ARDEN JONES

from Rival Magazine Issue 14: Arden Jones

by rivalmagazinela

MAEVE STEELE

By: Olivia Vitarelli

Bright. Carefree. Welcoming. Fun. These are the four words singer-songwriter Arden Jones uses to describe his sound, and, coincidentally, they’re the four words we’d use to describe him. With over 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify and an already vast discography, Arden shows no signs of stopping. He sat down with RIVAL to chat all things family, touring, the age tapes, and the bonding power of good music.

“I definitely came from a musical family,” Arden says. “I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. My dad was in a band in college for all four years. He was the lead singer and he’s just super talented. My mom’s a music lover and she writes poetry and is just creative. I have two older sisters. They’re also both super musical and have great voices. So all that influence was huge for me.”

Beyond immediate family, Arden reveals Mac Miller, Prince, Greenday, and Spoon were some of the many key influences for him growing up. “I turned my family on to Mac Miller when I was pretty young. My parents are just super good at listening to music for what it is. My mom and dad both love Revenge by X and Crooked Smile by J. Cole. Those are great songs by hip hop artists that might not necessarily be the genre that we listen to as a family, but they’ve been super receptive to that type of stuff.”

While music was “always a big part of family culture,” Arden is the only family member to pursue it as a career – an aspiration he held tight to since the age of thirteen. “I didn’t really count on it happening, but I really wanted to create music, whether it was songwriting, or as an artist myself. I wanted that to be my job.”

In January of 2021, Arden got started. From the confines of his college dorm room, he wrote and released ‘Parallel Parking,’ the single responsible for starting it all. “My manager found the song with like 500 views, and it wasn’t even out,” Arden explains of this serendipitous discovery. “I think it was on SoundCloud with like 700 streams. And he hit me up and

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we just did it the right way: got [the song] all ready to go with this super sick cover…I was like a brand new artist and everything. Somebody at Spotify was amazing enough to put [the song] on New Music Friday. And that was my first release ever on Spotify.” From there, Arden explains, ‘Parallel Parking’ spread sheerly by word of mouth.

Around the time of the initial release, Arden was still in school – on track to be a PR and advertising major. “I’d been recording music for like four or five years and I had dozens and dozens of songs that I loved. I had all these old demos, so when I sent my manager [them] he was like, ‘How do you feel about dropping out of school?’ I was like, ‘I’m down, but I don’t trust this guy yet.’” Spoiler: it worked out. “I think if I had stayed in school, I really couldn’t have put in the amount of work that was needed to get good music out,” Arden notes. And so, with his newfound free time, Arden got to work on the age tapes.

A brief crash course for those unaware: on the first Thursday of every month in 2022, Arden has been dropping a collection of three songs unified under the moniker “age tape.” ARDEN JONES

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Starting with tape 1 in February 2022, he’s released the subsequent sequels every month. On November 4th,2022, he dropped age tape 0, the tenth and final installment of the age tape series and Arden Jones’ debut album.

“Everybody at home called me Age,” he explains. “So, that’s what it is. And I don’t think anybody really gets what it means, but if you grew up with me, you knew me as Age. Arden Jones is my real name, and everybody called me AJ, so then that abbreviated to Age. And we were like, ‘What are we gonna call these tapes? Let’s call them the age tapes.’”

If three songs released per month sounds like a hefty undertaking, it is. But it’s worth it. “I had a lot of music that I wanted to drop. I knew that I was creating music at a rate where I could supply it. So I’m excited, because now I don’t have to hold back, and each month my fans know exactly when they’re gonna get music,” he reveals. “All of that is a lot, but it’s been great. It’s been a really cool way to schedule out a year of music, and then people can listen from start to finish. Every tape is different, and I get to do a different thing with it.” ARDEN JONES

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The unique character of every tape is reflected in the writing process behind it. “It’s all over the place, for sure,” Arden says of the songwriting journey. “We could be on our way to the grocery store and have a little ukulele in the car and come up with the next single. Or, we could go sit down and work for eight hours and it isn’t what we were looking for. I think most songwriters agree, it’s whatever works and however you wanna do it. You could go into a room and hang upside down and mess around with your friends and talk about stories until you come up with a song. Or you could watch a movie and tell the side for a different ending in the movie and make that the song. It’s all over the place and telling a story has been the biggest thing I’ve been trying to work on and focus on. Just being consistent in getting people into an entire world in my song, rather than throwing in repeat lyrics that don’t add detail.”

Given Arden’s sunny sound, it’s no surprise that song inspiration often comes from the happy moments. “The times I’m really enjoying my life…I think about the details around that and why life is so good, and then put that into a song. I did that with ‘Parallel Parking,’ just talking about classic California adventures. I just hope [fans] can relate to what I’m talking about. Because I’m talking about real things in my life, and feelings I have about past experiences and things,” Arden explains. “I think it’s super cool when somebody’s like, ‘Dude, I felt that that literally just happened to me.’ Because that’s the best thing when I’m listening to music: I love it when that happens. Like, woah. They know my life, you know? It feels super together and fun.”

Arden has been opening for Chelsea Cutler on her ‘When I Close My Eyes’ tour, joining her on the road until mid-November. “I’m honored that I get to go. For my first tour, I did a west coast run with Thomas Headon. He’s amazing. So that was great.” Still, Arden notes, “Those were smaller rooms, you know, and this is a big boy tour. You get to see your work in action. Obviously, people are listening to your music all the time in their car and stuff, but this is for real: you can see them enjoying it, or not enjoying it,” he says with a laugh. “[It’s] exhilarating. And fun.”