Bright Lights, Big City for Aidan Pohl

Arts Alive - Dec. 2018/Jan. 2019

Aidan Pohl is a young singer/songwriter/musician from a talented family who grabs every opportunity to perform. He’s fresh out of the recording studio and is shopping around his new demo, hoping to make music his career. 
- story by Lisa Monti, photos by Ann Madden

Singer/songwriter Aidan Pohl’s wish for the new year is to live in a big city and make a living with his music. He’s just recorded some of his songs in an Ocean Springs studio and is trying to push the demos to attract attention that might get him closer to his goals. 
 
In the meantime, the 20-year-old is living in Bay St. Louis, playing guitar, writing songs and enveloping himself in music.

​“If I’m not watching interviews of my favorite artists or listening to their music, I’m probably at the piano or playing guitar and hitting random notes until something sounds cools,” he says.

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Playing music isn’t new to Aidan - he’s being doing since he was a toddler when Santa brought him a tiny piano one year and a small drum set the next. He also took violin lessons at a young age and took piano lessons in elementary school, earning the highest marks in competitions. In addition to  piano, he plays the ukulele and guitar.
 
You may have seen him with The Pohl Family band, playing in Old Town on Second Saturday. It features all of his siblings - Aubrey, Marion and Sadie - and dad, Richard.  Their set list leans heavily toward bluegrass.

​Aidan has also been a member of the WINGS Performing Arts Group at Lynn Meadows Discovery Center. He entered the Bay High talent show every year and was named Most Talented his senior year. On a recent trip to New York for a Broadway audition, he drew a crowd at Grand Central Station while playing for a music promoter. ​

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He's performed at the Mockingbird Cafe and other local and nearby venues and events. Recently he has been playing with the RENEW praise band at Main Street Methodist. 
 
Songwriting, though, is something Aidan just started doing when he was attending college in New Mexico and found “an amazing music scene there.” The environment inspired him to write his own songs.

“I think moving away to New Mexico just had a big effect on me and part of it was feeling lot of things I never felt before that pushed me over the edge to write.”

​In October he competed in Gulf Coast Idol, singing an original song. Judges compared him to Harry Chapin and other heavyweights and called his storytelling impeccable. He was voted a Fan Favorite winner with the second highest vote count. 
 
Aidan finds the makings of songs just about everywhere. When he worked as a waiter at the Buttercup, he would use his iPhone to save ideas he got from his observations and interactions with customers. There were “endless notes of so many things” that lead him to write in lyrics.

His conversational lyrics have a “soft rock-ish” sound that falls somewhere between John Mayer’s songs and pop punk rock artists. 

His favorite artist is Ed Sheeran, who’s singing/songwriting talents and performance skills he admires.
 
When Aidan resumes his studies in the spring at the University of Memphis, he’ll major in musical theater. And now that he’s got some songs recorded, he’s hoping to draw some attention in the professional music world so he can record more music with a band of his own and shoot video versions.

​“I’m really ready to move to a city and play music on the street or wherever I can,” he says. ​