Donny: 0:49

Happy new year, and welcome to music. Ghost stories. I'm your host, Dani Ingram. And as we step into a brand new chapter, It's the perfect time to reflect on the unexpected magic that music brings into our lives. Today, I'm joined by Aaron sprinkle, a music producer and artist whose career has been defined by a deep love for sound and an unrelenting pursuit of creativity. In this episode, we'll uncover serendipitous moments that shaped Erin's journey. and we'll explore on how technology, and vibe. sort of correlate in the music creation. process. We'll talk about things such as. familiarity. And how. our life experiences are, what create. This magic. That surrounds our perception of the music. we're hearing. Before we dive in let's tune into today's‘mystery sound’ segment. Where we explore the fascinating ways sound could play tricks on our minds. Today, we're going to explore the Phantom words, illusion. Are you familiar with the inkblot test? Where a subject has shown a series of inkblots, and asked to describe what they see. What if this was possible, not with just the visuals, but with audio as well. Here's how it works. When you hear a loop of repeated syllables or fragments of words. Your brain tries to make sense of what is initially perceived as chaos. It's as if your brain can't handle that randomness. So it starts making connections to impose meaning. Suddenly, you think you hear distinct words or phrases, words that actually aren't there. Before I explain more. Let's try it out. I'm going to play a clip of seemingly random. Sounds close your eyes, focus in a little bit. And try to find what you hear, see if there's any words or phrases that pop out to you.

2:48

[Pause briefly for listeners to process]

Donny: 3:03

Okay. So, what did you hear? Some people might catch words like‘downhill,’‘countdown. Or even something more wild. Others might hear totally different things or nothing at all. The magic of the solution lies in how our brains are hardwired to find patterns. Even though the sound of the clip is just a jumble of syllables. This one being Hilda, H I L D a. Your brain doesn't favor uncertainty. It's like it works over time to create order, sometimes pulling out familiar words or phrases. Interestingly, and this sort of goes back to the inkblot test thing. What you hear might also depend on your mood. Your previous experiences, your memories. Or even what you've been thinking about lately, what's been on the top of your mind. It's like an auditory path to your subconscious. Okay. I think this mystery sound is really appropriate for today's conversation. So let's kick off this new year and let's dive in. Hey, Aaron, welcome to the podcast.

Aaron: 4:22

So good to be here.

Donny: 4:23

Tell our listeners a little bit about who you are.

Aaron: 4:25

My name is Aaron Sprinkle. I am. 50 year old male human who has been making music in some capacity since I was in like third grade I've been in the music industry professionally, for over 30 years. And the main role that I've been in is a music producer and songwriter. And then I've also been an recording and touring artist as well, off and on in that. and a recording engineer and mixer I've hacked my way through just about every role in recording Most of the people that know who I am as a producer would think of me as an emo producer. From, the early 2000s on, was my emo run of Amberland, Acceptance, Emory. The Almost, Pedro the Lion, and I've worked with OneRepublic and I've worked with some, artists on the CBA side, Jeremy Camp, Cutlass, Hawk Nelson, Thousand Foot Crutch, And then I put out a decent amount of records of my own under my name with my bands, Rose Blossom Punch and Fair. And. Yeah,

Donny: 5:47

what was the moment where you said you became, more deeply attached to music,

Aaron: 5:53

I was raised around music. both of my parents, played guitar, sang, we're really into music, at a level that I didn't really understand until later on, especially for my dad, it was just this sort of self discovery thing that my parents were born again, Christian ex hippies, and they didn't listen to any music that was not. considered Christian music. Fortunately the era that I was little in, there was some really incredibly great Christian music, that I'm really glad I was raised on. But in third grade, I was exposed to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by accident, particularly the song Lovely Rita. I didn't even understand what was happening to me then. I was in third grade, right? But it was a profound spiritual experience for me. And it really is the anchor of what the trajectory of the rest of my life was. And the feeling I got from hearing that song in those headphones on that Walkman is a feeling that I've never stopped chasing in my life. Making my own music. Trying to get a sliver of that feeling back.

Donny: 7:09

Was that from your parents collection?

Aaron: 7:11

No. So this kid, a lot older than me was walking by with a Walkman and I'd never seen a Walkman before and I was like what is that and you know this is a long time ago. I'm old and He was kind of a jerk to me and he was like none of your business blah blah blah And so I waited for him to go back into his grandparents house and then leave without it And then I went and asked his grandparents if I could And they were real sweet and they sat me down and they just randomly grabbed a cassette off of their table and popped it in and hit play. My interest was in the technology, right? That's what got me there. But then, as soon as I heard the music, I didn't care about the Walkman at all anymore. Like it was this whole other thing. And I remember literally running home to tell my parents about this. And, my dad's favorite band is an understatement, is the Beatles. But he wasn't currently listening to them at the time because of this conversion experience and sort of the culture around that. So. I later on found out his story and how it pertained to the Beatles and him learning how to play guitar and all this stuff. But he was thrilled to say the least that I had this experience. But yeah, that's how I heard it.

Donny: 9:11

I understand that your parents had recently converted, but I didn't know if they had albums that they didn't want to throw away because, they're like assets in a way. But,

Aaron: 9:18

they didn't have anything in the house.

Donny: 9:21

That's really cool that technology brought you into a new world of music. It's interesting how that's almost like a trajectory for. so much more of your time here,

Aaron: 9:32

Right. I've never really thought about this, but the technology aspect of it is probably pretty important too, because technology has always been a part of my story as well, even since I was young. The magic of it to me, and my pursuit of it. And, you know, when I was in sixth grade, fifth grade, my uncle gave me a Commodore, 64, and I taught myself how to program in basic and I would make my own video games. And, I spent hours and hours doing that too. And so when computers and music came together, for me, which was Really about 99, 98, 99, somewhere around there is when I really started making music with computers. It was a very natural process for me.

Donny: 10:18

I feel like you were primed at the advent of this really pivotal moment in music. A lot of people were closing their doors. And I feel like you were just right at the, right mindset at the right time. And you are an asset for other people, for the next phase of what music would become.

Aaron: 10:35

Yeah, I was just talking to a friend about this the other day that I feel grateful that I was able to make, A lot of records to tape before I transitioned to, using computers. And, unfortunately there was a short stint of ADATs in between those two. Which I don't have very many fond memories of, but, just having some frame of reference as to what is being emulated by everything now, that I've used all these pieces of gear in these. things to make, quite a bit of, quite a bit of material I feel grateful for. I don't, I think that there's probably some advantage, but I think there's probably some advantage of not knowing too. I don't think it's superior in any way, but I'm grateful for it. I like it.

Donny: 11:25

I think more tangible things are coming back into swing. There's, vinyls, coming back, I'm starting to see, More of a craving for things that are physical because, there is beauty in being able to touch and hold things that are musical. Whereas the computer, I don't know, I went through this whole thing with, last night I was talking to my buddy. Are you familiar with the McGurk effect? I'll send you a link, but,

Aaron: 11:46

sounds like something I would be excited to learn about

Donny: 11:49

BBC did a report on it, but they had a guy, side by side, same guy, same face, two images, and one was saying, it was a close up of his mouth, and he was saying, ba, like B A, ba, and the second face was him saying, fa, F A, F A. The entire time they played an audio clip, but whatever one you looked at, you heard. So you're like, how is the audio changing when I'm changing? And the McGurk effect is our visual cues actually influence our auditory perception. I said, what if I could use this to my advantage? So I started finding stock footage, and I was like, what if I found one that like really vibed with whatever I'm working on and put it up on a screen and just, and found a looping point. And then I found a software that I actually had already that could pick up a and B on a video and just keep looping that section. I realized what I'm aiming for sonically. Sometimes is way different than I'll just look at the screen and I'll be like, oh, this doesn't fit, you know, And I'll just change it

Aaron: 12:46

so when I had my studio in Seattle, The Compound, I had a movie playing 24 7 of some sort. Like constantly. And a lot of times I would match it to what I was feeling or wanting to feel. Sometimes it was my feeling and sometimes it was, the vibe of what we were working on. But, I would just pick a movie and just loop it. And I got that from J. R. McNeely. He mixes with a movie on with the sound turned off, sometimes it's just this peripheral vibe that you're giving yourself. I close my eyes a lot when I'm working. And I actually go one step further and I've been doing this for so long that I can do it really seamlessly. But I go into fan mode when I'm listening, which is what I call it, but I listen as if I couldn't change it. I listen as if it was presented to me as a finished product. And if something's sticking out to me or feeling off in that mode, then I know I need to fix it. If it's not, then I probably don't. If it's making me feel something as a fan, it's great. But if there's something poking out, that's distracting me from the feeling it's giving me, then that's something I need to fix. But I think going back to the tangibility of music, the physical, I think something that I heard someone discuss, this was a while ago too, but. There are generations of people now that are not babies, that don't understand the concept of owning music, of possessing music, right? Cause it's all just streaming, if You don't own your, the Spotify catalog. You just pay monthly to access it. And if you stop paying, you don't have access to it anymore. And that's why I think, there's a couple of record shops in Seattle that I've noticed over the years, their CD section is expanding and the demographic of the people in their CD section is very young. I don't think it's a new phenomenon. As far as, I, I remember discovering as, in the nineties, really being into and discovering aspects of the seventies that I thought were really intriguing and what an influence the seventies had on, the Seattle music scene and, and even my music and stuff, and, so go that, that looking just, Before your time thing and finding things in there that intrigue and inspire you but cds vinyl cassettes all those things have grown all over the last few years, as far as the market for them and they're not at a level where they're gonna Replace streaming, but the fact that they're growing is encouraging to me I think there's something so beautiful in buying an album, whatever format it is, holding it in your hand, opening the packaging, reading the notes, listening to the songs in order. And that's an experience that's been lost from streaming. And, I love streaming. I love, the convenience of it. We've got these playlists I've made that, that match with the mood I'm in. I put them on or a record, I just yell at Alexa and she starts playing whatever I want. I get it. I just think it's fun to see young people discovering this other side of it.

Donny: 16:37

One thing on this podcast that I really aim to, bring a spotlight toward is listening to music more intently. And I think what happened with streaming and having this archive of music is you access music when you have access to the internet. The cool thing about streaming is that there's a mood associated with music. There's a vibe. And a lot of times you can just go in and tune into a playlist of whatever mood that you're in. What is it about vibe? Was it about mood? And what do you think it is about music that achieves that connection connection? To our inner deeper emotions

Aaron: 17:17

I don't know. I'm one of these people that doesn't want to unearth too much because I like the magic. I like the mystery, I don't really want to know why with certain things. Certain things I have to know why, or I can't stop until I know why. But when things feel mystical to me, I often don't want to figure it out, but what I do know, and what I have figured out over the years is emotions rule me, 100%. I love feeling my feelings. And, music makes me feel a way that nothing else does. And I can go back to a song and get that same feeling again, over and over. Basically self medicate, my own emotions, and the strength of these emotions, whether it be joy, or melancholy, or sadness, or anger, or whatever, is Unbelievable, and it actually brings me to something you talked about earlier, which is passive listening. I can't passively listen to music. If it's not something I intentionally put on, or even a station I put on, let's say, in a radio sort of environment. Or if it's too quiet for me to hear it, I'd rather not have any music on. I'd rather just there be nothing. But why does music do that? I don't know. And it's probably, there's probably some really incredible scientific explanation that you could whittle down to a quantum level if you wanted to, but I don't really care about that. I'm just chasing those feelings. The reason I discovered fan mode is because I first discovered producer mode while listening to things that I had been listening to for years. I accidentally turned producer mode on on a record that I'd been listening to for like 15 years and I heard all these problems with it. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you need to turn that off. Vocals are pitchy right there, or the guitar is out of tune right there. So I thought, what if I did that in the reverse while I was making records? And that's how that was discovered. But you can ruin like treasured music that you've listened to your whole life. If you turn producer mode on and listen to it,

Donny: 19:48

I don't think I've ever Dissected music in a way where I'm listening to it. Like I could actually change things,

Aaron: 19:55

when you listen to a record that someone else made, you don't question whether or not it's finished You don't question whether or not, It could be better. You're sort of accepting the music is finished, and I try all the time to get artists I'm working with to listen that way. Pretend this isn't your band, pretend this is finished and just listen to it. It's a completely different posture that you're approaching. It's if you had, the cures pictures of you open in a session and you were making that song and the vocals were open, what would you do to them? The answer to that question is I would have ruined that song if I had it in front of me. And then it just, it got me thinking differently about how to make music with computers. It does help to humanize for me. It helps to humanize things this artist I'm working with, who's 23. He was asking when you did records to tape, like, how did you do that? And like you, you listened differently. You listened to based on what you could and could not change about it. I couldn't, nudge this and that around, so you didn't listen for that. You listened for things being wildly out of time, and then you fixed them. Or just, you listened for how it made you feel.

Donny: 21:28

It makes me wonder if our threshold has changed as humans throughout time, if we're more sensitive to imperfection because of how tight music has gotten. But I think what happens is, that has already happened. And that's why, this conversation comes back up about vibe and, there's this interesting. Thing that you just brought up here, this theme about the relationship between music and technology. That I think is really interesting in the sense that you just said technology can ruin vibe or your access to technology can ruin vibe,

Aaron: 22:05

Absolutely. And I think that's always been the case though. To some extent, If you're looking at a pure representation of you, three people playing music in a room together, and then you start adding technology to it, you can enhance or. Really break down what's happening there, I can go back and probably find records where I was just way too on the grid. And I cringe at some of that stuff. My motivation was to try to make it sound current and relevant. I hear Michael Buble Christmas songs this time of year, and I hear hard auto tune on some of the notes of his voice and he does not need that. But it makes it, sound more expensive or more, professional or more glossy I don't believe people listen for things like that. I think People are mostly binary with music listening. They like it or they don't like it. There's, they're not going, I really like this song except for the vocals, you know, they're experiencing it at a different level than we're making it. And I think it's the analogy I like to use with this is you see these people with these hi fi rigs that. Costs more than the studio that the record was made in that they're listening to it on. And I think if you're thinking about how people are listening to the music, then you're probably going to save yourself a lot of trouble. If you can start listening that way, the vibe that people, you know, are looking for in, in what you're giving them. They don't care about the things that we really focus on as producers and writers and stuff, as much as you'd think, we have to care about things that they don't because we're trying to crack this code of what compels them, to like the music. But, I think fan mode is, Gotta be able to turn that on.

Donny: 24:04

When you say that your emotions really dictate a lot for you personally, and music really plays this big role on your emotions. Would you say that comes from the instruments for you? Like the actual music composition? Or do you think it's the way that the story is told and the lyrics are presented?

Aaron: 24:27

So if I had to things in a list of, hierarchy, Melody is number one for me. And not just obviously the melody, but the way that it interacts with the harmony. Number one. And then I think it would have to be like tied would be the lyrics and then the Vibe of the production the vibe that the production is giving me Not so much the specific Instrumentation, but the way that instrumentation is presented, is what's most important. I don't really care what instruments are there. I care how the way that they are being presented to me makes me feel. And some songs I love so much and I've never even thought about the lyrics before. And then some songs, make me cry every time I hear them and it's just because of the lyrics and The melody and everything together, they can't I wouldn't be like this song is amazing. The lyrics are so good I don't really like anything else about it. It's got to be the whole package for me but Instrumentation is not I don't think it's real high. I think there's a way to get You're feeling across that works really well with certain instruments. So it's going to be the most effective way to get that across is to use these instruments and this configuration with these types of tones and tuning and playing and all that stuff. But I think what struck me about Lovely Rita was. The production and the melody, I wasn't thinking about the lyrics of that song at all. Song's borderline dirty. If you really read the lyrics, I didn't pick up on that in third grade. It was this other universe that transported me to when I heard it, this other reality, sonically, and then the melody. Yeah. Melody is the biggest mystery of all to me with this, you know, it's almost seems like it's programmed into our DNA or something, it's a trip.

Donny: 26:41

I wonder if melody and song is just floating out there. And, when we're writing music or we're writing these songs, we tap into that in a way that's almost, and I always wonder if it's inevitable. It's just gonna happen, out of our control.

Aaron: 26:56

I always say the best songs I've ever written were discovered. They weren't written. You know what I mean? I found them. I unearthed them. Because that's how it feels more to me than me really calculating this invention, it feels like a discovery process. And what it is I'm discovering, the ether of why and all that, I don't want to know. I have no interest in that. I don't want the, I don't want to see the wizard behind the curtain. As far as like my spiritual beliefs go, I'm an ex evangelical Christian agnostic atheist, But, I like to hold some place for some woo woo. Like that there's just some totally unexplained and unexplainable and we'll never know and we'll never get to know stuff out there. And music is it's like music, love, all these things like that, that I don't want the mystery to be revealed. I just want to enjoy it. I just want to be present in it. And, get the fact that I get to be a part of it. A small part of the universe of music making is, I can't even believe it when I really think about it. It's such a gift, such a privilege, and, I don't know, I don't know what I'd do without it though, I feel like I would wither away into nothing if I couldn't, because, I say this all the time, but the reason I make music is because I can't not, I can't. Not. There was, that was the only motive for me, was I couldn't not make it. It wasn't like to get famous or rich or whatever, which thank God because I would be so disappointed right now if that was the truth,

Donny: 28:46

you said you feel like you're discovering, and what I'm wondering is how do you tap into that?

Aaron: 28:52

That's the hard part, when you do music to pay your bills, you have to sometimes do it whether you're really feeling it or not, I feel like everybody has a DD now, but I was diagnosed with it as an adult and over time, I've figured out how to use it as a superpower rather than a problem. And, the trick to it for me is just, if I can avoid working when I'm not feeling it, that's 90 percent of it right there. Because when I am feeling it, I can get a lot done in a short amount of time. A song in 15 minutes. I can work really fast. And that power gets fatigued when I try to push through. I don't have those really clear moments of super focus, I'll go through a period where I like I can't write anything for two weeks, and then I'll write five songs in two hours or whatever,

Donny: 29:55

love what you're saying about that too. It, it sort of um, alludes to being, present.

Aaron: 30:00

That's exactly what it is. It wasn't until Gosh, really the last four or five years that I got into mindfulness type stuff. I tapped into enough of it to really have a paradigm shift in how I see things. I was able to see that I was constantly trying to not be present. And the only thing that forced me to be was making music. But now I'm constantly. Just, I somehow shifted to where, I'm chasing the present all the time, and not the past or the future. You know, they say depression is focusing on the past, and anxiety focusing on the future. That's, to me, the definition of the antithesis of presence, right? And, being present.

Donny: 30:50

Is there a tool or something that's helped you shift your mindset?

Aaron: 30:55

Meditation definitely, but the honest and blunt part is, I was unable to tap into this stuff until I deconverted from Christianity. Walking away from that and then a couple years later getting out of a very long marriage that I should have got out of years before I did. Those were two huge shifts it kind of gave me the permission to seek being present. One of the big takeaways for me with Evangelical Christianity was the present doesn't matter. Other than that kind of binary switch of like, are you saved or are you not saved? Are you, is your name in the book of life or not? Beyond that, what matters is what's going to happen for the eternity after this blink of an eye life that you're living. So when my belief system changed to be actually the present is all I've ever had and all I ever will have, then it's easy to shift your focus onto the present because you're like, that's this is how it is. This is it right now. And it's almost like you can stop time in a way. Because right now is all I have, it doesn't matter when right now is, it's always all I have. And, it's really exciting, and fun. And, my, I, I struggled with, an alcohol addiction for years and it literally just went away. When I had this shift and I realized that the reason that I was drinking was to escape now, that's the whole, that was the whole reason is I didn't want to be now. I wanted to be somewhere else. I wanted to be not here. And I'm pointing at my head right now for people that can't see me. And when I wasn't afraid to be, I was terrified of being right here. And when I wasn't afraid to be anymore, I didn't, I don't think about alcohol anymore, ever. I just, it's a non issue. It's different when you're actually unburdened than just have the tools to abstain. Those are two different experiences. One of the big gifts I was given with my deconversion was this freedom from certainty or needing to know. Things that. I don't know is actually the most freeing thing to me for in my, anecdotal experience. When I was taught or at least perceived the teachings that I was given that. We have to know the truth. We have to know the exact, actual, real truth. And this is it. And if you don't know it, you're screwed. And that's a very stressful, it's a lot of, personal responsibility.

Donny: 34:07

What's interesting is you had this moment of realization when I asked how you tap into that and a couple of things that you mentioned, one, one being meditation I'm wondering if that helps give you that clarity being used to, thinking a certain way. And that, that sort of freed you in a new, yeah.

Aaron: 34:25

get used to thinking a different way is what meditation did. It helped me experience the world in a different way, experience my reality in a different way, the universe, whatever you want to call it, in a way that seemed honestly taboo from where I came from. But so much more wonder, so much more mystery, so much, this endless possibility of experiences out there.

Donny: 34:53

Something I will share, for people listening is, I did another thing with this guy Jason Snell, and he, uses something called a Muse headband, which is just, like a portable EEG that hooks up to your, to an iPhone app, and he's been on GitHub and worked with other co developers to essentially take that and use it as a, a MIDI device, and he would DJ. With nothing but this headband and his brainwave state will control all the loops inside of Ableton all the automation inside of Ableton And even the light show and he talked. Yeah, give it a listen if you have some time in the

Aaron: 35:29

That is cool.

Donny: 35:30

And he he talks about experiences and transcending and all that stuff. So afterwards, he helped me get a muse headband affordably, on the used market. He knows, he knows which one to get. And, I got one for like maybe 89 bucks on Facebook marketplace or something shipped to me. I paired it up. And I started using it and I've started meditating venturing out on my own, I will say, doing it the first few times and even sometimes depending on the mood, yeah. It's not very comfortable. It is, there's, I

Aaron: 36:00

it's Incredibly uncomfortable

Donny: 36:03

it was scary.

Aaron: 36:04

oh, yeah My heart would race and stuff when I first started doing it because it's such a foreign thing it was like what the hell is going on right now.

Donny: 36:15

And then, I, this, what's cool about this device is it gives you all the analytics afterwards. I think, guys like you and I appreciate seeing the data and, I started to realize like how I was finding comfort in these situations. When you said that you found comfort in the present, I totally understand what you're talking about. I think that's a really cool part of your journey and I just as far as being present. I just want to say I do appreciate you spending this moment here You know and recording this conversation for people to hear I think it's really nice. Have you ever had a coincidence involving music?

Aaron: 36:53

This is one of those terrible things where, yes, a hundred percent, but I can't think of any specific examples. But I'd love to hear some if you have any I'd love to hear them.

Donny: 37:03

There's a couple good ones. If you listen to, the introductory episode, I share one that happened with me and my dad, who had recorded demos on ADATs. By the way, I was transferring them into Pro Tools and, there was a track on there where it was just the acoustic guitar, but then it cut out this is after my dad passed away, by the way. And, but the recording. Was. Maybe a decade before, who knows when, but as I was transferring it, the guitar track cut out and then his voice comes in, he had, he must've had a sure SM 57 with a delay on the way in. And he was kind of like singing this weird mantra sounding thing, just just like how, that. That song on Sgt. Pepper kicks in and that vocals like grabs you and like right off the bat in this weird ethereal way was just like that. So it grabbed me and I was like, whoa, what is going on? And then he just says goodbye I love you,

Aaron: 37:58

Whoa.

Donny: 38:00

Do you know kevin? Klein from valley heart. Have you heard of him? You He shared a cool experience, too, that I like, on his episode, which, people can check out. I like that one, too, about, one of the songs that he was working on, and it, they went, they flew out to play it at a wedding, but on the way back home, After learning and practicing the song over and over again. He's dude, this song just became the theme of this trip to Nashville or wherever they went. And he said it was also weird because it was like this huge blizzard that made everything much more complicated, like more of an adventure. And they got there, they played the wedding, everyone else made it there. And it was like all this snow, just, how snow's like quiet and everything's just like silent. It was like that. And then they went to fly back home. And at the gate. At the terminal while he's boarding the plane. Guess what's playing over the speakers in the airport is that song?

Aaron: 38:50

What?

Donny: 38:52

As he's boarding the plane to go back home. It was Moon River by, Audrey Hepburn and he was like, how weird is that, that after this entire adventure we're getting on the plane to leave and then

Aaron: 39:03

and that song

Donny: 39:04

through the intercom

Aaron: 39:05

I actually had a thing like that happen to me today. It's trippy. But, Isaac from The Fray. The lead singer of the fray is, lives on the island I live on and he's a buddy of mine. And he hit me up this morning and he's like, Can you please come up to this cabin and help me engineer, I'm doing a cover. I need help engineering. He's doing like a Instagram post of it. And, he's asking me about what I'm working on and all this stuff. And I was telling him that I'm having a record mix by TLA right now. And he's like, who? And I said, Tom Mordalji. And he's like, Oh, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he's like, what is he known for? The first thing I said to him was, Oh, he mixed One Headlight by, wallflowers, he looks at me and he goes, that's the song I'm about to cover today. That literally happened to me an hour and a half ago. I was there and came right here to get on this podcast.

Donny: 40:07

That's a great story. if your music Could send one message to the world. What would it be?

Aaron: 40:15

You are not alone.

Donny: 40:17

That's a really good theme

Aaron: 40:19

music sees the depths of me. Things that I can't even describe with words. I feel seen.

Donny: 40:28

That's beautiful why language and music have a relationship too. Because there is tone in language. There's inflections in the voice, and they mean different things. I was just listening to a professor. She said, there's two different ways to say, I haven't been on a date in a while, or I haven't been on a date in a while. And she talks about tone and music and music I think is the use of those inflections and tone and in the context where language isn't enough.

Aaron: 40:56

right. Oh, that's great. Yeah, my son, my oldest son, Elliot, he'll be 30 next week, or actually this week, is autistic and he was born with perfect pitch and, like he can hear. if things are cents off, right? And I discovered it when he was four, but he with his autism and his OCD is how a lot of his autism expresses in OCD pretty severe. Sometimes it's awful. He has gone through phases where he over analyzes the pitch patterns and people's speech when they're talking to him. As someone on the spectrum, he has a hard time naturally inferring what people are implying with their speech, but because of his perfect pitch, he would start to sort of analyze their note patterns of how they were speaking to him. And it really messed with his head for a while. I felt so bad for him, but it was also so fascinating at the same time.

Donny: 42:00

Yeah. Talk about being able to have a superpower, like my

Aaron: 42:03

yeah, he could tell when the song was barely sped up on the radio and things like that. It was, and it would drive him crazy.

Donny: 42:11

Yeah, just that idea of listening to the pitch in someone's voice and analyzing that and interpreting that on a super technical level. Would be so distracting that reminds me of you listening to music at a low volume in the background You're just like turn it off like he might enjoy rap music or something where there's like more of a monotone You know, that's so funny. All right, cool And uh, finally, what would the ultimate episode of music ghost stories podcast be

Aaron: 42:41

The first thing that came into my head was like, I don't know, some exploration of how this is so cliche and so hilarious, but I would be glued to it. How the recipe of Paul Ringo and George and George Martin, how did that turn into what it turned into? Because to me that, everything always back to the Beatles for me, eventually. I find something there. And even if it goes before the Beatles, it comes back up to the Beatles. And, I know that they're just the most cliché thing to talk about or whatever, but, That is the most mysterious thing to me. How did that happen? Like, how did that evolve into what it evolved into? And that relationship they had. If you could get Paul to talk about it, or you could get somebody that analyzed it and cracked the code and figured out what happened. But, that is one of those things that would definitely fall under the category of something I both want to know and don't want to know at the same

Donny: 43:51

Yeah, it falls into that thing. Yeah, don't meet your heroes. Don't want to know.

Aaron: 43:55

Like, ooh, I gotta look, but I don't wanna, I'm, I know I'm gonna be bummed,

Donny: 43:59

Have you ever heard of that story of, Paul McCartney? I think it was Paul McCartney. Going around like on the streets because he had wrote the song yesterday

Aaron: 44:07

he asked everyone for something like a year what song it was. And then finally, I think John was like, it's your song, bro. Finish it.

Donny: 44:18

That kind of goes exactly back into That whole idea of someone's already wrote this that's why i'm so familiar with it Maybe that was him being like, did I discover this or is this already out there?

Aaron: 44:29

I think A really important thing for me is I move towards familiarity and classicism. I don't pull away from it, and a lot of people are like, that sounds like this, that melody sounds like this guitar part from this famous song or whatever. And that makes me go, Oh, then we're definitely using it. And a lot of people are like, Oh, we can't do that because it's too familiar. Everything we're talking about right now together is familiarity is you have some. Previous experience to relate what you're listening to I think the fun is where you take Something familiar from over here and something familiar from over here and you put them together That's where it gets really fun and interesting when I'm making music I don't really think about these things. I don't analyze them. But I think that familiarity, that classicism is why. We like stuff, so why would you, shy away from that? You know what I mean? I think there's this desire in some, especially young musicians, to be completely original. And I hate to break it to you, but that does not exist. And it never will. And, so you might as well just embrace it.

Donny: 45:54

Something else I learned about you is that, your brother was the drummer of dead poetic.

Aaron: 45:59

Yeah. I produced Dead Poetic's second album. It was called New Medicines, I believe.

Donny: 46:06

You remember in, what was that, Bury the Differences? Where the guitars were hard panned and it's like, da da da da da da da and everything like kicks in and then it cuts again and the other guitar is hard panned? Okay, so the story I want to share with you that I think is hilarious is the best man at my wedding, my cousin Justin he drove, this is when we're Younger teens and he just got his license had this beat up old Nissan, right? and he's like dude, I just bought this record and We put it in we're playing it and it kicks in dad Right and I'm like dude, this is sick he's like right and all of a sudden it just cuts back I was like Is that the song? And then it just kicks back in, right? And we look at each other and go, That was awesome! And it turns out that he had a blown speaker on one side. And he had, we had no idea.

Aaron: 47:01

Now. I wish I would have had a blown speaker too Cuz that sounds like it would have been pretty sick.

Donny: 47:05

It was just so funny right when we found out later that it was actually like an intended It was so weird. It was but we looked at each other what that was that the whole song like is it over? It. just blows us away. I just when I thought when I Found out that your brother played I was like, dude, I have to make a note just to share that story with him. Cause I thought it's something that he and I will never forget. And I don't know, it was, that just happened to be the record that you worked on,

Aaron: 47:30

I'm so glad you shared that with me. That's makes me so happy

Donny: 47:35

Well, Aaron, I appreciate your time and, you sharing all these personal moments involving music. And, I, yeah. Enjoy your holiday

Aaron: 47:41

for time likewise

Donny: 47:43

Thanks so much. All right. I'll see ya. See ya as the year turns, so too, does our opportunity to tune into something greater. Aaron's story reminds us that music isn't just sound. It's a bridge that brings everything into the present. This new year season, I encourage you to let the music guide you. Let its melodies awakened nostalgia, inspire dreams, and bring clarity. Because if music has taught us anything, It's at the simplest notes can hold the most profound truths. thank you for joining us on this episode of music, ghost stories. If you haven't already, be sure to leave a review wherever you're listening right now, it's free. And it's the best way to support this podcast. As we step into another year of discovery, let's carry forward. The magic of sound, the warmth of memory. And the beauty of the present moment. Until next time, everyone. though, this episode's over. Keep listening.