Whispering & Shouting w/ Aaron Shust
07-02-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

After some opening confusion about scheduling (all on my part!), Aaron Shust proceeded to wow me with his graciousness, focus and wisdom. I think you’ll find the same.

CMCentral.com (Kevan Breitinger): I found the new CD (Whispered and Shouted) to be very different from the first. Tell me a bit about your process?

Aaron Shust: I think the main difference is that for the first one I wasn’t a recording artist, so to speak. I was a worship leader on staff at my church. I had been writing songs for the purpose of playing them as offertories and teaching them to the people so we could incorporate them in our worship sets. When one of the guys from our worship team came to me and said he was thinking of recording some of those songs, I said, ‘that’s great’. In my mind, I was thinking, let’s make these songs more familiar to the people so then when we sing it the next Sunday, they’ll be a little more comfortable with it.

Sure, that makes sense.

That was the entire plan. So then it got picked up on a record label, etcetera, etcetera. When it came time for a second album, the approach became ‘OK, let’s make a piece of music. Let’s make a tiny little opus, an enjoyable experience. Whether people are driving in the car or singing in church or enjoying them at a concert, an enjoyable experience from track one all the way to the end.’ That was a different approach.

Wow, that must have been challenging… liberating…. exciting.

Yeah, all three of those are good words, definitely.

It does come across to me…. I don’t want to say deeper, but maybe more atmospheric.

Yes, I went with the same producer and it was recorded in the same basement studio as the first one. I felt like I had developed trust with these people, and we’ve kind of progressed together, so let’s try it there again. We sat down with a blank whiteboard, and I said I want this album to sound a little more raw. I wanted there to be instrumental moments when people could just sit in the moment and not always have words coming at them, so they’d be able to meditate on what they just heard, whatever, enjoy the music.

Yeah, that came across to me, and I also enjoyed a couple of Beatle-esque moments as well. Can I ask you about your influences, who you like to listen to?

For some reason, it seems like the music you listen to as a kid, in junior high and high school, even in college, seems to shape people most. I don’t know why, I don’t know the psychology behind that. I think for musicians it’s probably going to affect the music they make for the rest of their lives. In high school instead of listening to Vanilla Ice and his contemporaries, I’d listen to ‘60s music. I grew up in Pittsburgh, where they have a lot of great radio. I grew up listening to the Beatles and Motown and Elvis. That 15-20 year span is diverse enough as it is, so I can’t say it was one style that came out of it, but I’m a believer in strong melody and in feel-good pop that makes you bob your head and smile. Even if a song is serious, it needs to move you somehow.

Oh yeah.

Recently I’ve loved the atmospheric textures of U2, and a band from , Sigur Ros. Are you familiar with them?

No, I’ve not heard of them.

Beautiful, beautiful stuff. They’re incredible; they either sing completely in Icelandic, or this nonsensical language they make up. I’ve been listening to a lot of that and been really moved by it, and thought, ‘you know what, no matter what time of year, no matter what time of day, I can put that CD on in my car and go for a drive, and it seems to be the right music.’ So when I started making this album, I wanted to make something that would not only stick to people’s hearts and souls and minds, and challenge them spiritually, but I wanted to make an enjoyable driving album. I wanted them to go from point A to point B, put in my CD, and enjoy the ride.

It seems like recently there are more artists aiming in this direction, looking to reach people by tapping into some deep-seated sense of beauty. With the music of the ‘60s, we responded to it on a physical level. It got our bodies moving, and there are those funk moments on Whispered and Shouted as well. But it also taps into this other deep side, or it did for me anyway.

I definitely tried to do that. The beginning of track 6, called “Life Itself,” I wrote at 4 o’clock in the morning after a very difficult day. I can’t remember exactly what it was I had done, but I had hurt somebody’s feelings, and I had to apologize to them. I was just waiting for the new day to dawn so I could have that feeling of a clean slate. I wrote it while waiting for the sun to rise. So at the beginning of the track I tried to create sonically a feeling of predawn, a feeling of waiting, while time was standing still. Not that I expect anybody hearing it to say, ‘hmm, this sounds like predawn time standing still.’ But hopefully it gives an atmosphere. I tried to make it a lot more experiential and tap into my feelings while writing these songs.

Wow, I feel like you read my review because I mentioned the unusual composition and ambience of that track (laughing).

Of that track?

Yeah, I did find it moving.

Very cool.

But I think that’s what I’m talking about, tapping into the universal emotional response to beauty and emotive power.

Have you seen the movie called “Music & Lyrics” with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore?

No, I haven’t.