Making Music Without a Safety Net (Aaron Mitchell of An Awful Mess)
Aaron Mitchell of An Awful Mess shares the journey from his first band to building a new project, surviving lineup changes, creating Desert Grey Music Festival, and releasing their upcoming album Better Off Without You.
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Transcript:
Mike: Hey Aaron, how are you?
Aaron: Good, how are you doing?
Mike: I’m doing pretty good, thanks. Thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. It’s so funny because our paths have crossed so many times over the years, and this is your first time on the Creatives Prevail podcast. I think it’s been far too long, but it’s for a very good reason, which we’ll get into a little bit later.
It’s funny because I’ve known you now through two different band projects, both Starcross and An Awful Mess. But were you in any projects even before Starcross, or was Starcross really your first band that you were in?
Aaron: Starcross was actually the evolution of this acoustic thing called Strife and Scotty. At the time, I was really into Final Fantasy, and it was just me and my other singer from An Awful Mess, who was the original singer for Starcross. We recorded a bunch of acoustic stuff, played some house shows in 2008, and then booked our first venue show in 2009.
At the end of the year, I actually lied to a promoter and said that we usually played with a full band because we had one or two songs recorded with a full-band sound, but it was just the two of us. We ended up booking a Christmas show at Club Red in 2009 as Starcross, which was a name I had been kicking around because I was reading a lot of William Shakespeare and listening to My Chemical Romance. In “Our Lady of Sorrows,” they sing “we’ll die like star-crossed lovers,” so I dropped the “-ed” and just made it Starcross. I thought it was cool at the time.
We grabbed a few more people, played the show, had fun, and just kind of kept doing it for eight or nine years, from 2009 to 2018.
Mike: That’s a long time for a band, especially since it’s so hard to keep everyone together. What age were you at that point when you began Starcross?
Aaron: That was 2009, so I was 17.
Mike: Seventeen. So, 17 starting a band and making it last that long—that’s impressive. I like to say that when you start a group project like that, especially a band, there are these milestones where people decide whether to keep going.
One is right after high school, because people are either going to college or deciding whether to stay local or move away, which changes everything. Then the next is after college, when people start jobs, get married, or have kids. And then another is when you hit your thirties. It’s always these four-to-five-year blocks where you reassess your life and decide if you want to keep doing it.
To go through a couple of major life phases and still keep a project together is a big accomplishment. That’s not easy to do.
Aaron: I think I was probably the most consistent member of that band. There were people who came and went, and some even came back multiple times. Our now former lead guitarist Ruben was in and out of the band a few times. Our other singer—who was the original vocalist of Starcross—was in for a good chunk at the beginning, then left, and I took over lead vocals.
Bass players were in and out as well. Our longest-standing bass player was Kenneth Mustafa, who is now our guitarist and the original drummer of An Awful Mess. Kenneth was primarily a drummer and hadn’t really played bass, but he could play guitar, so I had him play bass. Later, he switched to guitar.
When we started An Awful Mess, we brought some people over from the Starcross days. We had Ruben as our lead guitarist, me and Ruben trading off between rhythm guitar and vocals, and Kenneth as our drummer. We also planned to bring in our last bass player from Starcross, Josh Morris, but life happened and he couldn’t continue.
We recruited Troy Sanchez from The Saving Point as our bassist, and his drummer, Nate Logan, who I had tried to bring into Starcross years earlier. Nate ended up being our fill-in drummer about two years ago, and eventually we convinced him to stay permanently.
Now it’s like half Starcross, half The Saving Point. It’s a really good group of guys. We’ve had a lot of conversations about what we want to do with the band, and we want to do everything we can to see if we can take this all the way.
In the Starcross days, we played Warped Tour, Rock Party Music Festival twice in Long Beach, and a really fun festival called Rock the Boat on the Queen Mary with Get Scared and The Word Alive. It was super hot and humid with all those bodies on the Queen Mary, which doesn’t have the best airflow, but it was a great time.
Mike: That’s awesome. I was amazed how much you accomplished with Starcross. But I’m curious—why start a new project instead of continuing where you left off?
Aaron: It felt like the time had come for a new brand. Starcross was about teenage angst. It was a different time in all of our lives, and it was fun, but things had changed. By the end, the band was plateauing, and it started to affect my mental health. We took a hiatus and talked about doing a “Starcross 2.0” rollout, but it didn’t feel right.
Ruben and I started working on music again—re-recording some of the old Strife and Scotty songs and early Starcross songs. Starcross had ended as a single-lead-vocal project, but Ruben and I were returning to dual vocals, which was how Starcross started. It didn’t feel right to reboot the old project, so we started demoing new material.
We brought in some of the other guys and decided to officially end Starcross and start a new chapter. In 2018 we did the final Starcross show, then in 2019 we did a one-off reunion for Desert Grey Music Festival after people kept asking for us to play.
By 2020 we launched An Awful Mess with a permanent lineup. We released a song in January, announced our first show in March, and had a couple hundred people show up at Club Red (rest in peace). Then COVID happened, and everything got put on hold.
Mike: That must have been really challenging—coming off of launching the project, releasing a single, and then the pandemic hit. For a new band, that can sometimes be the end right there. How did you push through and keep the project alive?
Aaron: It was definitely a challenge. We had about 20 to 30 songs written going into An Awful Mess, so there was plenty of material in various stages. We just kept working on music. We were planning to put out a record that year, but with everything going on, we decided to release singles instead.
We put out “God Damn Perfect” and “What If I,” and also did a cover of “There’s No ‘I’ in Team” by Taking Back Sunday. I thought it’d be fun to sing a song about best friends with my best friends—even if it’s an ironic one.
We packaged those singles into a self-titled EP with our splatter T-shirt design as the cover. Then we kept working on the full record.
We also decided to have fun with themed releases. We put together two holiday EPs—An Awful Halloween and An Awful Christmas.
On An Awful Halloween, we covered “It’s Terror Time Again” from Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island—my wife actually pushed me to do that one. We also covered “Brains” by Aurelio Voltaire from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and wrote an original called “Get Out.”
For An Awful Christmas, we covered “Alone This Holiday” by The Used, “Where Are You Christmas” by Faith Hill from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and wrote an original called “Wishlist.”
We also released a heavier EP called Burning Down. That one had a reworked Starcross song called “Find A Way Home,” a collaboration with Drew from Nun to No One called “L’appel du Vide” (“call of the void”), and “Matchmaker,” which is probably our heaviest track. Ruben wrote that one entirely in his head before ever picking up a guitar.
The title track, “Burning Down,” was more in the style of Get Scared, Silverstein, and A Day to Remember, and featured Logan from After the Calm.
Mike: That’s awesome. I love how you incorporated humor and insider references into your branding too—like naming everything “An Awful…” to match the band name.
Aaron: Yeah, we leaned into that. We even put our name on a mask and called it “An Awful Mask.” It’s fun, and it fits us.
Mike: Speaking of branding, I noticed you mentioned playing Desert Grey Music Festival. That’s your creation—you built a music festival from scratch. Why start a festival, especially when you weren’t even in a band at that moment?
Aaron: It was originally supposed to just be a show for a band called Those Kinda People. They had an EP out but hadn’t played any shows. I figured I’d book them a gig and then thought, “Let’s add a couple more bands.” Then I thought, “What if we make it a longer show?” and eventually it became an all-day event.
I brought in Avi from Great Joy (he’s now in Tarot Blood) to help brainstorm. I have a husky with a coat color called wolf grey, and when Avi said “Desert Grey” as an idea, it just stuck.
The first year was manageable. Now, this year, we’ve got 29 artists on three stages. I aimed for 28, but I ended up booking one more than planned.
My first show I ever booked was also a festival—I really jumped in headfirst. It was called I Can’t Hear You Fest at the Nile. At the time, I had been playing shows for a while and wanted to try running one myself. I modeled the business side off a local promoter’s approach—minus contracts and minimums—and went for it.
I was 19, had no idea what I was doing, and had a massive anxiety attack during the planning process. That’s also when I started drinking coffee—my friend Forest Waldorf from Sundress and Bite the Hand got me hooked when we met with all the bands at the Lo-Fi Coffee shop (now the Nile Coffee Shop).
Now, years later, Desert Grey is my baby. It’s grown so much, and it’s incredible to see it come together each year.
Mike: That’s amazing. And on top of the festival, you also run Vision Productions and have a recording studio now. Was that originally just for your projects, or were you always planning to support other artists too?
Aaron: I started recording bands around 2014 or 2015. At first it was in my apartment—just basic stuff because I had gotten an interface that came with Cubase. I recorded acoustic tracks for Kenneth and his sister Mackenzie, then did a full-band version of a song for Chris Crawford.
I realized how much I enjoyed the process and started recording for more local bands like American Standards, It’s All Grizzly, and Killed by a Yeti. Eventually, I wanted a dedicated creative space because recording in a bedroom isn’t ideal.
When my sibling and I bought a house, we had a detached garage—20 by 22 feet—that I turned into a full studio. We did everything: framing walls, adding insulation, drywall, electrical, AC, and acoustic treatment. It was a lot of work, but now it’s about 95% done.
The goal was to have a space for my band but also for other artists to come in and create. There’s something amazing about helping someone bring the music in their head into reality.
Mike: Speaking of your own music, you’ve got two new singles coming out with An Awful Mess—one just released as of this recording, “The Way She Leads,” and another coming up called “Fake.” I assume both were recorded in the new studio?
Aaron: Yes, both were recorded there. We originally planned to release the album around August 7th to mark the anniversary of when Ruben and I first started recording together—August 7th, 2007. That’s when we put out our first (joking) song as Strife and Scotty.
But life happened—Kenneth moved back, joined on lead guitar, and we had delays—so we pivoted. The album, Better Off Without You, is now set for release on October 24th, the day before Desert Grey Music Festival.
Between now and then, we’re rolling out singles: “The Way She Leads” first, “Fake” next, and probably one or two more before the full record drops.
Mike: I love how you’re spacing them out. Are you doing anything differently with these releases than before?
Aaron: Back in the Starcross days, we didn’t have a release plan. We’d finish a song, upload it, and let it go live when it went live. With An Awful Mess, we’ve been more intentional.
Whenever we finish a track, we review it as a band, fix anything we need to, and then look at the calendar—finding dates that make sense. For holiday releases, we think about giving playlists time to add them ahead of the season.
For this album, we actually had a strategy meeting in the studio. Nate came in with ideas for the release schedule and even the album art. We collaborated on everything—art, production, rollout. We want to give each single a few weeks to live before the next one comes out.
It keeps the momentum going, gives listeners time to learn the songs before shows, and keeps us visible.
Mike: I call that the “creative trickle”—dropping steady releases to keep people engaged.
Aaron: Exactly. And releasing the whole album at once can overwhelm new listeners. The singles give them an entry point, and for people like me—who still love listening to albums front to back—we’ll have that full record experience too.
Mike: That’s a great balance. And by the time you hit the album release right before Desert Grey, fans will already know a good chunk of the songs.
Aaron: That’s the plan!
Mike: Let’s wrap up with a few fun questions. What was the very first concert you ever went to?
Aaron: *NSYNC. I don’t remember how old I was—probably around the time they released the Celebrity record.
Mike: That’s a good one.
Aaron: I was more of a Backstreet Boys kid, but I loved *NSYNC almost as much.
Mike: Same here. If you had to pick one?
Aaron: I’d go Backstreet Boys, but *NSYNC is still great.
Mike: Do you have a go-to artist or song you’re listening to right now?
Aaron: I’m constantly listening to The Used and Story of the Year. They’ve both put out some really good records recently. Story of the Year’s Tear Me to Pieces is one I’ve been listening to front to back—it has callbacks to their first album Page Avenue.
Mike: If you could give just one piece of advice, what would it be?
Aaron: Persistence. Always be persistent. I’m obnoxiously persistent—almost to a fault. I keep trying even when I hit a wall. That’s what I’ve done with music, recording, everything.
You never know who’s going to be at any given show or who’s on the other side of a screen. If you keep at it, and you enjoy what you’re doing, things will eventually work out—even if it’s just connecting with one person.
Anytime someone comes up after a show and says what a song means to them or hopes we’ll play a certain track next time, that’s immensely gratifying.
If you keep persisting, find the right people to work with, help others, and build relationships, opportunities come back to you. We’ve seen that in the shows we’ve gotten—playing with bands like The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Hawthorne Heights, Icon for Hire, The Funeral Portrait, Mest, The Ataris, Alien Ant Farm.
Mike: I couldn’t agree more. Supporting others without expecting anything in return often circles back in surprising ways.
Aaron, congratulations again on the new release and all that’s coming for An Awful Mess—and of course Desert Grey Music Festival later this year. Best way for people to follow the band?
Aaron: AnAwfulMess.com has all our links—latest releases, contact info, socials. We’ll be updating it with shows too.
Mike: Awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Aaron: Thanks for having me.