“Everyone at school knew I made music, and I totally got made fun of for it. I got made fun of for it all the time.” 347aidan admits to me. Now, the striking 18 year-old artist is becoming a face of the future, leading a new wave of youthful music and showing people that they can be whoever they want, no matter who says otherwise. Succeeding through his passion of experimentation, he has proven he is here to stay, and after being added to the list of ten fastest growing artists on Spotify in 2021, all we can say is… who’s laughing now?
To Aidan, 347 means peace lives forever. When he was younger, his favourite number was 34, and it is a number he has carried close to him his entire life. He’s not quite sure when, but when he was thirteen or fourteen he started seeing the number 347 everywhere. His mum suggested he search up what the meaning behind the number is. “It means peace that comes with time, and I thought that was super, super cool, but I can't be called ‘Peacethatcomeswithtimeadian’... it’s a bit of a mouthful! So I shortened it to 347, and the meaning for me is peace lives forever - I make music, it brings me peace and it’s going to live on forever, for me and for the people who listen to it.” 347aidan began making music when he was about five years old after his sister introduced him to piano lessons… which he hated. “They were my least favourite thing in the world… I was just this little kid who was not with it, so I quit piano lessons.” he laughs. He was reintroduced to music when his mum bought him a microphone, he starts to smirk when he mentions it, saying it wasn't the greatest microphone, but I guess it did the trick. By the time Aidan had reached thirteen or fourteen, he knew that making music was all he wanted to do for the rest of his life. That moment was a great one. He begins describing how when you’re in a room full of adults asking what you want to do with your life, and you’re not quite sure… you feel bad, you feel a weight of uncertainty, you just don’t know. “Once you do know that answer, and the answer is music then… it's even worse” he continues, “all these adult’s are asking you what you want to do and you say, oh I want to be a big musician! They’re like… ohh.. okay, sure!”
When I first heard the name 347aidan was when he collaborated with Kenny Beats for their off kilter single ‘IDWK’. That was the first music session he had done with another person, he admits to me he was kind of terrified. Kenny showed him the beat, and he instantly thought it was awesome, zoning in and entering his own world, he started writing the music and gradually became more and more comfortable. “I learned that I can be comfortable in a room with another person, that was a big thing for me. Even when I was younger, I wouldn’t record music in my house unless everybody in my entire house was gone. While recording with him I told myself, I can be comfortable, someone else is in the room and it’s okay, don’t be anxious, I have a cool voice, and nobody is judging. That was a good thing for me.” This positive reinforcement, staying in control of your emotions is maybe part of what drives Aidan to make music. While his passion for exploring new terrain in music sees him excel for a young artist, it is his compassion for the people around him that really lets us fall in love with 347aidan on a deeper level. “Right now, in the present day I want to show people that they can be or do whatever they want, no matter who judges them or tells them otherwise.” he pauses, questioning what he’ll want his mark to be in one hundred years. “Maybe I just want people to smile every time they put on my song, or not even to smile, but to just be able to feel something.” He wants people to put on headphones, listen to his music and be able to feel real emotions - helping them understand themselves better along the way.
347aidan’s writing is honest, coming from a youthful perspective of life, leading to an incredibly mature and exploratory new EP ‘CHASING HARMONY’. Honouring the life of his lost friend Harmony, he has created a project that encapsulates the emotions he has been searching for since she passed, admitting that this is the closest he has come to that feeling again. Creating the project in his parent’s basement, the same room he was in when he found out about her passing, he was almost trying to turn his mind back in time. “I wanted to re-experience the pain that I had felt when my friend had passed and put it into these songs.” Like the EP’s cover art suggests, this was a puzzle of a project to assemble. “I think for me everything’s kind of like a puzzle. Pieces are scattered all over the place and I have to put them together to even understand how to feel about things.” he tells me. “The EP was totally a puzzle in the way where every song is a different piece, I wanted people to feel like they had to listen to the EP front to back to understand the puzzle and the story. For some of this it was like going back in time and grabbing a puzzle piece from four years ago, and putting it in my current puzzle I have with the current pieces.” Going back was the most difficult part of the project, the hardest puzzle pieces to reach. At the time of making the music, Aidan had been at a point where he was okay with everything, he was moving on with his life. So to go back in time to try and reach feelings from a much darker time felt like he was setting himself back. “I had just surpassed all of this depression, let’s dive back into it! That was hard because I kind of felt like I was poisoning myself at times. I think it was worth it in the end, it helped tell the story more naturally.”
Like the EP’s cover art suggests, this was a puzzle of a project to assemble. “I think for me everything’s kind of like a puzzle. Pieces are scattered all over the place and I have to put them together to even understand how to feel about things.” he tells me. “The EP was totally a puzzle in the way where every song is a different piece, I wanted people to feel like they had to listen to the EP front to back to understand the puzzle and the story. For some of this it was like going back in time and grabbing a puzzle piece from four years ago, and putting it in my current puzzle I have with the current pieces.” Going back was the most difficult part of the project, the hardest puzzle pieces to reach. At the time of making the music, Aidan had been at a point where he was okay with everything, he was moving on with his life. So to go back in time to try and reach feelings from a much darker time felt like he was setting himself back. “I had just surpassed all of this depression, let’s dive back into it! That was hard because I kind of felt like I was poisoning myself at times. I think it was worth it in the end, it helped tell the story more naturally.”
For Aiden right now, making something that sounds new is an essential element to his music. He admits that before he would say the most important part would be making something that sounded cool to him, but now he feels like he’s done that so many times. “Now, every time I pick up a microphone, whether it’s the flow or the production or whatever it is, I want to leave the song knowing that it’s like no other song I’ve made, and hopefully no other song anyone in the world has made. I’m content with it because of that.’ he reinforces, reminding me that his explorative and unique brain has become his superpower. Not only is he paving his own sonic path through the hustle and bustle of the music industry - the young artist's youthful perspective aids his ability to help his listeners feel real emotions, connecting himself with fans on a whole new level. His mission is to change the world for the better, and we believe he will.
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