About
When you watch Aaron Rowe on stage, he anchors himself behind the mic, broad shouldered and wide eyed whilst telling stories. Song histories, personal anecdotes or just random thoughts and funny observations are blurted out with erratic but effortless charm. His smile is so sunny and wide it feels permanent and his laugh is hoarse, warm and totally infectious. When he speaks his eyes glisten, but when he sings, they close as his head lulls onto his shoulder and tilts back. For Aaron, singing and playing guitar is not a choice, it's an extension of himself – he has to do it. You can tell as soon as he begins it offers him not only freedom, but focus.
When he first started playing music as a teenager, Aaron tried to keep it a secret. "Where I'm from, you can't show people you're soft, so playing music and singing was just off the cards." However, it got tricky once he started walking around the area with a guitar strapped to his back. One day he was finally pulled over by "a few of the lads, they asked me 'you playing music then, Aaron? Play us a song;" And when he humbly refused? "Play us a fucking song". Reluctantly, he sang to them, sitting on a brick wall behind those tightly closed eyes. When he opened them, instead of laughter he was met with acceptance. "All they said was, 'That was class,' It was a really nice moment for me, and after that exact day I was like fuck this, this is what I want to do, and this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life". He decided then and there that he was going to be a musician.
So far, the story of Aaron Rowe looks like what fate feels like: paths crossing and stars aligning. Almost exactly a year ago, Aaron was singing covers at his regular Saturday gig in The Dame Tavern when one of his future managers would walk in and discover him playing. A few weeks later, Lewis Capaldi would also stumble into Aaron's usual Sunday sessions at Cassidy's on a stag do. Like fate, a few weeks after that, he would bump into Lewis again whilst performing at an open mic in Nashville, where Lewis introduced him to his best friend, now Aaron's manager, who just so happened to have listened to his demos that very morning. Far from an overnight success, after nearly thirteen years of gigging five days a week, his moment finally came. Call it fate, call it what you will, a good story is the least you can expect from a generational voice like Aaron. His own life experiences leading up to this moment means there is an unmatched maturity and vulnerability to Aaron's songwriting, Somehow, he can balance the heart wrenching with the heartwarming, all the while holding open the door to us into his very personal world.
