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ALL THINGS MUSIC
Thursday, March 4, 2021 • ThE BuLLETIN
Bend’s Brave New World drops debut
album after life-altering accident
BY BRIAN MCELHINEY • The Bulletin
E
arly last year, Bend rock band Brave New World was in the studio laying down basic tracks for a cover of “Last Kiss” for its self-titled debut album. The
song, originally recorded by Wayne Cochran in 1961 and later popularized by artists such as Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers and Pearl Jam, is about a
teenage girl who dies in a car crash while on a date, sung from the perspective of her boyfriend.
A week later, husband-and-wife band-
leaders and vocalists Andy Fecteau and
Kathy O’Hara were driving from one of
their kids’ soccer games in Medford to Bend
when a red pickup truck swerved into their
lane.
“I saw him coming; I said, ‘Oh, Jesus,’”
Fecteau said. “In the time I said, ‘Oh, Je-
sus,’ I started to steer to the right ditch and
I looked up and he went to the same direc-
tion. I brought the car back to the middle;
he came back to the middle.”
Right before impact, Fecteau steered hard
left and the truck slammed into the front
right side of the car, where O’Hara was sit-
ting. The couple’s sons, ages 16 and 18, had
minor injuries; one broke his ankle.
“My wife was — after about, we don’t
know if it was 30 seconds or a minute, she
started breathing again,” Fecteau said. “We
were all huddled around her; we thought
she had passed away. … She was pinned into
the car, and the other guy was upside-down
100 yards away, we think.”
Fecteau and O’Hara spent the next year in
and out of hospitals for surgeries and infec-
tions, and are still undergoing physical ther-
apy. To top everything off, COVID-19 hit
Oregon two weeks after the accident, com-
plicating the couple’s ongoing, post-accident
treatment.
But the music went on. A few months af-
ter the accident, O’Hara — her arm broken
“in 200 pieces” — laid down lead vocals for
“Last Kiss.”
“We were traumatized and shocked,” Fec-
teau said. “In a way though it was part of the
healing process. We could sing. At times we
couldn’t walk, we couldn’t do a lot of things;
we couldn’t take care of just the housework.
But we could stand in front of a microphone
and sing, so when we could do that, we did
it.”
“A Brave New World,” released earlier
this month, features 12 original songs and
four covers, including “Last Kiss,” “Breathe
(2 a.m.),” originally by Anna Nalick; Jason
Isbell’s “Speed Trap Town” and Bob Seger’s
“Fire Lake.”
The album was recorded at Central Or-
egon Recording with producer and en-
Submitted photos
The album cover of “A Brave New World” by
Bend band Brave New World is shown.
gineer Matthew Fletcher, who is also the
band’s lead guitarist; the rest of the group
features drummers/percussionists Lindsey
Elias and Kyle Pickard, keyboardist Patrick
Ondrozeck and bassist Mike Beaulieu. The
band formed about eight years ago, but the
current lineup solidified in the past three
or four years, Fecteau said. Mark Ransom
played guitar on two songs and also co-
wrote “Mexico” with Fecteau.
Fecteau, founder of Redbird Physio phys-
ical therapy office and known for his work
with Redbird the Band and the Church of
Neil concerts, co-wrote the album’s original
songs with David Zandonatti. The sounds
of those previous projects seep into “A Brave
New World,” from the crunching guitars of
“Man Gone Bad” and “Constantly Asking,”
to blues rockers such as “Circle of Love,” and
even some improvised punk (hidden track
“Spayed Chihuahua”).
Many of those songs have taken on new
meaning since the accident.
“Everyone writes with some self-reflec-
tion, but it kind of comes to you from the
ethers,” Fecteau said. “The antenna’s up
and a song hits you. But then after (you go)
through all that and you’re singing it ... it’s
funny, you didn’t even really know what
you were singing about because now you’re
really there. Now you’ve arrived. You’ve
Andy Fecteau and Kathy O’Hara’s car is shown after the accident. The couple underwent surgeries and
physical therapy over the last year while completing the debut album of their band, Brave New World.
been put down. When you’re singing that
song, that blues song, ‘Circle of Love,’ that’s
a whole other place to sing it from when
things are good than when you really need
the blues.”
Coincidentally, Fecteau and O’Hara were
both physical therapists before the accident,
and have been undergoing therapy at Red-
bird Physio with Aaron Lenard and Chris
Stanley, respectively. But neither will be able
to practice again, they said.
“We’ve got permanent damage, perma-
nent deficits,” Fecteau said. “But there’s an
upside to it where we both felt — after we
went through the first heavy six months,
something like that gives you another side of
it where you feel very fortunate to be alive.
And more so than anything, all we cared
about was our children, and our children
pretty much came through with scrapes
compared to what happened.”
Along with shattering her right arm,
O’Hara had a concussion and three frac-
tured ribs. She underwent emergency sur-
gery (she eventually underwent three sur-
geries in total) and now has four metal
plates and 21 screws in her arm.
“I was sort of hopeful, like, ‘Oh, will I ever
be pain-free, or am I going to always have
pain?’” O’Hara said. “Part of me says, when
your arm’s been in 200 pieces, can you re-
ally expect to be pain-free? I don’t think so.
… I’m probably about 60 to 70% what I was
prior to the accident. I can run; I’m an avid
runner, but I still have some pain when I’m
running.”
Fecteau’s thumb was shattered and he
damaged his right ankle, knee and back. He
had surgery on his thumb a couple of days
after the accident, then had ankle and knee
surgery a few months later, but developed a
staph infection in his right knee.
“From my athletic stuff, I’ve had some
other major surgeries in my history,” Fect-
eau said, “but this process has been a whole
other level of submitting to the process with
some humility and patience and acceptance
of how things are every day.
“... We’ve treated patients for 30 years.
We’ve seen people like us, but we never ex-
pected to be people like us. It gives you a
whole other level of understanding of how
fragile life can be.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com