Aron Wright

“To the Country“
from the album In the Woods
2008
iTunes

Nashville’s Aron Wright locally released his debut full-length In the Woods this March. As detailed on his Myspace page, the album centers on Aron’s delicate vocal styling and well-crafted lyrics. Produced by Mike Odmark (The Lady Vanishes), In the Woods paints an impassioned, sometimes haunting musical landscape which draws listeners back for more. Aron’s music sings like a lullaby: beautifully basic, seamless, and deliberate. His quiet songs speak of love, relationships, hope, and brokenness.

Aron recently exchanged e-mail with Jonk Music:

Can you share a little information about yourself?
Yes, my name is Aron Wright and I am a singer-songwriter living in Nashville, TN. I grew up mostly in St. Louis, MO and moved to Johannesburg, South Africa when I was in high school because my father works for ATT and was transfered. I moved to Nashville to attend Lipscomb University, a small Christian liberal arts university where I eventually got a degree in Spanish. I played little shows here and there throughout college and started a band with my younger brother Justin when he came to school there a few years later. We changed names several times over the years — Undercurrent, The Vision Bag (“maybe the worst band name” – Mike Grimes of Grimey’s record shop) and finally Brothers and Friends. I eventually decided to do more of a solo thing and began focusing on writing songs that would hopefully stand on there own without a lot of accompaniment. For the last few years I’ve been playing shows in Nashville and touring mostly by myself and I guess that brings me up to today. Oh, also five years ago I fell in love with the artist Kelly Bonadies and I asked her to marry me a month ago. I’m very excited about that.

You’ve read my blog on at least one occasion, and I’ve visited your Myspace page. So now that it seems the Internet isn’t a fad, what are your thoughts on the power of the web in relation to helping or hurting an artist?
I’ve read your blog on more than one occasion, it’s great! I’ve also read hundreds of other blogs and seen a million Myspace profiles, as I’m sure you have. The internet and computers have provided the democratization of creating, recording, and distributing music. It’s done the same thing with journalism. Anyone that has something to say can say it, or a song to sing can sing it, you can just put up pictures of yourself or every little detail of your life. This is a great thing in some respects, but it also means there’s infinitely more competition and noise to deal with. I love that a guy (you) from anywhere in the world can find out about my music and write about it in his blog which he is passionate about. Probably 90 percent of the music I have sold has been to people in places I have never been to, maybe 20 percent of that to people in the UK. How beautiful is that? Just ten years ago, that was pretty much unheard of unless you had access to a major record label’s marketing and distribution channels.

The web definitely makes booking shows easier to do; it makes everything easier for everyone to do. There are just so many trade-offs. The playing field is mostly leveled. I’m on iTunes, Justin Timberlake is on iTunes. It seems like the internet allows us to do so much but at the end of the day, I mostly feel like I’ve been spinning my tires. I feel much more productive and satisfied artistically and just as a human being after playing a show in front of people than I do spending an hour responding to Myspace comments.

We all need to be careful with the internet. If art is a reflection of our experience then we need to be guarded about the information we’re allowing ourselves to consume and also how we consume it. The internet provides information from all over the world instantly and doesn’t lend itself to deep extensive thinking, the way a book might. This has to affect the art we produce.

Overall, the internet can be a great tool to help artists with their music business but if abused, might have a negative impact on our art, our culture and our BRAINS (note: brains is meant to be yelled).

Could you describe the recording process of In the Woods?
I came to my producer Mike Odmark with about 20 demos I had done at my house and I let him decide what made it on the record. Then we started doing some basic tracks — mostly guitar and vocals on a song or two a night. Instead of continuing to start more songs we would usually drag out every instrument we could find and try it out on the songs from that night. It was great for me working like that because you could hear the songs coming together and it kept us excited about the work and also saved my voice from being overworked. Mike is a great engineer and makes decisions quickly so it always kept things going smoothly when trying so many different things. We also have a lot of multi-instrumentalist friends that would come over and play random instruments like upright bass (Aaron Roche), cello (Justin Saunders), piano (Daniel Ellsworth) or drums (Justin Wright) on whatever seemed appropriate. From the beginning I knew I wanted the recordings to be simple, mellow and beautiful; the rest was mostly getting the best takes and experimenting with different textures. Looking back, I realize Mike was really the best guy for the job. He took the sounds in my head and made them better; I can’t recommend him enough.

Are there any current bands or records or sites that you enjoy and would recommend people seek out?
I listen to my friends’ music mostly and I recommend them all…where do I even start? My brother Justin Wright is one of the realest people you’ll meet (if you’re lucky enough to meet him) and his music reflects that. A lot of his music is faith-inspired and is also simple and heart-felt. Daniel Ellsworth is another amazing artist and friend. Daniel played piano on my record on two songs and I played trumpet on two of his that are about to be released. His music ranges from ’60s inspired pop to Americana to jazz. He’s such a talented songwriter and pianist, I think he just can’t be contained by a genre. McClain is a married couple, Travis and Lindsay that play beautiful Americana music. They are great writers and sing harmony like nobody’s business. I was supposed to play trumpet on their record but fell asleep and missed my chance. Quote is a another duo from Nashville, which consists of Justin Tam and Jamie Bennett. Their music is really fun; it always reminds me of 21st century pirates but most people say they remind them of Simon and Garfunkel. I guess I can hear that. They have amazing songs and harmonies and they just released a book with their album that has short stories and art — very cool. Aaron Roche is another guy from Nashville everyone needs to hear. He’s the musical genius type that can pick up any instrument and make it sound good; great songs and style. The Winston Jazz Routine is Nathan Phillips and he plays some of the most beautiful music I know of. Ivan Colon — I love this guy’s music and I played on trumpet on one of his songs so that’s my favorite probably. Last, but not least is Tommy Busby. Tommy has played in bands with me in the past but is now in LA doing his own thing. He plays mostly folk music but can also rock your face off or rap. Sorry I couldn’t think of any cool way to say he raps. I think that’s enough, they should all be listened to. Also, listen to anything Mike Odmark has produced — if it wasn’t good when he got a hold of it, it will be when he’s done with it.

The only website that I’ve seen lately that is really cool is ustream.tv. It allows anyone with a camera and a computer to stream live video from anywhere with internet access. It has allowed me to webcast most of my shows and I also play a show from my house every Thursday at 8pm central time. You can watch me at thepindrop.tv. It’s pretty nerdy but it’s cheaper than driving.

Parting words?
Jon, thanks so much for having me. Come to Nashville and we’ll go listen to some music.