so is ‘Don’t Play Joker.’ I wrote that in my car while I was driving around as a delivery driver, just at night and I’m going crazy at 2 a.m. and trying to deliver these cheeseburgers or whatever. I just caught some weird kind of vibe and that all came out fairly quickly.”

He worked on “Setting Sun” and the opening track, “The Good Kids,” over a year or two. Marks plays a sax solo at the end of "The Good Kids.”

Crayne and Momany used “Pistola” as their trial run at recording. They rerecorded it to higher quality standards for the EP.

“Don’t Play Joker” has a challenging drum part.

“It’s all about the beat, being fast, being wild, and it’s almost like a character in the song,” Crayne said. “… (Zuelig) agreed to do it, and he rose to the challenge.”

Finding an audience

He’s had to learn a lot about the music business, including the importance of social media in promoting his work. He can be found online by searching for Jonathan Crayne Music.

“When you want to have an official release on all of these digital platforms, you have to have a distributor and you have to have artwork,” he said.

The cover art is made from photos of a light whip being swung around at a party, he said. It kind of looks like art meant to be viewed with a black light. Some people have told him part of it looks like an ear, others have said it looks like a visualization of sound. He sees a stone face in part of it.

The EP is distributed by CDBaby and can be downloaded from online stores like iTunes and streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube. He has the CD for sale at his gigs and at some stores in the area as well as online at his Facebook page, www.facebook.com/jcraymusic.

“I wanted to be able to hold it, and it’s nice to have them at shows,” he said. “People can see it and pick one up if they want.”

He’s played solo acoustic shows locally at places such as Chaloner’s Cigar House, Farver’s at the Croswell and Mammoth Distilling in Adrian and Danley’s Country House in Tecumseh. His next local shows are from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. July 2 at Danley’s and 8 to 11 p.m. Aug. 4 at Chaloner’s. He also has gigs June 9 and July 28 at the Pittsfield Township Farmers Market, both dates from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. He can also be heard playing guitar in the Croswell’s pit orchestra for “Footloose” June 10-19 and “Little Shop of Horrors” July 15-24.

“I really want to get more gigs with my band,” he said. “I want to play with the full band lineup. That was one of the reasons why I felt I needed to make a high-quality sort of record because people are always like, ‘Where’s your product?’ And I’d been playing for years and I didn’t have a product that I felt proud to share.”

Performing isn’t Crayne’s only income. He’s also a guitar, bass and percussion instructor at School of Rock in Ann Arbor.

About the album title — Is it pronounced “OK now” or “O know,” as in “oh, no"?

“I think it depends how you’re feeling,” Crayne said. “I want to take your ‘oh, no’ and turn it into ‘OK now.’

“There’s a level of ambiguity to it. I don’t want to say it’s one way or the other. And that’s kind of how I feel about music, too. It’s up to you what it’s about, what it does for you. You fill in the gaps, and it’s your experience is what counts.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Adrian musician Jonathan Crayne releases 1st CD