Ajay Friese had been sitting with her in the green room on the set of American Classic, the new MGM+ comedy he shares with Linney and Kevin Kline. He’d been working up the courage to play her his first single -”The Road”, from his debut album Postcards – and when he finally did, she sat quietly for a moment and then told him it reminded her of John Denver. Then she told him about the one time she had met Denver. It was, he told me, a special connection to share with someone he had idolized for so long.
That story tells you most of what you need to know about Ajay Friese. He is a Vancouver Island kid – who grew up here on Vancouver Island, spent five years riding BC Ferries to Vancouver auditions (and getting well acquainted with the Coastal Café and its Sunshine Breakfast), and quietly, without drama, became one of the more interesting young actors and musicians working today.
He was a series regular across all three seasons of the Netflix reboot “Lost in Space”, which is a good job under any circumstances, but what stays with him is the moment in season two when a producer pulled him aside and said they were thinking of having him sing a version of “Three Little Birds”. On screen. He told me it came completely out of nowhere and felt like the biggest compliment he had ever received. There is something about being trusted with a moment like that on a top-tier international production that confirms something you had maybe only half-believed about yourself.
Postcards is the album he’d been building toward. He records under the name Blue Jay Friese, and four of the songs are live one-takes — captured whole, the way a conversation is captured. He said he prefers acoustic guitar. He wants to hear how hard the fingers were pressing on the strings.
His photography has appeared on National Geographic’s website. He shoots the night sky. He was doing it at fifteen, long before anyone figured out how to fake a Milky Way image on a phone. He would love to be in a “Fast and Furious” film. He thinks “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus is Grammy-level. He is good company.
Hear the full conversation with Ajay Friese on The PULSE Community Podcast at: https://bit.ly/S2EP33PulsePodcast
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/