Interview with Ari Hest

by Stephanie Shum

Ari Hest is yet another of one of the young singer-songwriters popping out of the woodwork lately. Or is he? Ari's smooth, rich voice is full of life and energy as he sings from the heart about everything from fighting with a loved one to his relationship with his father. Crowds everywhere sing happily along with Ari during his more upbeat tunes and then fall dead silent so that nothing but his beautiful voice can be heard when he starts his slower, heart-wrenching songs. Dreams Awake recently spoke with Ari before he took the stage in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Dreams Awake: OK, I thought we'd start with some miscellaneous questions to get to know you a little first. What is your favourite movie and what is your favourite book?

Ari Hest: Well, my favourite movie ... I have different favourites for different reasons. I think for a motivational movie, Rocky is definitely my favourite movie. Rocky 1 through 4; #5 just wasn't good. What else? Good movies ... I like 80s movies a lot. Growing up, I guess Back to the Future was my favourite movie. I was a big Michael J Fox fan. I watched Family Ties a lot. In terms of books, I would have to say that, I'm a Jack Kerouac fan, so I'm going to go with On the Road as my favourite book.

DA: What is something you have to have with you when you're on tour?

AH: My guitar.

DA: I knew you were going to say that!

AH: Sorry, too predictable. I have to have, oh, you know what I have to have? I have to have, I'm kind of, um, a health freak, so you know, I try to work out whenever I can in our hotel rooms or the hotels. The other thing I do is, you don't always get to wash your hands in a regular sink so I have a tub of hand sanitizer and squirt it on. Gotta have that when you're on tour. You get very dirty.

DA: Besides Dreams Awake, what sites do you visit when you're online?

AH: ESPN. Awarestore just to see how many CDs I sell. A little bit of my own once in awhile. Yahoo, my mail. I'm not a huge web person. I really just go for basketball updates and email updates. That's pretty much it.

DA: What are your other passions besides music? What do you like to do on a day off?

AH: I like to, well, the days off on the road are different than days off at home. Days off on the road, you're really limited to what you can do. You can read which I don't read too much, or as much as I should. You can sleep which I definitely do. You can ... you know, I play so much, I play 6 days a week nightly shows, it's weird not to have my guitar in my hand that 7th day so sometimes I just write on that day. I know I need to keep that up. If I'm home, I see my friends, family, play sports, probably, once in awhile.

DA: Who is one of your favourite musicians or groups that you would be embarrassed to admit you like?

AH: Let's see. There are so many! Um, I would say Richard Marx.

DA: No, don't be embarrassed! He's good.

AH: I'm not that embarrassed about it, but, I know, he's great. He's actually a really great songwriter. But it's a little embarrassing when you start singing in the car and people are around. I try not to do that with Jeremy because he gets upset.

DA: Is there any music out there that you truly despise? AH: Not really. I mean, there's nothing I despise. There are some things that are more about image than music that I don't really understand. But those people do their thing and I do mine. DA: Your 6-string is named Ace and your 12-string is named Deuce. How did those names come about? AH: Really just because I got the first one first. Well, it's not just that actually. It's actually related to my sports liking. I'm an Eagles fan. Philadelphia Eagles football fan. And there's a really good player on the Eagles called Deuce Staley, he's a runningback. I don't know if you know who he is. DA: I've heard of him. AH: Deuce Staley was the second person born in his family and he has a bunch of other siblings that were named, you know, according to their birth order. So I thought that was kind of interesting and weird but funny and I thought why not use that for my own thing.

DA: What are some of the thoughts going through your head when you're on stage?

AH: I don't think when I'm playing. I think in between songs. One of the reasons why I tour so much, obviously, is trying to get as many people as possible to listen to my music but I need to get better on-stage. And my issues on-stage, my confidence issues, or whatever, my problems stem from situations where I'm not up there singing, I'm actually talking or there's like dead silence and I have to figure out what to do in that dead silence. And at those times, my mind is just full of what the hell am I going to say right now?

DA: You could tell a joke.

AH: Yah, I could. But you know, there are some people who are really good at that and there are some people who don't do it as naturally and I'm probably more one of those people. I just think that when I'm playing a song, there's nothing running through my mind to get into that and that's it. If I don't get into it then nobody else will, if that makes sense.

DA: You perform as a solo artist most of the time and occasionally have a band backing you up. What are some of the pros and cons of each?

AH: Solo, the pros would be that I can screw around as much as I want. I can make songs that are 3 minutes long 8 minutes long if I feel like it and there's no band member next to me being like "What are you doing?" With the band, the advantage of the band is really that in those moments when you're playing solo that you want things to rise and you want the energy to rise in the song, there's only so much you can, there's only such a point that you can get to. When you have a band, if everybody's on the same page in that moment, it's much better than what you come up with by yourself. It doesn't really matter what kind of music, the more you can mess with your band, the better. I admit to that once in awhile. But I get to do whatever the hell I want to do out there tonight.

DA: From the time you arrive at a venue for soundcheck until the time you leave at the end of the night, what would you say is your favourite moment?

AH: The end of the show. It's not that I'm happy that I'm finished, it's not, it's the ... hopefully, I get to the point where the fans are into it to the extent that they're going to ask me for an encore and they're going to keep clapping. That's the best feeling.

DA: Do you ever get tired of touring all the time? AH: I miss my family ... and my friends but uh, not really. I was afraid at first that my voice couldn't handle it, but so far, it's been fine. And it's actually gotten stronger so I'm not worried about that anymore. And as long as I don't fall asleep driving which I'm not going to do anytime soon -- I hope not -- it's fine. This is what I love to do, what I'm supposed to do. DA: So, I guess you don't imagine yourself in any another career if you weren't a musician? AH: I would, I like cooking a lot too, I forgot to say that. There's a really good Japanese steakhouse about 15 minutes from my house and they do hibachi stuff, you know? And I really want to try and take classes in that because I think that's really cool that they can flip food ... into my mouth. It's a cool thing. The other thing I guess, I would love to be able to know how to give massages the right way because you would get a lot of respect for that from the opposite sex especially. DA: With your parents both having a musical background, did you ever feel any pressure at all to go into this industry? AH: No, they didn't put any pressure on me at all. When I was a little kid, I didn't know any better. I knew I liked to sing and they liked when I sang. My father used to write jingles for toy commercials and I used to sing on them so I guess I was a little forced into that. I never saw a dime of the money that I made, that all went to college. I didn't know what I was doing, I was just there to sing. But no, I wasn't planning on doing this until I was 20, so 3 years ago. They never pressured me at all. In fact, they still don't. You know, they think that I'm capable of other things, which remains in question from my point but I feel like I should be doing this. And they are going to be behind me.

DA: Do you remember any of those jingles?

AH: I remember one embarrassing one. Sweetie Pups was the dog. This is not going to be an audio interview, right? So I can actually sing this and it's not going to matter? *sings jingle* Did you have a Sweetie Pup?

DA: No. Did they give you one?

AH: Uh, yah.

DA: Do you still have it?

AH: No, I definitely don't. I have a Cabbage Patch Kid though. I threw it away somewhere. I did one of those, I don't remember that commercial though. I got a little sporty Cabbage Patch Kid, not any of the girly ones. But I have a Sweetie Pup somewhere, I guess, I don't know where.

DA: How do you feel about message boards and the internet in general with respect to your career?

AH: I think it's great, for me. I don't have a lot of help from within my group of people that have worked for me, they do a great job, but I need more to get to the point where I'm at now and I'm going to need more in the future. It's definitely good, I don't care about people downloading my music. I'm not out to make money. Money's great but it's not really the focus right now so people hearing my stuff is all that matters. And the discussion board thing definitely helps. I don't really read them though because I think that there's people on them that know what they're talking about and there's others who just don't and it's sort of frustrating sometimes and regardless of whether they're saying good or bad things about me or anybody else, some people just don't know what they're talking about. And I'd rather not be reproached. But I think it's a good thing for me, any … what's that saying? Any press you get, whether it's good or bad, is good.

DA: Let's talk about your song-writing process. Who would you say are some of your influences?

AH: I would say, in terms of the form of the song, I definitely write more from listening to pop songs on the radio. I don't have very, in terms of form, any complex forms. I do some stuff with my chords that I think is a little bit edgier than some of the stuff that you hear on the radio. Edgier's maybe the wrong word, it's just different, a little bit different. What's the question?

DA: Who are some of your song-writing influences?

AH: Yes, thanks. I love Peter Gabriel. I love Sting. I love Michael McDonald. I like a lot of guys that used to be in groups in the 70s and then sort of branched out in the 80s and did their own thing. And in both of those ventures they had, they really wrote some great stuff. I guess those are my bigger influences. I like Phil Collins too. He's amazing. And then lyrically, it's weird, I feel like I'm just getting better myself. I re-write stuff a lot because I used to get frustrated. Actually pretty recently, I got kind of frustrated that my oldest songs didn't really express what I wanted people to hear and that sucks when you're trying to get into the song and you're like "Wait a minute, this is not what I meant." So my last record and most of the record before, I would say, were really honest and re-done a lot of times to make sure I knew what I wanted to say.

DA: Do you have planned sessions where you sit down and write?

AH: No. Definitely, you can't plan. I don't understand, I hear stories of people in Nashville and LA who ... "10am we have a meeting with so and so to write for half an hour and then we're supposed to come out with a song." I don't get that. That's amazing that they can do that but it's also kind of ... dishonest. How the hell are they going to write something that's supposed to be heartfelt when they're keeping track of you know, "10:27, we have 3 minutes left. We better finish this line." I don't get that. So it's definitely not a set thing for me. And that can lead to some frustrations because if you don't write for a long time, you'll think "Okay, have I lost it? Am I ever going to be able to write again?" But so far, I haven't had a major drought that I've been unable to get out of. Recently, I've been writing more actually so I'm happy.

DA: Where do you like to write? AH: At home and alone. I have trouble writing with people. Actually, for the same reason I was talking about with these Nashville people. *laughs* These Nashville people. I don't write well with people I think because I'm afraid I'm going to compromise too easily because I have a tendency to do that. And outside of music too, I go to a hotel at 2 in the morning and their rate is $59.99 and I say, you know, "I've got 40 bucks on me. Can I just please get a hotel room?" And they're like, "The best I can do is 50." And I'm like, "Alright, fine." Instead of actually trying to do something about that and getting my $40 hotel room. It's sort of the same way. I don't want something that's not supposed to come out of me that I'm going to have to sing for the rest of my life to come out. DA: What comes to you first, the lyrics or the music? AH: Music. Always.

DA: Have you written a song that just came flowing out?

AH: Effortless Success is the only one that was like that. The rest of them ... the music may have come flowing out but nothing together. Effortless Success was like okay, music, five minutes later, the lyrics. That was it. And that song's sort of the exception to the rule where, I wrote it when I was 18 or something like that and I actually got what I wanted lyrically out of the song whereas ... you guys can probably hear it on the recordings that people make of these live shows … the songs I wrote awhile ago, like Consistency, like Fade, I changed some stuff around. And I experiment with them because I'm still not done with those songs I feel like. Technically, I don't feel like I'm done with any song but those especially, I continue to re-do in my head, even when I'm on-stage to try something new with them because I never got exactly what I wanted out of them.

DA: Do you ever come up with new lyrics while you're playing on-stage?

AH: Yah, but nothing really that good. It's something that takes time. I can ad-lib something or some cool melody maybe I might come up with on-stage. That's a more likelihood but not the lyrics. It's strange. I don't understand people who can do that, it's amazing.

DA: What song are you most proud of lyrically?

AH: Some for different reasons. I think This Fight is probably my favourite in terms of cleverness, I guess. Because I really like the subject matter in that song. In terms of something that I needed to get out of my system, When Everything Seems Wrong. Every time I play that song, I remember when I wrote that, it was a really heartfelt thing when I did it. I guess those two are at the top of my list.

DA: At what point do you feel confident enough in a song that you can perform it in front of an audience?

AH: The first person I go to with my song is usually my mother. I go over to her place and I play it for her and she sometimes says "This sucks." She rarely says that the music is bad, in fact, I don't even know if she's ever done that, which is nice. But she grew up with Paul Simon, and Paul Simon is a lyrical genius, obviously, and musical genius too. But if something that doesn't make sense comes out lyrically, she lets me know about it. So then I sort of revamp it and maybe I'll do it in soundcheck before a show to see how it feels on-stage and then eventually, throw it out there.

DA: What is your favourite song to play live?

AH: Again, different reasons for different songs. Consistency is fun to play, I think people get into the beat of it a lot, even when I don't have the band behind me. And I like to play Aberdeen, I guess, it's a fun one to do because I feel like, I noticed recently ... when I do it by myself, I feel it's dynamic enough that it doesn't sound like I'm just doing the same rhythm the whole time and it doesn't get old. That song doesn't get old. I've had it for a long time. I wrote that in '99. Long time.

DA: What kind of lessons did you get out of being with your old band, Synapse? AH: Not necessarily good ones. I've had interesting experiences with band members. When your band is not on the same page as you, and it's not necessarily a musical thing, it could be just what they want out of the whole project, it could be very different. Whether they want to write or whether they feel like they should have a bigger role in something, that can get a little messy. So I guess I learned a little bit more about telling everybody, or getting feedback from them on what they want out of being a part of this group. It's different now, obviously, it's my thing now. My band is, first of all, constantly changing, and secondly, they're still my backup group. I'm supposed to be the one out there. So they understand that but if I have another band again, a full regular band, I don't know, it's a tough thing to mesh well with people, forgetting about music. Just personality-wise, it can be tough. But they're doing well. The drummer and the bass player are in the same group together, they're in a group called Carbondale. And the guitar player, one of them went to law school and the other one I think is a soundman in New York somewhere.

DA: What would you say are your strengths and weaknesses as a musician?

AH: My strengths are, I would hope that my strengths are melody-writing and singing. My weaknesses are, because I taught myself to play guitar and because I don't play with a pick, it can lead to some, I just feel like I'm at a level now where I'm going to need to learn from somebody. There's only so much, when I started playing, the first couple of years, I got really good pretty quick. Really good in terms of being an 18 year old kid but since then, there's not been the same progression, it's much slower. And I'd like to be able to learn some things guitar-wise. I don't consider myself a really good guitar player. I consider myself a pretty good melody-writer and chord person.

DA: Some of your contemporaries like Matt Nathanson and Graham Colton are signing with labels. Are you anxious to get signed or are you happy with being independent?

AH: I'm not anxious. I'm happy right now. There have been situations that have been offered but nothing that seems right. And there have been some labels that come to us and say "Hey, you're doing really well on your own. If you were with us, we couldn't really do much more for you anyway and you wouldn't be making a dime" so why even do it? I'm not in a rush. I think if I was 33 instead of 23, I would be more in a rush. And I know the power of a label, I understand that. And I see all these people around me that I have played with that are blowing up. And I'm not jealous, I think it's great that the people I've played with, I guess most recently Mraz is getting some respect and he should. But Mraz and the people who make it are a select few and you have a lot of guys who are on labels that are really unhappy that have all the talent in the world and it's kind of a sad thing and I'm scared of that. But I think that the more that I do this independent thing, the less chance there is that I end up like that.

DA: And finally, think 3 years down the road. Where would you like to see yourself?

AH: I'm doing what I want to do now. I don't feel like I have to get more popular, more attention. It's nice to get attention for what I do but I make a living playing music and how many people can say that?

For more information on Ari Hest, visit his website at www.arihest.com.