Jeremy Facknitz has been entertaining audiences with his music and high-energy performances for more than a quarter-century. 

Facknitz will perform at the downtown Fox Theater on Saturday, June 10.

Since the 2002 break-up of his Detroit-based band, “The Ottomans” (who earned a 2001 Detroit Music Award for Best New Alternative Band, beating out ‘The White Stripes”), Jeremy has performed primarily as a solo act, marrying folk-rock and jazz stylings to showcase his intimate stories of life, love, and self-discovery.

From 2003-17, Facknitz carved out a living performing at bars, coffeeshops, and corporate events while teaching lessons on the side. 

“I was happy to be making a living performing music, but my original music wasn’t being heard, and, as the years passed, I found myself more and more frustrated playing to little more than the din of drunken conversation.” 

Things came to a head on July 17, 2017 when Jeremy was diagnosed with viral meningitis. 

“I came face to face with my mortality, and I realized it was time for a change. I quit performing at bars and spent the next year making the leap to house concerts, touring and performing solely for listening audiences,” he said.

The leap paid off. He was named a top-24 finalist from more than 800 entries in the 2020 and 2022 Grassy Hill New Folk songwriting competitions at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival. 

And his songs, “Ballet of an Unhatched Chick” and “Michigan (Something in the Water)” were awarded semi-finalist distinctions at songoftheyear.com, also in 2020 and 2022.

While occasionally performing with his six-piece band in Colorado, Jeremy continues to tour solo-performing at house concerts and listening rooms in the United States, Canada, and Europe. 

His sixth solo album “Smilin’ At the Future” was released March 31.

“Jeremy Facknitz is, indeed, a major talent. Packed with tunes that manage to sound both familiar and refreshingly new, Smiln’ at the Future is an excellent album-and, I can guarantee, like nothing you’ll have ever heard before.” – Music critic John Barliss, atthebarrier.com

Click here for a sample of Facknitz’s music.

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