Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Aaron Stewart trades Christmas wonders for his first new music in 15 years
“Just because the job part was done, didn’t mean the passion had to die”
Aaron Stewart: the rare soul who is happy to make music a side hustle instead of a day job.
Aaron Stewart grew up mostly in South Florida, then moved to San Diego back in 2011. Since then, he’s figured out where the primo ice cream lies. “I love heading over to Oceanside on Mission Avenue for the Thursday night street fair,” says Stewart, who recently dropped Traveling Light, his first new music in 15 years. “Catching a bite with friends at the Mission Avenue Bar and Grill. You can never go wrong hitting up Handel’s Ice Cream after dinner, or hey, even on its own.”
Stewart has only ever lived in North County, “first in San Marcos, specifically San Elijo and now the Shadowridge area of Vista. The neighborhood of San Elijo really captured my attention from my first visit, as it was such a quaint neighborhood: just a bit detached up in the hills, but with a school, restaurants, grocery store, and most conveniences all in the town square right across from my apartment. Eventually, I was ready to buy my own house and moved to Vista, and absolutely love it here.”
Stewart shares music with anyone who wants to listen, but he started out with the Lord and His followers. “I grew up in the church, playing piano and singing in choirs and school plays. I always loved all kinds of music, and it’s funny, I can’t remember any artists or songs specifically that made me want to do music. It kind of all just grew from my parents putting me in piano lessons, and just having a creativity inside that those musical skills gave me an outlet to explore.”
He admires “artists who are true singers and also value versatility. Kelly Clarkson is someone who really can just sing anything, in almost any style, and that’s always been inspiring.” But speaking of Christian-raised talent, “I also love someone like Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, because he’s a fantastic songwriter and performer and has found a way to blend them both together.”
His first solo album Resolution came out back in 2009. “After that, I changed careers, moved to California, and took a bit of a musical break in the process. Then, after working on a lot more music by myself at home during the pandemic, I woke up the day after Christmas 2020 and decided I was going to record a Christmas album the following year. Nine months later, I had released The Wonder of Christmas, an album comprised of my own arrangements of familiar Christmas tunes, and a couple of originals, recorded with a full orchestra in Nashville.”
Accounting for the 15-year gap, he explains, “My whole life had been music, since I started playing piano at four years old, and leading me into a church music job. In 2006, I co-founded a software company that I helped work on just in my spare time. In 2011, after quite a few years of the company’s success, we bought a building in Carlsbad and moved the company here. I left my church music job and became a full-time product manager for our software. But after more time to reflect during the pandemic, I realized that music was never just a job. It was both a job and one of my biggest passions, and just because the job part was done, didn’t mean the passion had to die too. It sounds funny, but it really was mostly just allowing myself to classify music in a different way, and give myself permission to pursue it on the side, even if it wasn’t funding my life.”
Asked about his favorite cuts on the new record, he says, “You mean, pick a favorite child! Haha, okay, but I’m choosing three. ‘A Little Bit Obsessed’ kickstarted the entire project, and that was the first single. I love how joyful and upbeat it is, but also how much is going on, vocally and production-wise. ‘Savor’ is probably my favorite vocal performance I’ve ever done. The range of this song is pretty intense. I also love the message, which is a constant reminder to not only live in the future like I’m prone to do, but enjoy the big and small moments of the journey along the way. ‘Infinite Sky,’ the last song on the project, got me out of my box the most, in such fun and surprising ways. This song was written differently than the rest, too. The producer actually made the entire track first, and then I wrote the lyrics and the melody to it. Some clever phrases and pop culture references, which I wouldn’t have done had I written it the way I usually write.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Aaron Stewart trades Christmas wonders for his first new music in 15 years
“Just because the job part was done, didn’t mean the passion had to die”
Aaron Stewart trades Christmas wonders for his first new music in 15 years
“Just because the job part was done, didn’t mean the passion had to die”
Aaron Stewart: the rare soul who is happy to make music a side hustle instead of a day job.
Aaron Stewart grew up mostly in South Florida, then moved to San Diego back in 2011. Since then, he’s figured out where the primo ice cream lies. “I love heading over to Oceanside on Mission Avenue for the Thursday night street fair,” says Stewart, who recently dropped Traveling Light, his first new music in 15 years. “Catching a bite with friends at the Mission Avenue Bar and Grill. You can never go wrong hitting up Handel’s Ice Cream after dinner, or hey, even on its own.”
Stewart has only ever lived in North County, “first in San Marcos, specifically San Elijo and now the Shadowridge area of Vista. The neighborhood of San Elijo really captured my attention from my first visit, as it was such a quaint neighborhood: just a bit detached up in the hills, but with a school, restaurants, grocery store, and most conveniences all in the town square right across from my apartment. Eventually, I was ready to buy my own house and moved to Vista, and absolutely love it here.”
Stewart shares music with anyone who wants to listen, but he started out with the Lord and His followers. “I grew up in the church, playing piano and singing in choirs and school plays. I always loved all kinds of music, and it’s funny, I can’t remember any artists or songs specifically that made me want to do music. It kind of all just grew from my parents putting me in piano lessons, and just having a creativity inside that those musical skills gave me an outlet to explore.”
He admires “artists who are true singers and also value versatility. Kelly Clarkson is someone who really can just sing anything, in almost any style, and that’s always been inspiring.” But speaking of Christian-raised talent, “I also love someone like Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, because he’s a fantastic songwriter and performer and has found a way to blend them both together.”
His first solo album Resolution came out back in 2009. “After that, I changed careers, moved to California, and took a bit of a musical break in the process. Then, after working on a lot more music by myself at home during the pandemic, I woke up the day after Christmas 2020 and decided I was going to record a Christmas album the following year. Nine months later, I had released The Wonder of Christmas, an album comprised of my own arrangements of familiar Christmas tunes, and a couple of originals, recorded with a full orchestra in Nashville.”
Accounting for the 15-year gap, he explains, “My whole life had been music, since I started playing piano at four years old, and leading me into a church music job. In 2006, I co-founded a software company that I helped work on just in my spare time. In 2011, after quite a few years of the company’s success, we bought a building in Carlsbad and moved the company here. I left my church music job and became a full-time product manager for our software. But after more time to reflect during the pandemic, I realized that music was never just a job. It was both a job and one of my biggest passions, and just because the job part was done, didn’t mean the passion had to die too. It sounds funny, but it really was mostly just allowing myself to classify music in a different way, and give myself permission to pursue it on the side, even if it wasn’t funding my life.”
Asked about his favorite cuts on the new record, he says, “You mean, pick a favorite child! Haha, okay, but I’m choosing three. ‘A Little Bit Obsessed’ kickstarted the entire project, and that was the first single. I love how joyful and upbeat it is, but also how much is going on, vocally and production-wise. ‘Savor’ is probably my favorite vocal performance I’ve ever done. The range of this song is pretty intense. I also love the message, which is a constant reminder to not only live in the future like I’m prone to do, but enjoy the big and small moments of the journey along the way. ‘Infinite Sky,’ the last song on the project, got me out of my box the most, in such fun and surprising ways. This song was written differently than the rest, too. The producer actually made the entire track first, and then I wrote the lyrics and the melody to it. Some clever phrases and pop culture references, which I wouldn’t have done had I written it the way I usually write.”
Comments