We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aria Knight a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aria, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I’ve been taking singing lessons since I was 11, started writing lyrics in high school, and for college I attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where I got a Bachelors of Music in vocal performance with a minor in creative writing. I have studied with a lot of different voice teachers over the years, and I think that diversity was beneficial. The nature of singing coming from within the body makes the learning process somewhat abstract, and there are a lot of different approaches. It was a process of figuring out what worked for me, and I’m still always learning.
In terms of songwriting, I took a few formal songwriting classes in college, as well as poetry writing and musical theatre writing, but I think my songwriting was mainly something I learned on my own through trial and error. It was essential to learn the basics, to learn the “rules” so that you know how to break them purposefully. But I think the most beneficial thing for me in terms of developing my songwriting was finding good co-writers to work with.
To speed up the learning process… I think it’s the obvious and boring answer of being more disciplined and consistent. Practice every day and write every day no matter what. I spent too much time being self-critical and avoiding working on it.
One of the skills I find most essential is the ability to strike a balance between self-confidence and an openness to growth. It’s important to stay true to yourself and your authentic vision, but also be open to constructive criticism from people you trust, and see where you have room to improve. There’s always more to learn and ways to grow.
My biggest obstacles are my own anxiety and perfectionism. Those are the main reasons it has taken me so long to start releasing music. I overthink things and always feel like it’s not perfect yet, so I struggled to finish songs. My mentor/co-writer Charlotte Martin has helped me a lot with that. Another obstacle was being too critical too early in the songwriting process. I had a tendency to start to write something and hate it and get frustrated and stop. You need to let it suck in the beginning, don’t let it stop you. Get it all out and edit it later.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a singer and songwriter based in Los Angeles. I create moody pop music with emotionally heavy, lyric-driven storytelling. I write about issues that are important to me, like mental health, climate change, queerness, and sociopolitical issues.
What sets me apart I hope is that I delve into difficult topics, and I try to meld from different genres to create a unique sound. I believe music can be a powerful form of communication in how it combines and translates thoughts and emotions. I hope to create music that is meaningful that people can connect with on a deeper level.
At the end of the day I just want to make music I am proud of that means something to me, and have the people that will like it find it and enjoy it. I don’t have a desire to manufacture some particular level of success, or change myself creatively to fit better into the mainstream to be more popular. I believe that my audience is out there, and I’m just trying to find them! And if I am lucky enough to build a larger platform I would want to use it to bring focus to issues I care about to try to make a positive impact on the world.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Expressing myself through music is an emotional release. Being able to take my feelings about the world and channel it into a song is a cathartic process for me. It’s combining my thoughts and my emotions in a way that helps me make sense of the world and my experiences. The most rewarding thing for me is hearing about people connecting with my music, that I made them feel something or think about something in a different way, or that they just really loved it. Knowing that I created art that is impacting people in a positive way is incredibly rewarding.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think some people may not understand how much time and effort and study and practice it all takes. Especially now with the rise of generative AI, people who have a desire to be creative but don’t want to put in the effort don’t understand how far typing a prompt is from what it actually takes for a human to create art. It is not just singing into a mic or putting a brush to canvas for a couple hours. It is years of study, thousands of hours of practice, of making shit that is truly terrible and learning from that for a long time before you create something actually good. That is all the backstory leading up to creating a particular work. Then there is the emotional component on top of that, to be able to translate human emotion into art and create something that is beautiful and meaningful. It requires emotional intelligence and a lot of vulnerability.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ariaknight.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariaknight
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/ariaknightmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AriaKnight
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ariaknight
• Other: https://tiktok.com/@aria_knight

Image Credits

Robert Rose
Erin Russell
Danielle Herzog
Cristian Diaz