Sheguiandah First Nation musician releases new single

By Rick Garrick

TORONTO — Sheguiandah First Nation musician Graeme Jonez highlighted his experiences on the road as a motorcyclist with the release of his new single, Ride or Die. His hit single, The Flood!, reached #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown in March 2024 and was the Merilainen Music Award winner for Single of the Year.

“I wrote Ride or Die as a bit of an homage to the motorcycle lifestyle,” Jonez says. “I’ve been a motorcycle rider myself for 25 years and I really wanted to write something that had this sort of gritty, raw feeling.”

Jonez says the phrase ride or die has “a bit of a cheesy meaning” for most people, but he wanted to make it something more serious and deep and personal.

“It’s really about our mortality and our relationship with life and death,” Jonez says. “For me, if the question is to ride or die, I’d rather ride and accept the consequences than to live a life not to the fullest where you’re not pursuing things that really feed your soul.”

Jonez says he does motorcycle road races with a vintage racing organization and has travelled across the United States with his motorcycle.

“This is really an opportunity for me to pay tribute to something that has been a big part of my life for many years,” Jonez says. “I’m just happy to be able to release something that has a little bit of that part of me in my music.”

Jonez says he first created the song’s title before developing some words and imagery for the song, and then wrote the lyrics and the melody for the song and recorded a demo. He recorded the song at The Nelson Room in Toronto with producer Derek Downham and engineer Tim Foy.

“I really relied on those two to take the vision that I had in my mind and turn it in to what became a really well-produced song,” Jonez says.

Jonez says he grew up listening to oldies music on the radio.

“When my friends were listening more to contemporary music, I was digging through record crates and listening to old cassette tapes of music from the 1960s and 1970s,” Jonez says. “And then I got into really old folk and blues music from the early 20th century. I feel like being [Anishinabek], we are natural storytellers so for me, I think songwriting came naturally and the type of writing that I do is a lot of storytelling, more than just pop songwriting.”

Jonez says he first got into songwriting after attending a Bob Dylan performance in London, Ont., when he was 16-years-old.

“That changed everything for me. I picked up a guitar shortly thereafter,” Jonez says. “I started going to the library and picking up books with old folk songs in it and old 1960s songs and I just started learning how to play.”

Jonez says he started to write his own songs after learning a few chords on the guitar.

“In my mid-20s I’s started to really take it a little bit more seriously and I was producing my own music and I was in a band in Toronto and we were gigging regularly,” Jonez says. “So at that point, I knew it was something I could pursue as more of a career, which I’ve been doing ever since.”

Jonez says he participated in a one-week songwriting residency last year at SOCAN LA House in Los Angeles.

“It was really rewarding to be able to dedicate time exclusively to writing songs,” Jonez says. “I probably came out of there with 12 new songs that I’ve been developing ever since. It was an incredible experience and to be immersed in the culture of Los Angeles is like nothing else.”

Jonez released his first album, Creatures and Criminals, in 2023 with support from the Toronto Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council and plans to release a second album later this year.