"Music for me is pretty therapeutic. I've noticed when I finish writing something, there is this sense of accomplishment and relief in finishing something but also in getting what you just wrote down out of your system. I guess I'm lucky to be doing it in that way," said Bronx, N.Y., native Ari Hest about his existence as a musician that has progressed into a promising career.
"My songs definitely have a lot of me in them," explained Hest. "I don't really make anything up. These are songs about my life and what I've been through. Maybe that's a little pretentious but I think people can relate to what I'm talking about."
Hest's fan following before recently signing to media giant Columbia Records grew out of an autonomous commercial effort of incessant touring, word-of-mouth testimonials, live-show tape recording and sharing, the development of a promotional street team and, of course, the Internet. Hest used to book his own gigs and tours, and during that time put out two full-length albums - "Come Home" in 2001, and "Story After Story" in 2003 on his own label, Project 4. This year, Hest received a bit of assistance in the distribution of his music with his recent major debut release of "Someone to Tell."
"The label liked a lot of material from the last album," recalled Hest. "My feeling about my last record is that I had good songs that were recorded and mixed not all that well, and I thought that these songs needed to be heard on an album that could be distributed throughout the country."
"I had more new material and I could have gone that route but I just really felt the songs on 'Someone to Tell' are the ones that could help me for the first record. It's a weird position to be in because people who have known my music for a while, for some of them it's been rough because they haven't heard anything new for a while. So on my tours, I play new material. Half the songs from my sets are songs people barely know. The advantage is next time I make a record, I'm going to have a whole bunch of new songs."
Hest was exposed to music at an early age. His father is a music professor and heads the music department at a college on Long Island. His father has been involved in music in one form or another from writing jingles to country songs and playing several different types of horns (his specialty is the tenor saxophone). He was even, as what Hest describes, "the wedding saxophone player guy one too many times."
In fact, Hest's father contributed his talent to "Someone To Tell" on the song "Consistency" that glows with a series of charismatic and engaging horn lines over a percussive and catchy guitar line with harmonic pluckings reminiscent to undiscovered Dave Matthews' original.
"It was a combination effort from my father; my brother, who is my manager; and I," said Hest about writing the song's horn arrangements. "We all felt like it would be kind of a cool idea to get together and arrange a horn section. I didn't know how to write charts so my father was able to do that. When I play live, I don't have a horn section; but in New York, my father got a couple of guys together and they actually play what's on the record, which was a lot of fun."
As a youngster, Hest took piano lessons and showed an appreciation for music, but his passion lay in sports, particularly baseball, which he played throughout high school. Nevertheless, everything changed when he first heard a Beatles album (the 'White' album still remains as one of his all-time favorites), picked up his mom's nylon-string guitar and began to learn the quartet's tunes by ear.
"For me, the rock song, by far, is harder to play. I think the jazz comes a little more naturally for me and it's a little easier to pull off," explained Hest. "I didn't realize this until I really started writing rock songs and that is there is a lot more going on than just a 1-4-5 chord progression. The emotion that you have to get out on vocals is something that is hard to do, especially in a studio. There were times that I just felt like I wasn't quite emotional enough. It comes more naturally for me to sing something pretty as opposed to something edgy."
In retrospect, Hest came to the realization that he did possess some musical aptitude at a young age, remembering his sing-alongs in the car.
"I kind of remember some times when I would steal some of my brother's records and play them. They were mostly pop records," said Hest. "I definitely remember dancing to Bobby Brown's 'My Prerogative.' My brother also had Def Lepard's 'Hysteria' album, which I really like still. I remember being 12 years old and listening to that in a car in Florida. I don't know why in Florida. I thought, 'This is really cool.' I don't know how conscious of it I was but it didn't really move me to the point of picking up a guitar."
In was in his teens that Hest fell in love with the Beatles' complex chord progressions and then expanded his new interest with the symphonic astuteness of Paul Simon, Jeff Buckley, Nirvana, U2 and the Police, along with the unique phrasing and use of chord fragments by the self-taught Matthews.
"There are musicians I admire for one thing and some for another," said Hest. "Paul Simon and the Beatles were pretty prominent in my growing up, listening to them transition from folk to jazz and the chords that Paul played. Things like that have really stuck with me."
Hest enrolled in New York University after high school and recorded a compilation of six songs, "Incomplete." He sold the EP on the road when he would tour during the weekends, traveling to nearby colleges. Hest developed his live act and became comfortable playing in front of groups of strangers. In 2002, he graduated from NYU and soon after, recorded "Story After Story." Hest sold out New York's Bowery Ballroom in the summer of 2003 and caught the eye of Columbia
"I'm kind of glad I did a little research beforehand," said Hest about his choice of Columbia. "One of the things that happens with such a big label is that there are certain people who know you, sign you and like you; and then there are others who have never heard of you. So there are communication issues at times. That's been the most difficult thing so far is to get everybody at the label on the same page as to what I'm doing and who I am."
The new album contains songs from his 2002 album, along with new tunes like "Anne Marie," "A Fond Farewell" and the darling "Strangers Again," with its opening of hypnotic guitar lines and minimalist drums played with brushes that put Hest's voice and acoustic strumming at the song's foreground.
On many tunes, Hest's voice cavorts from an excitable baritone on a song like "They're Onto Me" to an idyllic falsetto on "Anne Marie." His lyrics range from his strong nature to share his thoughts with others expressed on the title track to getting over a love gone wrong to the experience of growing up inspired by a group of college students in Aberdeen, S.D.
"For me, it's just fun to go from a rock song to a jazz ballad. I don't mind being called a singer/songwriter but at the same time I feel like I don't have to be pinned down to one genre to make it work," added Hest. "There are things that come out of me that are rock and there are things that aren't."
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