november 30th, 2020
Aisle 5: playing in a pandemic
STORY BY Olivia McKeon / Photos BY Aisle 5 / EDITED BY Nicole brokaw
Things to know about the members of Aisle 5 (from left to right): Bea loves Duolingo and has a 174-day streak;Matt took gymnastics when he was younger and can still do a decent cartwheel; Julian barely listens to any music in his free time except some classical and jazz; Alex lived in a van for a year before college: and Sierra can crack her ears.
Aisle 5 is made up of five members pursuing a range of majors at IC: Bea Tria (Music in combination with IMC), Matt Gerety (Film, Photo, and Visual Arts), Julian Sanita (Piano Performance), Alex Hunziker (Sociology), and Sierra Winter-Klepel (Sound Recording and Technology).
They released their EP, My Dog’s Birthday, on February 14, 2020, which they call their “indie-pop-rap lovechild.” The single, “Blueshell”, currently has over 100k streams on Spotify, an incredible feat for a new band. In addition, their song “Bubblegum” was put on a “Fresh Finds” playlist, curated by Spotify editors who receive around 1,000 tracks to consider based on listening patterns across genres and regions. “Bubblegum” was also added to a playlist created by English singer-songwriter Cavetown. Although they have received a lot of success for a new band, they would continue to make music even if people weren’t listening and they consider themselves friends before band members.
Aisle 5 spoke with Olivia McKeon through a Zoom interview in October to discuss the band, their upcoming projects, and how they’ve been navigating quarantine.
Olivia: How did Aisle 5 come to be? When did you all connect?
Matt: The night we made our song “Blueshell” was the first time we all made music together. It was sometime during the first semester of college when we connected. I met Julian first and then Bea approached me and Julian and then we ended up meeting Sierra. Eventually I met Alex at an IC Film Score Club meeting, and he said he used Ableton which is the same music producing software that I used, so we started talking, and we ended up going to dinner.
Bea: I saw Alex around campus, and I thought he looked so cool. He had a fanny pack and a bee tattoo on his knee (laughs), and I really wanted to be his friend, so when Matt texted me and told me he was eating dinner with him I was really excited.
Matt: That night we ended up going back to Alex’s room and that’s when we wrote “Blueshell.”
Olivia: Who came up with the name Aisle 5 and what is the significance behind it?
Matt: After we started making music together we decided we should probably come up with a name, and I honestly don’t have a real answer to the question; Aisle 5 just sounded good. It happens to be that there are five of us. I wasn’t really thinking about that, so if we had an extra person the name could be Aisle 6.
Sierra: We always joke that there’s more than five people in the band because we did so much of our work with tons of people in the room just bouncing off of everyone’s energy.
Olivia: Which song is your favorite, and which one are you most proud of?
Alex: My favorite is tied between “Bubblegum” and “Fairytale.” “Bubblegum” is my favorite “poppy” sound that I’ve ever had a hand in creating. I love it through and through; it makes me so happy to listen to. But “Fairytale” has a special place in my heart because it was our first song that we really grinded on. We spent a lot of time with it and listening to it now I can hear the previous versions in it as well. I’m proudest of “Okie,” because it took me a long time to build the confidence to put vocals down, and I’m really happy that I did.
Sierra: My favorite one is “Bubblegum”, but I’m proudest of “Okie” because it’s the only song where I really enjoy listening to myself. I tend to cringe at some of my parts in other songs.
Julian: My favorite is “Bubblegum” as well, because I think I played the biggest part in that song out of all of the songs we’ve released. I’m definitely proudest of “Blueshell” because it blew up so fast, and we got such a great response from it.
Bea: My favorite song is “Okie.” It makes me so happy. It feels like friendship, and I think it’s a really fitting end to the EP. I’m proudest of “Fairytale” because I really had no idea what to do with it, and I had an open section to work with. I had no idea how it was going to end up, but I ended up really enjoying it.
Matt: My personal favorite right now is “Different Now” which is the one we released most recently. I did different vocals than what I normally do so that was really cool. I’m proudest of “Okie” and “Space & Time,” because they have a heartwarming vibe and their own distinct flavor to them. We put a lot of time and effort into those, and I’m really proud of the result.
Olivia: How do you begin writing your songs?
Bea: We generally come up with chords first and then add a beat and once we build the melody we’ll loop it a lot and write on top of that. Sometimes for certain songs someone will bring in a developed idea and we’ll build off of that. For “Fairytale” Sierra came up with that idea completely on her own.
Sierra: Yeah, I write completely different than Bea does because I like to write lyrics first so sometimes I’ll come up with a lyric and show it to the group so we can work on making something around it.
Bea: We always have input too. Every song goes through a ton of edits.
Matt: I like the idea of trying everything, and if it doesn’t end up working out that’s fine. But we should just go for it.
Olivia: Is it difficult to work when you’re not physically together?
Matt: It’s been hard, but Alex and I will be living together soon and working on music. We’ve been working on stuff all together too but it’s less natural because we have to send things back and forth. It’s different, but it’s something we’re getting used to.
Alex: One of the reasons I love making music with Aisle 5 is because of the atmosphere. There was something really specific about that energy which was super important to where the EP ended up going. There were ten people packed into this tiny dorm room, and it was really fun to mess around with the vocals and beats with everyone there.
Matt: Not to mention equipment because we worked together on one computer, one keyboard, one mic and everyone could contribute whatever they wanted. Anyone could sit down and start playing something on the keyboard if they had an idea. It’s hard because once we all got separated not all of us even have production software or mics.
Bea: We also had a process before where the foundation of the song would be set with the chords, some beats, and the general vibe and we’d loop it with all of us sitting around the computer. It was really fun to see what ideas we’d come up with in that moment with a beat that was fresh, and [that] we were excited about. Working online takes so much longer. There’s also a lot of feedback we could get in the moment like “hey, what do you think of this lyric?” or “I need help finishing this” and it was super collaborative.
Sierra: We really fed off of each other and for me I thrived with their creative energy around. They really gave me the confidence to do stuff and now that I’m at home it’s not the same.
Olivia: Is there anything positive that’s come out of this quarantine for you?
Matt: I feel like I’ve been developing more as an artist on my own. I’ve been trying a lot of different things in terms of production and vocals, and I’m really excited to bring that back into Aisle 5.
Alex: Working with Aisle 5 completely changed how I made music so being removed from that situation means now whenever I’m working on stuff it’s completely different. Also, one thing I have really enjoyed is hearing originals from the other band members.
Sierra: I love hearing Bea’s stuff. She’s coming up with so much. This is Bea’s creative outlet moment. Mainly for me I’ve been doing a lot of self-care so hopefully that will help me in the future.
Bea: Adding onto what Alex said, before college I never wrote music, but we got into this mode of making music every week and when I got home I still had that urge to write. I’m really glad that I learned that being with the band, because I don’t think I would have been able to make music by myself if I hadn’t had that confidence from writing with them. Whenever we reconvene and everyone shows what they’ve made, our ideas are always so different from each other. We just keep growing individually and hopefully that means we’ll keep growing as a group.
Olivia: Do you have any upcoming projects you’re working on?
Sierra: We’ve talked about doing covers and we’re still trying to figure out the logistics of a live performance.
Alex: We’re still getting our feet on the ground with having to work remotely. Quarantine has been hard for all of us in different ways, so we’re just getting around to diving back into making music together.
Olivia: Are you planning on collaborating with any other artists in the future?
Matt: I would love to make a song with Quail. David actually played saxophone on “Space and Time” which is our only song with a live instrument.
Bea: Bringing in their live sound would be really awesome. Everyone in Quail is so talented at their instrument.
Olivia: What are some of your favorite music groups/inspirations?
Bea: I can’t really say that Dodie is one of my current inspirations, but I feel like Dodie’s sound is so infused into what I make just because I’ve been listening to her since 7th grade. I was a really big fan of hers. I learned to play the ukulele because of her; I was obsessed. Bruno Mars and Jacob Collier are two other favorites of mine.
Sierra: My favorites are Dodie, Suggi, and recently I’ve been listening to DPR Live.
Julian: I mainly listen to classical music or jazz.
Alex: My top three are probably Porter Robinson, Bon Iver, and Yung Lean.
Matt: My top artist of all time is Brockhampton. I know that they’ve gotten into quite a bit of controversy, but the early saturation days were probably the most influential thing to me music-wise because they got me so amped up to create things. All those videos of Kevin Abstract leading the group and doing things behind the scenes were really inspiring to me. Their style also went on to influence a lot of the music I listen to now. Frank Ocean is definitely another one of my favorites; Blonde is my favorite album. Zack Villere is an artist who I really like because he made me realize you don’t have to be an incredible singer to make really great music.
Olivia: You have over 100k streams on Spotify for your song “Blueshell”. Were you surprised about the popularity of this song? Were you expecting to get so much of a response?
Alex: It broke my brain because we got 1,000 streams before My Dog’s Birthday came out and I was losing my mind. At one point I was sending the group screenshots of our artist’s page every hour because it was so crazy. We also got on a Spotify Fresh Finds playlist with “Bubblegum” and I was fully taken aback by that.
Sierra: We’ve been contacted on Instagram with a bunch of opportunities too, and I think that’s mainly because of “Blueshell” so that’s awesome.
Matt: We weren’t making the album to get a bunch of streams or anything, we were making it for fun. We’d still be making music even if we didn’t get any views, because we enjoy doing it together.
Olivia: What’s your favorite thing about being a member of Aisle 5?
Bea: I love everyone in the band. We spend a lot of time together working on music and I feel really close to everyone. They’re my group of friends as well.
Alex: Yeah, this definitely feels like a group of friends first and a band second.
Sierra: Everyone in the band really inspires me. My confidence has grown so much because of them. I didn’t really make music before college, and they’ve helped me build the confidence to make new songs.
Matt: We build off of each other really well musically. We make a really good team and it’s fun to see how our brains meld with music.
Alex: I always say we got really lucky because our approaches to music are really different but for some reason it works.