Aviator Stash
Since their creation in 2017, Aviator Stash has burst onto the scene in their hometown of San Diego, gaining a well-deserved following and establishing themselves as one of San Diego’s best local acts. Aviator Stash has taken their community and sound to heart, a feat that has not gone unnoticed; from playing WonderFront Festival to being nominated for a San Diego Music Award three years in a row. We got the opportunity to catch up with the band and ask them a few questions about their journey, and how they go about creating music.
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Interview
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1. Tell us a little about your journey, how did you all meet and form Aviator Stash?
Everyone besides our guitarist all went to Carlsbad High but we didn’t hang out with each other. We were all into different musical styles/genres in high school and actually competed against each other in the battle of the bands during our lunch hour. Our drummer, Tyler, and our bass player, Diz, actually kicked my (Greg) band’s ass each year. Then 6 years after high school, we reconnected and started what later became Aviator Stash. Our goal was to record as much music as possible and play the great venues in San Diego including The Belly up, The Casbah, The Music Box, and The House of Blues. It’s been really fun checking off those things from our band bucket list.
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2. Our name, REVOLT, means to Revolt against anything holding you back and live the life you’ve always dreamed of. How did you choose your name, and what does it mean to you?
We chose our name after playing for almost one year under a name that was already taken by a rapper which made it impossible to copyright our music on the streaming sites. We had an old song “Pig Skin Piggy” that had a lyric “Aviator Stash”. We were searching for a name that was unique and that had no search result on Google and that was it! “Aviator Stash”! We liked it because it had so many different potential meanings and we felt our songs resembled that. Everyone we talk to has their own meaning or image of an “aviator stash” and we love that. It’s open for interpretation and so are our songs.
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3. If you had to make a playlist that describes your sound, what top five artists or songs other than you would be on it and why?
What people say we sound like is often different than what we listen to. We love listening to artists outside of our genre. Our influences include Vulfpeck, Anderson Paak, Tame Impala, The Chats, Infant Annihilator, and Radiohead to name a few.
People often say that we sound like Cage the Elephant, Spoon, Foster the people.
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4. What does your musical process look like? What would a recording session look and sound like if we were in the room with you?
We write most of our songs all together at practice. We try to rehearse our music thoroughly before going into the studio and try to execute our vision once we are recording. We play everything together when we record then we pick apart ideas, arrangements, and other details until we get a fully formed product. We also use an old record industry trick by having a chainsmoking chimp that lives in our basement to track all the parts for us. That sets you a level above the rest.
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5. What or who motivates you to create music?
To start, we motivate each other for sure. Each of us uses our favorite music for inspiration of course but we also draw a lot of inspiration from each other which is the biggest contributor to our sound. As the saying goes, “art reflects life”. We like to share our personal thoughts and experiences through the music we make. Sometimes its moody and sometimes its cheeky and fun. There’s no way to really describe what motivates us but a little booze and our dumb asses in a room with our instruments sure does it.
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6. What sort of emotions, messages, meanings, or experiences do you hope your listeners gain from listening to a song or watching you perform? How do you go about including that into your sound?
We really want people to have fun at our shows. It’s hard sometimes to peel people off of their couchs and go out to see a local show so we take it very seriously to entertain and give it our all during a performance. The emotion of dancing and letting ourselves go might inspire people to be in the moment and forget about all other stresses they have in their life. We really put sweat and tears into our music and it puts such a huge smile on all of our faces when we reach the crowd with emotion and can see them moving and singing along. As far as what they should experience personally from it, that’s up to them!
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7. We’ve noticed you’re nominated for best Indie/Alternative band with the san Diego Music Awards, Congrats! What sort of milestones or challenges have you faced that got you to where you are now?
Thank you! We are honored to be recognized in the San Diego music scene. It means the world to us that people are listening to our music and putting nominating us for awards. It’s just an encouraging thing because it’s something that lets us know our hard work is paying off. We love our hometown San Diego and are pleased that they have so much support for local music. Our biggest milestones so far are releasing two albums and playing Wonderfront Music & Arts Festival which was our biggest festival appearance yet. The greatest challenges and triumphs are still to come! We have to continue writing and performing more music and growing together as a band!
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8. As a local band with deep ties in SoCal, how do your connections with artists and listeners in your community affect your work?
Connections are everything. For an increasingly collaborative medium, this area really leads the charge for artists, bands, venues and industries working together and supporting each other. If you’re not out there supporting other bands or networking with people in the scene, I don’t think you will get very far. We have met some awesome bands and awesome fans and you never know what their backgrounds are or who they may know!
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9. What advice would you give to those who are on similar journeys to make their own dreams a reality?
You have to put in the work! It doesn’t come over night. And duhhh, if it’s not fun then you should probably find something else to pursue.
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10. We know you plan on releasing an album this upcoming summer, what sort of sounds, messages, themes, etc. can we look forward to jamming out to?
We are really taking our time with this next record. It’s got the classic Aviator funky sounds as well as new songwriting explorations and romantic lyrics.
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