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| Photo by Clare Gillen |
Porches may sound different on his new album Ricky Music, but he’s never felt more himself. “I wanted to get back to the place where I was making music out of the sheer love of it,” says Aaron Maine. Maine’s project Porches has undergone a series of changes during the past ten years since he’s been creating music under the moniker — in what began as an indie band, Porches has evolved into Maine’s solo project where genre doesn’t define his sound. His fourth album Ricky Music sees Maine reignite his love for music once again.
The album is daring and bold, and across its eleven tracks, he wanted to push the boundaries of what he’s made previously before. “I feel like you’ve just got to go nuts and get totally lost in it until you have some shit that you’ve never done before.” He set out to experiment as much as possible, which led to the inception of over one hundred tracks before settling on the final tracklist. Making an abundance of music is part of Maine’s usual process — it’s important to attempt every possibility and leave no stone unturned. “I make a ton of music and then at a certain point there seems to be five or six songs that work together and the image becomes much more clear of what resonates with me. Once that happens, the bigger picture comes into focus and I start dialling in.”
For fans of the albums that have come before Ricky Music, Maine reassures that experimentation or trying something different sonically doesn’t mean he is abandoning his music of old — instead, he’s showing the ways he has grown and evolved as an artist. It also ensures that the process of creating music stays interesting for Maine.
“I’m just obsessed with music. I love all sorts of music. I like experimenting a lot. I set myself up to be able to surprise the audience each time, but also surprise myself too. I do think there’s a thread to no matter what I create because it is me and my melodies and my voice, and that to me, ties it all together. I think the more music that I’ve put out publicly, the better picture someone would get of my brain, which is the idea of releasing music. It’s to paint an image of yourself for the listener.”
He wanted to return to the place he was at before he had any commercial success with his music, more so for himself. “I was digging to figure out how to inhabit the space I was making music in before I had commercial success. I was trying to get back there and make it for myself.”
This time around, he also wanted to expand on what he’s done before on a lyrical level. He wanted to take the changes and moments that have impacted him the most across the past two to three years and communicate them with sharper images and descriptions in his lyrics. Maine also wanted to use his words to showcase all the different sides of himself, not just his ‘sad’ side. “It never dawned on me when I was releasing music in the past that people would be like, “it’s so sad. All your songs are so sad.” That is part of the reality but there’s another part of me who loves to laugh too. I feel like my sense of humor is one of the most important things about me.”
He was determined to show that it’s possible to find humor even in the darkest of moments. “I wanted to figure out how I could do this lyrically.” Maine adds, “Making fun of myself in a dark place, including calling myself out for being super dramatic but then also having moments where you’re totally intoxicated with your emotions and you don’t really understand what’s going on, it’s just a frantic outpouring of emotion. But also having a little more clarity in these situations as well.”
For Maine, a lot of it comes back to connecting with others through his music. “It’s such a big part of why I go through the trouble of releasing music the way I do,” he says on his music resonating with others. He admits that before his music is able to connect with someone else, he needs to feel and connect with it first himself. "It serves me in a lot of ways before it’s able to reach anyone else. Music is such an important part of my life, it’s always there for me.”
He adds, “If I can connect with someone and make someone feel better or happier, that they’re not alone in experiencing some sort of pain, then it makes me want to keep doing it and reach even more people. Music is the fucking best.”
Porches' new album Ricky Music will be released on March 13th via Domino. Click here for more information.
Written by Amy Smolcic (@amysmolcic)
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