Tempo Talks: A Conversation with Aro
THE RELEASE
ARO (arrow) is an American singer and songwriter hailing from Los Angeles, CA, but her journey has been one marked by constant movement. With roots in Pennsylvania and a background in art and design from Philadelphia, ARO's artistic path is a reflection of her nomadic upbringing. Her music serves as a candid expression of her mental health journey, deliberately providing a platform for her inner struggles, transforming discord into purpose. ARO's work delves into the consistent theme of neurodivergence, offering a voice to the inner chaos imposed by a one-size-fits-all society. She takes pride in crafting a life where all facets of her identity are welcomed, inspiring others to do the same. A versatile artist, she navigates the realms of alternative pop, traversing electro pop, indie alternative R&B, and pop-rock. Her dark and wistful compositions draw a diverse audience, encapsulating an edgy "fierce femme" aesthetic. Influenced by artists like Halsey, Banks, Bishop Briggs, Lana Del Rey, and King Princess, this artist continues to create music that resonates deeply and authentically.
"I Fall in Love Too Many Times," the latest alternative pop confessional from this emerging artist, weaves a melancholic tapestry with wistfully plucked electric guitar melodies and a gentle dancehall rhythm, inviting listeners into her introspective world. ARO's introspection centers on her relationship with neurodivergence, addressing the cycle of hyper-fixation and burnout with candid vulnerability. She confronts her inner struggles head-on, acknowledging the transformative growth they bring, culminating in a poignant final chorus that pleads for inner peace amidst the turmoil. Produced by Caden Jester and recorded in her DIY home studio, this track is a glimpse into ARO's upcoming EP, "Messy," serving as its captivating "Side A." Accompanying the song is a visually extravagant music video, where ARO takes on various French Rococo personas, including a playful nod to Marie Antoinette, emphasizing the song's exploration of multifaceted identities. As ARO puts it, "IFILTMT" emerged urgently and authentically, with the song becoming a vessel for her unfiltered emotions and experiences, making it a truly special addition to her repertoire.
THE INTERVIEW
How has your experience with love shaped your perspective on life?
This is an interesting question. I really pendulate between being a hopeless romantic and being really jaded and avoidant about romantic love. I didn’t really have great, healthy examples of what love looked like growing up, so I’ve had to do a lot of work on rewriting these patterns for myself as an adult. I spent a lot of my life looking for love and forgetting to be love, if that makes sense. I think a lot of people think about love in only a romantic sense. To me love is a state of being. It’s this internal experience of surrender and awe of just being alive and really feeling what it’s like to be alive in relation to something or someone. Like, romantic love is just one little sliver of how we can experience love. Some of the most profound love I’ve experienced in my life hasn’t been romantic, I can fall in love in so many different ways. I fall in love with my friends, with pieces of art, music, ways of thinking, different versions of myself, places, nature. And for me, all of these non-romantic experiences of love are how I find the distinction between loving someone and actually being in love. To me, the former is a sentiment, it’s a theory I have in my brain that I think is true. But being in love is something that is viscerally felt, it’s an experience, I’m in it rather than theorizing about it, and I’ve found that when I can experience it this way I can practice being love, instead of waiting to receive love from someone in order to feel the high of that state that we all wanna chase. So I guess being love is really my perspective on life, to answer your question. Everyday I try to do something that brings me into that state, where I can tap into a felt experience of surrender and awe of just being here in this body, and sometimes that’s beautiful and sometimes that’s painful, but it’s all a rush.
Were there any specific experiences or events in your life that influenced the song's lyrics?
IFILTMT was influenced by my own patterns of hyper fixation and burn out. I’m someone who found out as an adult that I’m neurodivergent which means I spent a lot of my life trying to understand why things that seemed easy for everyone else seemed so hard for me. This song is about an experience that I think is actually really common for neurodiverse people. I want to do all the things, I want to have all these different experiences, I get bored with my life very easily and want to chase down something new. I have too many careers, hobbies, passions, phases, identities. And I’ll pour my whole self into each of them thinking that there’s some kind of pot of gold at the end of each one, (up to this point in my life I never really knew what it was I’d been looking for), only to realize that one day I’ve simply changed my mind, and it’s on to the next thing. It’s chaotic and exhausting what I do to myself, but I also feel like I’ve had to go on each of these journeys to really understand myself better. Sometimes I think we have to go through a lot of winding roads to figure out what we don’t want, or who we’re not to find out who we are. I’ve just had to try on a lot of lives to get those answers.
Can you share any interesting anecdotes about the song's development with your co-writers or producers?
My producer almost killed me with this track lol. When I brought the song to him I initially told him I wanted to take it in more of an alt/rock direction so we spent a lot of time going back and forth crafting the instrumental for it and like a week or so in I just hated it. It didn’t feel right at all. Needless to say he wasn’t thrilled with me. I spent some time on Youtube listening to a bunch of instrumentals and from the inspiration I found I ended up completely changing the melody and rhythm of the song. I sent him a new demo and we both were just like, yea this is it. And voila.
What was the biggest takeaway or lesson you learned while creating this song?
Don’t be afraid to change things last minute if it’s not feeling right. As artists our only metric for deciding whether or not we’ve made something “good” is if we like it and it feels right. That’s it. That’s all that matters. I’m not going to be able to bring the kind of energy that’s going to have an audience excited to a piece that I don’t feel really great about. So I work on something until I’ve had that aha moment, where I can’t imagine hearing it another way.
How has your recent growth as an artist influenced the direction of your future work?
A lot of my recent growth has been focused around letting myself feel the music rather than being caught up in being technically good. I’ve been very focused on improving my vocals for over a year now, and singing “correctly”. Which has been great, I’ve improved so much. Now I’m at this point where it’s time to let go of focusing so hard on singing well and instead let myself trust the skills I’ve built while delivering more energy to my songs- thinking about how the song wants to move through me. And since I’ve been focusing on this aspect of my growth as an artist it’s helping me start to really define my sound. I think I’ll be moving in more of a rock direction, but I’m still defining which subgenres and influences feel really right for me.
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