If you don’t know what “solo jamtronica” or “experimental butt funk” is, you probably still won’t after you’ve seen a performance by Aaron “Aarodynamics” Malander. It’s not quite dub – not really rap – maybe a little electronic – what is it? It’s just what Aarodynamics would like to call a “sexy adventure.”
His sets are heavily improvised alongside a motley of instruments that crowd the stage, including a melodica, a bass guitar, an electric guitar, a loop pedal, and a Mac computer with a vocoder to sound like Daft Punk when he isn’t beatboxing and rapping. Songs range from covers of classics like “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz and the Space Jam theme song to originals with lyrics about dolla bills or a girl’s booty.
You can sometimes catch him playing at Epicure Café in Fairfax, VA when he isn’t touring across the mid-Atlantic with bands like The Mantras, Zoogma, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, and Moogatu.
Q: How and why did you get started as a musician?
Aarodynamics: I got started as a musician I guess around age ... I want to say 8 or 9. Whenever we played the recorders in elementary school. But I played viola and tried to play sax, but it hurt my braces, so I took up guitar in 5th grade. I think it was a decent choice. My tastes have dabbled a lot.
Q: You use a wide variety of instruments and have a really unique and quirky presence on stage. How would you describe your style of music?
Aarodynamics: It's all styles really. Well, no. That's not true. Maybe, improvised funktronihop? I am working on incorporating more styles of music and stuff.
Q: The name of your website is GetSlutty.com, and in the bio of your Facebook page, it says, "Your butt isn't safe. Lock up your mothers, daughters, sisters, and secure all your valuables, because Aarodynamics is coming to town." Where did you get such an interesting kind of online/stage personality like this?
Aarodynamics: Because your butt ISN'T safe, Michelle. No one's is. And we're just warning people what they're getting themselves into by participating in the jams.
Q: What are your hopes for the future as a musician?
Aarodynamics: Continuing to tour, grow the brand, make awesome new music, invest in some new technologies that allow me to get better sound quality and routing features. I just added a drummer, PJ Lemmon, to my permanent lineup. It has freed up a considerable amount of room for me to get more melodic than my solo set.
Q: How do you feel about how your music may seem disrespectful to women? Have you heard any feedback from female fans on how they feel?
Aarodynamics: Anyone can get slutty. A guitarist onstage performing an extravagant solo is getting slutty. A basketball player juking two dudes to the bottom of the key is getting slutty. A pastry chef creating a masterpiece of chocolate and dough is getting slutty. My music requires a certain level of maturity to fully enjoy. Obviously not everyone is comfortable with that level of satire, and some people find it entertaining for the wrong reasons. But in the same vein as Stephen Colbert, sometimes knowing you're wrong is more fun than being right. My female fans actually all really like the whole thing. It's entertaining and unexpected, and — at least to a certain crowd — empowering. This kind of music has been mainstream since I was born. They played “Get Low” at my 7th grade dances. Pop music today objectifies women and men constantly with less and less subtle innuendo, whereas my sluttery is well-documented and makes no attempt to conceal the fact that I am terrible, and that's why people love me.
To learn more about Aarodynamics, visit his website at http://getslutty.com/. Find out about his future tour dates at Reverbnation. You can also follow him on Facebook, Youtube, SoundCloud, Instagram, and Twitter.
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