Conversations with Arson0

Today we’d like to introduce you to Arson0.

Hi Arson0, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
hello y’all, this is Arson0 (pronounced “arson”), musician and visual artist born and raised in atlanta. i began playing in punk and hardcore bands and performing at venues around the atlanta area in high school. i got to meet very talented people and open for some great acts, but that didn’t last long due to creative differences among bandmates or just breaking up.

the last band i was in during college was folk rock project that was fronted by a man that was one of the most talented singer/songwriters i’d ever worked with. he passed from a drug overdose which disconcerted me to the point where i closed myself off to any and all potential creative collaborators for a long while. that lead me down the path of home music production and creating music by myself with a bass, electric guitar, and a microKORG.

i had secured a Native Instruments “Maschine” with some money i had saved up because i didn’t know how to play drums at the time and shortly after i became enamored with sampling. around that time Kanye West and Tyler, the Creator had just dropped “My Beautify Dark Twisted Fantasy” and “Goblin” and my approach to creating and listening to music totally changed. i started producing and posting beats on SoundCloud right as the “SoundCloud era” of music started taking off, but due to my lack of discipline and nobody holding me accountable since i was a solo artist, i gradually made music less and less treating it as a hobby and not personal necessity. that’s when my depression and anxiety began to really hit and i spent the rest of my twenties being drunk, high, or on one drug or another.

time went on and i inevitably dropped out of college due to my addictions and my girlfriend of 5 years broke up with me due to my neglect. with a job that paid me poorly, i had nowhere to live except with my recently-divorced mother in a cramp apartment. i had hit my rock bottom, then the pandemic happened.

with the world being shut down and me being out of work as a result there was nothing for me to do at home, that’s when i picked up music again. i was making beats up to 12 hours a day for over a month in my small bedroom and it rekindled my love of making music – in my cold emotional and mental desolation it was the tiny ember in my hands keeping me warm.

art stopped being a hobby and began being a reason for me to live. i hadn’t let go of that feeling since.

currently i’m living in midtown with a great job, a wonderful and supportive girlfriend, and our two cats. i’m off drugs, drinking significantly less, and staying healthy. i’m more active in the atlanta art scene, collaborating with fellow artists, and actively producing art and content .

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
that question reminds me of a Regina Brett quote: “If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.”

i have nothing to compare my struggle to with acknowledgement and respect to everyone as an individual having their own road they take. i’m aware that i carry social privileges that aided my navigation thru life easier than others, but i still have to wake up and go to sleep in this body that has to live with the choices i’ve made.

i’m not gonna say i have no regrets or wish i could’ve done things differently because i do, and so does everyone else. the goal from there for me is just learning to accept it and be present in my moment. i have a single prayer that i say everyday: “thank you god for letting me off this easy.” i’ve gained wisdom from the good decisions i’ve made and experience from the bad.

sure, my twenties would’ve been better spent focusing on music and not being a functional alcoholic who took any drug offered to him and had destructive relationships and behaviors, but a part of me looks back on those days with a certain fondness – things are easier when you don’t care but that’s no way to live. sometimes one needs to remember we’re human and with that comes having love for humanity .

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
i write, produce, and mix music – mostly hip-hop/rap instrumentals and beats. i’m currently in the process of changing my studio set up to better accommodate production that doesn’t require a digital audio workstation (very excited to see what i create thru that).

i also shoot photography on 35mm film and video on dvr, i also make physical collages, all of which i have a separate page for.

what i’m most proud of is my latest work: my ep titled “néo-apocrypha eschatologique.” it’ll be 8 tracks, about 25 minutes in length. it dwells on the end times and carries the listener thru a narrative with that lens. it sounds like punching walls with fists full of broken glass. it will be released later this spring once i’m fully recovered from my recent heart surgery.

the helmet i wear is an attempt to subvert my ego and to separate not the art from the artist but the art from me as person (i’m also pretty shy in real life). i strive as an artist to isolate the faculties of logic from aesthetics to my best abilities, to produce a work of reality that is to be perceived via the human senses alone with logic coming secondary and utilized only as a means to impart literal communication of the art. in the act of creation, i pull from within glimpses of beauty both honest and raw for not just my own selfish sake but for the hopes that may resonate with the beauty within another and to keep creating with that in mind, lest what remains of that die with me when it’s my time to go to heaven. it’s the only genuine way i feel i can connect to people: the work which is likely to by my most durable monument, and to convey some knowledge of myself to the most remote posterity, is a work of bare utility – not a shrine, not a fortress, not a palace, but a bridge .

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
i don’t have a favorite anything, but here’s some books i really like:

“Grendel” by John Hersey.
“Darkness Visible” by William Styron
“The Shadow of the Torturer” by Gene Wolfe
“A Choice of Gods” by Clifford D. Simak

Pricing:

• beat license (basic): $25
• beat license (premium): $100
• mix/mastering: negotiable
• video/photo shoot: negotiable
• collages: negotiable

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beacons.ai/arson0
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perfectionistheenemy/
• Twitter: https://x.com/_arson0
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@perfectionistheenemy
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/arson0
• Other: https://www.beatstars.com/arson0

Image Credits
Landon Rutledge