Posts tagged Aruna

All devotees of dance music have been enchanted by the vocals of Aruna, who burst into the scene several years ago when she collaborated with The Thrillseekers on a track called “Waiting Here For You.” Since then, she has returned to amazed us repeatedly with George Acosta’s “Falling Backwards,” Double Agents’ “Electrified,” with Ronski Speed on “All The Way,” with DJ Shah on “Now or Never,” and with Myon and Shane 54 on “Helpless.”

But her road to stardom was, like many artistes we come across, accidental in nature. It’s a good thing then that even though Aruna has now achieved international stardom, she continues to emphasize the value of pouring her emotions into every track that features her vocals.

In this exclusive interview with Radio KUL Extra, we uncover the mystery behind the illusive and talented Aruna.

Aruna

Aruna, you’ve been singing for quite some time now, and have crafted some of dance music’s most memorable moments. We have to ask you, how did it all start?
I had been pursuing a career as a pop songwriter/artist for several years, ever since graduating Berklee. And despite working my ass off and enjoying a few small successes here and there, nothing was really igniting. I was losing steam and getting burnt out. At a certain point I knew I had to stop or I’d lose my mind. I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to quit music altogether, but I had no idea how to go about it successfully, and of course I wasn’t getting any younger. It was one of the most unstable, terrifying periods of my life. Right around this time however, three seemingly unrelated things happened almost all at once: I started working at a club in Vegas that was playing a lot of trance, and I found myself slowly falling in love with it. Then Sony’s Acid Planet website sponsored a remix contest featuring one of my pop songs as the remix track. It was the first time I had ever heard my voice married to dance beats, and the results were astonishing. A few months later, the winning mix was discovered on MySpace by manager Stuart Squires (who was managing Jaren and Damae amongst others). He invited me to start collaborating with some trance producers he was working with, and after just a few months, I was approached by Steve Helstrip (aka The Thrillseekers) to write and sing his next single. The rest is history.

Which part of the world are you currently at and have you ever lived anywhere else before?
I’m currently living in Los Angeles, but I grew up in a small suburban town in New Jersey. I also did a brief two-year stint in Miami, as well as seven years on and off in Boston where I went to college.

What attracts you to a song? Are there any type of tunes you feel more inclined to?
First and foremost, the vocal (if there is one). For me, emotion is paramount. I need to believe the singer. If it sounds like he or she isn’t 110% taken by what (s)he’s singing about then I just can’t get into it. Tone of course is really important for me as well. After that, a simple but compelling melody, a touching lyric and a nice set of chord changes that supports that melody and creates tension and releases it in all the right spots. All the rest is gravy in my opinion. I personally prefer female vocals for the most part, as well as tracks that have a very warm, feminine sound to them, even if the drum tracks and basslines underneath them are ferocious. I think a lot of the Anjunabeats releases and most tracks that Above & Beyond support embody this sound quite well.

We just can’t tell if our favorite Aruna tune is “Falling Backwards”, “Waiting Here For You” or “Electrified.” We love them all. Which track, in your opinion, had the most impact on you and fans?
Wow that’s a tough one. Well based off of YouTube comments and MySpace messages, a lot of people seemed particularly moved by the lyric of “Now Or Never”, my track with DJ Shah, which was written about the demise of my seven-year relationship with my last boyfriend. And “All The Way”, my track with Ronski Speed, probably got hammered the hardest in the clubs. But overall, I think still to this day the fan favorite and my most important contribution to date has been “Waiting Here For You”. I guess its become somewhat of a classic, and it was the ball that set everything else in motion. Steve is a phenomenal producer and a dear friend, and I remain forever indebted to him that he was willing to take a chance on me.

Around The World with Aruna is such an amazing video journey. Tell us more about this and when can we expect the next episode?
“Around The World with Aruna”, for you guys that haven’t seen it, is a blogumentary-style video tour diary documenting my travels and live performances around the globe. The debut episode was shot in Vietnam, where I had my first legitimate gigs this past December. Putting that together was truly a labor of love, as anyone who’s followed my tweets on Twitter can attest. As it was my first foray into video, I had to familiarize myself with Final Cut, which took a solid month, then transfer the five hours of footage I shot, convert it all, mark it, make subclips, choose music and piece everything together. Start to finish it took about four months. As far as the artistic direction of it, I drew a lot of inspiration from Above & Beyond’s tour videos. They’re amazingly well shot and edited, very classy and snappy and really entertaining to watch. And just like in their videos, I was aiming to capture a lot of the landscape and culture of the location we were shooting in. On top of this, there’s of course lots of live clips, soundchecks, pre-show interviews, and also some occasional humorous banter between myself & Victor Dinaire who I performed with. He was an awesome travel partner, really really funny guy! No word yet when or where the next one will be, but you can check out the current episode at YouTube.com/ArunaMusic.

What are you currently working on?
I actually have quite a few pots on the burners at the moment. One thing I’m really excited about is my new artist group with Myon & Shane54 called Velvetine. Our debut single “Safe (Wherever You Are)” is featured on the Anjunabeats Volume 7 compilation, and there are tentative plans forming for us to do our first photo shoot together when they come to California at the end of September. I’m also starting to work on my own artist album, which will most likely be released on Anjunabeats sometime next year. And lastly I’ve been working with an amazing vocalist, Taleen, co-writing commercial house tracks. She has more of the big voice that producers in that style are looking for, so I get to let her shine as the artist and do the writing instead. Our first track “Breaking All The Rules” with Marco Petralia was released on Big City Beats’ latest compilation and is #7 in House at Amazon.com Germany.

How does it feel to be hosting the Radio KUL 100 celebration? Clue us in on what you’ll be doing with the show.
After first discovering Radio KUL and all the great singers who’ve hosted it, I felt left out having not been involved. So I started following Simon Lee & Alvin on Twitter, secretly hoping they’d see that and approach me, and I’m happy to say, they did! Its particularly exciting to be hosting such a milestone show for them, it means a lot that they’d trust me with that task and I didn’t wanna let them down. So I invited three of the most talented DJ/artists I know, Boom Jinx, Jaytech and Myon & Shane54, to guest mix for this show and dubbed it an Anjunabeats Special, in honor of the label behind those 3 artists as well as the two tracks I recently signed there and the growing role the label seems to be playing in my life these days. I’ll also be talking about some of my upcoming projects and tracks during the show as well as unveiling a brand-new exclusive mash-up featuring one of my releases from last year.

Well we have to ask, what your love life is looking like, and what do you look for in a partner?
Oh boy, hehe, well THAT’s quite a can of worms. This Wednesday the 19th, as it turns out, marks my 2-year anniversary with my current boyfriend. Both of us are still shocked that we made it this far, as its been quite a bumpy road, certainly WAY more drama than I’m used to, but the two of us are extremely tenacious and so have managed to work most things out. But it’s never easy, particularly in this relationship as he’s significantly younger than I am, and both of us are just so different in almost every possible way. It’s definitely one of those “opposites attract” things. Generally speaking though, as far as what I look for, I’m a total sucker for a pretty face, big blue eyes, dark hair, red lips. Something about that combination drives me insane. I think it’s the contrast of strength and mystery with vulnerability. I also find myself gravitating largely to European guys, even my current beau was born in Holland and my last boyfriend was from Milan. They just seem to have a sensitivity and an aliveness that a lot of American guys lack. And the accents…let’s not even get started on those, hahaha! Creativity is a big turn-on too. Almost all of my past boyfriends have been musicians. I get bored very quickly with someone who’s not passionate about something or up to big games in their life.

Define love in 3 words.
Acceptance. Surrender. Oneness.

How do you get around mind jams when putting lyrics together? We’re sure this has happened before.
Ah yes, many times unfortunately. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that usually get me out of that bind. First and foremost, reading a brilliant lyric or listening to a song that inspires me. A lot of times that will kick start the juices enough to get my mind working in new and different ways. Sometimes I also do stream-of-consciousness writing, picking one object, it can be anything, like ice, milk, or grass for instance, as long as its something you can touch rather than an abstract concept, and diving into it with all senses. This exercise is great for turning off that inner critic, since it’s a timed 10-minute session and you’re not allowed to stop the pen. Lastly, sometimes if I REALLY can’t find a rhyme that makes sense and says what I want then I’ll flip the rhyme pattern from, say, ABAB to ABBA. I did this at the very end of “Now Or Never” and it worked perfectly.

Throughout your journey in music, tell us about something that went terribly wrong, and something that went surprisingly right.
Back in 2004 after recording my debut solo pop album, I decided to implement a radio promotion campaign to get the album’s first single on the R&R CHR charts and hopefully attract enough record label attention doing so to clench a major deal. I ended up spending over $20,000 and while we did manage to chart the song, the few labels that were intrigued quickly lost interest when they realized that there wasn’t much other than that going on. I had spent my entire promotion budget on that one effort and so didn’t have the funds to tour or hire a publicist for press. It was one of the biggest and costliest mistakes I’ve ever made and was probably one of a handful of events that ended up pushing me away from the tiresome pursuit of a pop career. On the other end of the spectrum, however, the first pop co-write I ever did that was expressly written as a pitch for another artist to sing ended up getting recorded and released by Disney’s Hannah Montana on the show’s Season One soundtrack in 2006, and went on to sell over 3 million copies in the US alone. That was definitely the high point of my life thus far, and it set the tone for the sweeping changes in my musical path that were already underway.

And lastly, a quick word to all your fans!
I LOVE YOU GUYS!! Every email, MySpace message and YouTube comment touches me so much. It makes me so grateful to finally have listeners whose lives I’m contributing to in whatever way, that get where I’m coming from, my vision, my voice, my stories and my passion and are moved by it. I can’t wait to start meeting you guys in person in the clubs! :D

Join Aruna as she guesthosts the 100th episode celebration of Radio KUL 100 with Simon Lee and Alvin alongside exclusive guestmixes from Boomjinx, Jaytech, and Myon and Shane 54 and guest appearances from Aeriah, Alicia Goh, Danny Oh, Gracie, Fono, Hadley, Jason Creek, Jennifer Rene, Mark Eteson, Nadia Ali, Jeremy Carr, Tom Geiger, Trance Hub, and Zara Taylor.

Airs Friday, 21st August 2009 at http://www.simonleeandalvin.com/ and http://www.mugasha.com/. More info can be found on Facebook here.

Aruna’s Mugasha Launch Intro – Radio Kul 100th from Mugasha.com on Vimeo.

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