Arts & Entertainment
'52' Pickup
Ari Hest has developed a unique approach to making music and getting it heard.
Ann Arbor
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
A
ri Hest, a singer-songwriter-gui-
tarist, is disciplining himself to
write one song a week for a year,
post each one on his Web site for subscrib-
ers and communicate with listeners about
their reactions. Ultimately, he will take a
vote for the 10 best selections and include
those on a recording to be made in 2009.
Hest is doing all this while on tour, and
he will perform some of the new numbers
during a show Monday evening, June 23,
at the Ark in Ann
Arbor.
"I've been
working on a lot
of new material
since the begin-
ning of January,
and I'm going
to be presenting
some of that with
some old songs
that people will
be more familiar
with:' says Hest,
28, whose many Michigan performances
have placed him on stages in Detroit and
Grand Rapids.
"I think of my music as a hybrid of folk,
rock and jazz but all within the pop music
umbrella. I grew up with the Beatles and
the Beach Boys, even though those bands
were not around as much by the time I
was born. I listened to them because my
parents listened to them, and I learned a
lot about music and how to write songs
from there
Hest, whose earlier Ann Arbor appear-
ances have been with his band, will be
solo this time.
"I write quite a bit and always have, but
up until last year I was with Columbia
Records:' explains Hest, whose CDs
include Break-In and Guilty Hearts. "When
you write a song for a big label, a lot of
ears have to listen to it before it becomes
public.
"That process was very frustrating, as
were a lot of the other processes. I left
that in August of last year after deciding I
wanted to try something very new
Writing a
song a week,
he asks his
fans on the
Web to pick
the 10 best.
Ari Hest: "Music ... comes to me in different melodies pretty much every day."
"Instead of just putting out a new
album, I wanted to see what would happen
if I did something like this, especially dur-
ing this stage in the music industry. The
idea seemed like something creative that
might put me in a new place."
The project, titled "52," invites potential
listeners to subscribe at a fee of $20 for the
year, and Hest is closing in on 2,000 par-
ticipants. Those joining later in the year
receive the earlier songs.
A wide range of themes is presented
through the new songs.
One, "Broken Voices:' is about his dif-
ficulty paying attention in public places.
Another, "Ride the Brake is about a
graduating college senior who decides he's
not ready for the real world. The earliest,
"One Two:' has to do with a new building
project in his New York neighborhood,
where high prices are forcing longtime
residents to leave.
Hest, who learned piano before guitar
and bass, was ushered into his career by
his mother, Cantor Lisa Hest of Temple
Beth-El in Great Neck, N.Y. He has sung
with her and taught religious music to
youngsters attending the Reform congre-
gation.
When the singer-songwriter was in high
school, he gravitated toward guitar, and
by the time he graduated from New York
University with a communications major
he knew he wanted to be a professional
entertainer.
"I realized that people weren't listening
to me just because of my voice or how well
I could play other people's material:' he
says. "It was because of my own material.
"After I left school, I started to perform
and wrote more. I played a lot of colleges
as a solo act and then found my band
in New York City. By 2004, three years
after I graduated college, I signed with
Columbia!"
Hest does the "52" recordings in his
apartment, generally playing all the
instruments or calling on friends to help.
His brother, Danny, manages the project
and the Web site, www.arihest.com.
Hest, who is single, recently joined an
amateur baseball team to get some exer-
cise and enjoy a leisure activity that also
is social.
"I have quite a bit of music that comes
to me in different melodies pretty much
every day:' says Hest, who often composes
late at night. "Putting the lyrics to melo-
dies always has taken me much longer.
There are times when I ask my fans for
song titles and I'll write songs off the
titles.
"The new songs have special meaning
because they're challenging me to open up
more to new ideas. I'm writing quite a bit
about other people and enjoying it. I feel
that if I just wrote about myself, it would
be tough, after a while, to come up with
fresh material!"
❑
Ari Hest performs 8 p.m. Monday,
June 23, at the Ark, 316 S. Main
in Ann Arbor. $15. (734) 761-1800.
To subscribe to "52," go to
www.arihest.com .
June 19 • 2008
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