Aaron Guest, Breedlove's April Featured Artist, is a talented multi-instrumentalist and has been part of the artist family for a long time, usually seen playing a 12-String Breedlove. While he's best known for his involvement in the band Polecat (read the interview about Aaron and Polecat here), he's in several additional projects we'll explore throughout the month including his solo creative project A.Guest. We visited with Aaron to learn more about his solo work:
Breedlove: Aaron, we're so excited to have you as our featured artist for the month. Last week we focused on your primary band, Polecat. Now, we want to learn more about your solo work. Talk to us about A.Guest. What's the inspiration behind your solo work, and how long have you've been at it?
Aaron: A.guest started putting out recorded content in 2006. I've been a multi-instrumentalist for most of my life, so this has been an enjoyable creative outlet for me, personally, to build my own records. I am performing all the instrumentation, writing and mostly recording everything myself. At this point, I have four EP's and a full length out, and I'm finishing up a new EP right now!
This project is my personal outlet; if some tunes I'm writing don't quite fit in the projects that I'm in with other people, they end up in the A.guest realm. When I have enough material created, then I release a new album, usually in an EP format. My last collection is called Cloud Shores and it is all very lush and contemplative; probably my most uniform work yet.
Some of my EP's are much more diverse. I'll introduce a folk song, then a rock song with distorted guitars, a piano-driven song, or a dreamy electronic piano kind of vibe…that’s all part of the adventure!
It's just been my fun project, a very personal musical outlet that has existed for as long as I've been writing. I've been lucky enough to be in a lot of different kind of bands over the years, but this has been my constant project.
Breedlove: What's the most rewarding thing about a solo project?
Aaron: To go down the rabbit hole, by yourself, is exciting and rewarding. You're not thinking about anybody or anything else; you're just in your own creative space. Over the years I've cultivated more and more instruments and gear so that I'm able to write and record pretty decently in my living room. It's a perfect way to get better at my craft and keep my chops up on all the instruments I play.
Breedlove: You've released a new video which we'll post here. That's a good representation of one of your projects, right?
Aaron: That's from the Cloud Shores EP. Most of that EP is Fender Rhodes piano-driven vibes with a lot of textures from my 12-strings. Several of those songs have two different 12 string parts panned stereo and they add this nice gentle drive to it. There are drums as well, but they are mostly simple, airy parts; 12-strings add a lot of sparkle and drive.
Breedlove: With all those different instruments at your disposal, what is the one you have the most confidence in playing? What feels the most natural in your hands?
Aaron: For my solo stuff, I try to make each instrument speak equally, if that makes sense. If I have to answer, I'd say the piano, in any form. It's the instrument that I learned on as a kid, and I played the longest.
I love playing drums, and I love playing electric bass. I don't get to do that very often, so when I do these solo projects, it's enjoyable to be able to revisit those instruments as well.
Breedlove: For people interested in experiencing these different tracks and albums, where do they live? What's the best place for people to find them and listen?
Everything's on Spotify, iTunes, and Bandcamp. I've released my last three EP's digitally.
Breedlove: How complicated is your recording setup?
Aaron: My setup is very simple. I have an old MacBook with Pro Tools 8 which is pretty old at this point. A straightforward, old two channel M box. Most signals go through a Joe Meek preamp with a nice EQ and nice compressor built in, using an Audio Technica 4033 condenser mic – decent and affordable!
If I'm recording an electric guitar, I have a small guitar amp, and I put a 57 on the cab. I've found that printing the track using real pedals creates super warm dark analog sounds. Usually, I go direct in for bass and most keyboards. What this simple setup has challenged me to do is be very picky about my sound first. I don't have that much processing power in my computer as far as plugins and editing capability. I try to get the sound that I want right away which has pushed me to hone my engineering skills a little bit better, which has been an excellent challenge.
I go through, I overdub … I get things feeling pretty good instrumentally. Do some nudging, do some editing, if I need too. My buddy has a studio called Royal Purple Recording, just down the street from my house in Bellingham. It’s a small studio but he has a nice board and more channels, better computers and more mics. We'll do the drums, acoustic piano, and vocals there. He mixes it, and we’ve got another A.guest project in the books!
Breedlove: Watching the video and listening to your work, it sounds like this is something like “craft music,” where it's more analog and crafted by hand. It's more organic, if you will. It's not a highly digitized and manufactured product?
Aaron: Yes. I'm usually pretty busy with the other groups and projects we are producing, so this is a special creative outlet I love doing and I take my time. When I have a collection of lyrics written down, when I've got a bunch of loops saved up, I start putting them together and forge a small batch. It's a ton of fun!
