Adaptability is a style for Salem musician Jon Fro

When John Fro found a home in Salem, he never left.

It has probably been a constant in his freewheeling life and musical career.

Fro, 46, has been writing and performing music in Salem for over 20 years. Meanwhile, he builds other local artists on the rise, producing music in his studio and bringing them to the stage.

His first record in six years debuted on April 8 under the title “…………”.

The album’s release means the Salemites will soon find Fro’s name on their concert bills, as Fro returns from a months-long hiatus. He plans a tour across Oregon.

The first song on his latest album is sprinkled with his brother, who “has had a really hard life.” Flo said his brother underwent surgery for a leg that was too short and later became infected. After living in pain for ten years, he lost his leg.

The title of the song is “A way of life just to breathe”.

“I want to match the words and the story with the emotion and tie it with the music so that everything is cohesive and expresses the same emotion to the listener,” he said.

Flo, even a young musician from Salem, said he never considered moving to industry hubs like Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville.

“This is my home,” he said. “I have no desire to leave. If I am here, I want to do better, network with people and help them in any way I can.”

A self-proclaimed singer-songwriter, Flo is best known for her acoustic work. But he’s played nearly every genre of music, and each record is the product of his ever-changing approach to songwriting and production.

Before he picked up the guitar, his ability to adapt on the fly was driven by the forces of his environment.

Flo’s childhood was a time of change. Born in Los Angeles and one of his seven children, he said his parents were travelers seeking whereabouts. He lived in his eight different cities until his family settled in Salem in 1989, when he was ten years old.

“It was a mellow place,” he said of Salem. “I’ve lived in a lot of bad neighborhoods, so coming here was a good change.”

Since childhood, Fro has been creative, drawing, modeling, papier-mâché and pottery. When his older brother started playing the guitar when he was 17, he followed suit.

“I literally didn’t stop,” he said. “I played every day.”

Flo said he mostly taught himself by studying the music of his favorite artists: Nirvana, REM, Smashing Pumpkins, Screaming Trees and Bruce Cobain, considered “the Canadian Bob Dylan.” I got it.” He listened to every detail, like where the solos and bridges were placed in the song.

Flo soon learned to play bass when he joined a band with a friend who played guitar.

“I’ve always been an adaptable musician,” he said. “I was able to really fit in and adapt to any environment. Because it fits.”

He first played when he was 19 when his band, Sylphide, played to a packed audience in a hall across from Salem Heights Elementary School.

A few years later he started writing songs on his own and decided to go his own way. “I was always in a lot of bands and wanted to grow as an artist, as a musician,” he recalls.

Fro attended Chemeketa Community College for several years before relinquishing his full-time commitment to music. He began recording his first album ‘afterthoughts’ in 2000 and released it two years later.

His songs are primarily rooted in rock, but have individual touches on alternative, indie, country, folk, and blues.

Flo also said he has produced many hip-hop albums. He was influenced by his 90s rap artists such as Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, and A Tribe Called Quest, and was part of Battle his rap until the mid-2000s. Circles of MCs gathered on stages and on street corners to compete with each other in “Eminem-style” poetry.

The one-minute verse was improvised, and the judges decided the winner.

Flo said it was always important to him to develop his own style and sound. “I never wanted to sound like someone else,” he said.

Still, he’s thrown vocal comparisons to the likes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and the Violent Femmes. “I don’t sound like Bob Dylan. I think people are just trying to figure out who I sound like,” he said with a laugh.

For Fro, songwriting is not a linear process. Often he starts with music, followed by lyrics. Other songs just come to him.

“I try not to force anything. I let the songs guide me,” he said. “I think learning late and moving around at a young age gave me a really open mind because I was always adapting to circumstances, a whole new city, a whole new school, all these new friends, all these things. I had to be able to change into new people in the world: Who am I, why am I here, and what’s going on?

Flo said the albums are like his personal diary, each a chapter in his life.

“I would go back and listen to them and say, ‘Okay, this is where I was when I was writing this, that’s how I felt, this is where I lived, and I ‘That’s what I was going through,” he said.

All of his previous albums have been acoustic, others have included digital drumming by Fro and other artists. Flo said his latest five-song release is a “complete production.”

“I did all the programming. I basically did everything on this,” he said.

Six years from Flo’s previous album was the longest inter-album gap to date. He said he built his own studio his business and took time out to help other artists get their projects out there. “He couldn’t focus on himself,” he said.

Fro has also been promoting local artists since the 90’s. With the network of musicians he has built, he occasionally performs what he calls an “acoustic showcase”, an all-acoustic singer his song his writer performance. He said it was the only such show in Salem.

Fro said promotion is especially important in an age where anyone can upload their songs to platforms like TikTok and SoundCloud. You’ll get lost in the rough sea,” he said.

According to Fro, Salem’s music scene has changed dramatically over the last 20 years.

The Triangle Tavern, where Frollo hosted an album release party earlier this month, was once the city’s live music lighthouse. “There were venues that popped up regularly, but there was a time when Triangle was literally the only live music venue in town,” he said.

About a decade ago, more venues hosted live music, but the local scene took a hit during the pandemic.

“Things have really started to pick up again in the last year, with a lot of cool venues opening up,” he said.

Flo said he arranged his live performances in a “free-flow structure”, alternating which musicians played with him and which vocalists he sang with during the live show.

Fro’s freestyle obsession doesn’t stop at rap battles. Every time he does a show, he composes the song on the fly in front of an audience.

“I feel most alive musically and personally when I’m in spontaneous moments, when I’m creating something in the air out of nothing,” he said. “You get lost in the moment and it comes out.”

Contact Reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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