Aron Van Alstine grew up playing music in Minneapolis. As a kid, his uncle came by every week wearing a tuxedo, a toupee, and extra cologne to teach Aron the likes of Debussy, Gershwin, and Joplin on the piano. He picked up the guitar at a party in the 8^th grade and spent hours rehearsing next to a space heater in the garage through Minnesota winters. In high school Aron was a band nerd. He continued studying music in college without any intentions of making it a career.

Aron joined the Peace Corps in 2000. He arrived at a remote town in the Bolivian Andes in the midst of a town festival. He was immediately recruited to perform at a talent show. Befriended by local musicians, he developed his voice singing traditional songs at parties around town. He remembers hiking out into the hills with his friends and his guitar at dawn to gather the herd for ambrosia: vodka, sugar, cinnamon, and milk straight from the cow.

His travels led him to Ojai, California where he was recruited to play bass in a surf rock band. He soon found himself performing reggae, R&B, jazz, and classical music on the bass, guitar, piano, and voice. He began teaching music lessons and studying music education. In 2003 he joined the Oak Grove School where he remains a music teacher today.

His first album “Here Comes a Train” (2010) rose from the ashes of a burnt-out R&B band. It was an eclectic collection of songs performed by a diverse group of musicians from Black Uhuru, the Roger Miller band, and other groups. In 2011 he began working with a regular rhythm section, The Guildsmen. They brought elements of progressive rock and punk into the releases “Still Life” (2011) and “A Kind of Silence” (2012.)

Aron balances the demands of an independent artist with those of a husband, father, teacher, and surfer. He took a musical hiatus following the birth of his son in 2013. The time away from the studio and the stage gave him time to reflect on his purpose and his sound. He’s back with a new album called “The Revenge of Rock’n’Roll.” He calls it “a wild party for moody introverts.” He’s performing regularly in the Los Angeles area in support of this new release.