I recently had a chance to hang out with my friend, artist and musician, Aaron Whitehouse. We always have fun talking about surfing, skateboarding and pretty much all forms of good old fashioned fun. What made this visit special is that he brought along some samples of his new band “The Romans” music for me. Immediately I was taken back to the beginnings of the new wave music scene,when music was raw and full of emotion. The Romans have taken that era and brought it to the present day with deep introspective lyrics combined with a musical embrace that carries you through a journey of sound that is both gentle and aggressive. I was left wanting to hear more from this fresh Atlanta band.
As you will see Aaron is an artist in the truest sense, painter, musician, are a couple of the traditional names associated with artists but I don’t think that is fair. True artists see the entire world and everything in it as natural design board that they interact with every breath and movement. This is Aaron, a naturally inspired creator who loves the life experience and all it brings. You can check out some of his beautiful artwork currently showing with Huff Harrington (atlanta), but be warned that when you see a piece you love, move fast!! With collectors like Elton John, who currently owns five pieces, and Ed Roland of Collective Soul snatching up his work as fast as he creates it, they won’t be around long. And of course you can download his band The Romans new album from itunes today. To hear more songs from The Romans click here.
–erik pearson
AARON WHITEHOUSE-For me creating art is “a way” and not so much an activity I do. It is what I engage in order to discover and better know myself and the world around me. I am an artist in the sense that I create, which makes me “a creator” and being a creator is much more of a spiritual identification than it is a technical identification with process. I use all mediums in my art, and like most ventures involving that which is transcendent there r no rules or agenda or formal training, just raw unbridled creativity and understanding that all art forms communicate on a level well beyond simply what we see and hear…..
About My Working Process
AARON WHITEHOUSE-I like to work with colors and emotions rather than figurative structures and concepts. I never really set out to create anything in general, instead I just try to use colors that I am drawn to that translate a mood or feeling I have or would like to create within myself. This way after enough layers have been applied something will emerge that I can identify with and the piece signals to me that it is complete. Layering is very important to the work I do because to me it represents the human psyche and the many layers that we as humans have within us. I use various types of paints, stains, water, and resin to achieve this. The resin is essential because it accentuates the depth of the layers I incorporate into the piece.
THE ROMANS
The Romans came into being in August 2010 when Aaron Whitehouse traded his acoustic guitar for an electric bass
Aaron in studio with THE ROMANS
and officially put to rest his solo project. Not long after, he and Ryan Clevenger began trading drum and bass recordings back and forth via email. The first rehersal was in Ryan’s garage in the dead heat of August in Atlanta where the two began writing songs which would soon become The Romans first material. After about a month of just drum, bass, and vocals they decided to reach out to fellow musician/guitarist Zevi Solomon who was on hiatus from his project The Son Red and the three piece was formed. Within a month or two of writing songs they all had an idea they were onto something they really believed in…
Their debut E.P. SAMO was recorded at Orange Peel Studios in Candler Park and produced by Atlanta based Producer John Rosser of Alpha Giant and I’m Chinese. Rosser first heard The Romans through a mass email with some demos attached that Zevi had sent out to some people in the Atlanta music community and Rosser responded with a strong interest in producing an E.P. with them. It’s a 5 song E.P. which definitely highlights the brighter more melodic side of what The Romans are doing as a band. After tracking, The Romans needed a place to mix on little to no budget and Ed Roland of Collective Soul generously made that happen. Roland, knowing Whitehouse through his presence in the Atlanta fine art scene, as well as being a collector of Whitehouse’s work over the years, was interested in hearing some music from The Romans. When Whitehouse told him they needed a place to mix Roland kindly offered his studio up as a remedy. From there the E.P. was mastered with Alexander Lowe of Red Tuxedo studios and will be self released on May 20th in The Basement at The Graveyard Tavern inEast Atlanta.
ARTIST BIO- Aaron Whitehouse was born in 1975 in Terre Haute Indiana. Aaron grew up in the Atlanta Metro area and after graduating from Georgia State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Video he enrolled for one year at Southern Seminary in Columbia South Carolina where he realized creativity was his gift and vowed to follow wherever it lead in life. After several years of traveling and living in many different areas in the U.S. (Maui, Santa Barbara, Key Largo, New York) Aaron decided to return to Atlanta for one purpose: to further his artistic development. He apprenticed under renowned Atlanta artist Joseph Guay and from there decided to experiment with a variety of different mediums and found his niche in resin based works. “I was drawn to using resin because of the depth it can create in a piece; being a person who is drawn to contemplation and other forms of communication that translate “from deep to deep” it seemed resin helped unlock that expression within my art. I try not to use any form at all in my work (except photography) in order to translate just raw feeling and emotion; to me its the equivalent of speech without actual words. Much more like base sounds and expressions, which i always found to be more powerful than words anyways”
