Independently Owned, Locally Grown, Community Loved
BY GEORGIA MCDONALD
Welcome back to the musical hot seat. This week I sat down with local favourite Aaron “Azza” Saxon, who first found his way to the Whitsundays at the beginning of the millennium, when Charlie’s Round the Bend was the place to be. More than two decades later, Aaron is still doing what he loves – playing and creating music.
Music has always been a part of Aaron’s life. His parents had a huge vinyl collection, and Aaron grew up listening to their records, discovering rhythm and blues, jazz and other genres from a young age. His grandmother was a piano player, and her brother was a drummer in a band in Auckland, New Zealand.
It was around the age of 15 that Aaron first got into playing guitar. Before long, he knew he wanted to turn music into a career.
At the time, guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, Ian Moss from Cold Chisel, and the Brewster brothers from The Angels caught his attention and began to inspire Aaron’s own sound.
The next step? Become employable.
“I knew that I should be practising many different genres in order to be employable,” Aaron says.
What started with rock soon expanded into jazz and blues, before his time living in New Zealand brought a strong reggae influence.
Following his first stint in the Whitsundays, Aaron returned to New Zealand for ten years before deciding to come back to Australia. He reached out to a number of connections, but it was familiar local face and old friend Trevor Green who came through first, with “Here’s 20 gigs. Just get over here.”
That’s when the Whitsundays became Aaron’s home. But being a working musician is about much more than just showing up for a few hours on stage.
“You’ve got to put in a lot of work just to be able to get to be a performing musician and get paid for it,” Aaron says.
“It takes preparation, and time practising your craft to get to that point.”
Aaron’s advice to anyone starting out is not to get caught up in reaching a finish line and to enjoy the process.
“You can kind of get weighed down if you think you want to learn everything, or that there’s a finishing point. You’re going to get to that point, and you’re going to know everything about music. It’s never ever going to be like that.”
Aaron’s own career is still evolving, from his Airlie Beach gigs and regular performances with the 25-piece Melbourne Ska Orchestra and calypso reggae group Bustamento.
He is also part of The Cosmics, a three-piece funk group that recently recorded a 12-song album, releasing a new single each month.
Closer to home, Aaron helps keep the local music scene moving through the Sunday Musicians’ Jam at Paradiso. What started with just an acoustic guitar and a microphone has grown into a regular gathering, with five or six musicians now often sharing the stage.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Aaron laughs. “We just literally make things up on the spot.”
Aaron’s Song Recommendation For This Week:
Ladybug – The Cosmics
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