Percy Hill’s Aaron Katz records his new solo CD in his living room
Aaron Katz flashes a warm smile and gestures with a quick handshake as I enter the room.

“It’s real good to see you,” he says with a wide grin. “We’re doing some bass tracking right now.”

We’re not at some $1,000 a day recording studio. Instead, Katz has decided to set up shop in the comfortable confines of his own Dover living room. It’s a luxury that would have been harder to enjoy when Katz joined Percy Hill in 1997, but recording technology has never been more accessible and portable.

“Records are being made up here every day,” Katz says while taking a quick glance around at the domestic studio set up, trying not to hog the spotlight, which is cause for an introduction to the folks with whom he’s collaborating.

There’s a laptop computer in the corner on a table in front of a heavy furniture-mover’s type blanket tacked to the wall as makeshift acoustical treatment. Wires snake across the hardwood floor in every direction, and TV tables support a keyboard and some other musical doodads.

Along for the ride are his bandmates, young, up-and-coming musicians Jeff Bucci, who’s sitting wide eyed yet competent on the bass, hoping he doesn’t screw up the next verse, and Callie Lipton, who sings along while seated in a chair. Sound engineer and guitarist Mark Goodell busily mans the mixing board, tactfully telling Katz what sounds good and what needs work without stepping on any toes—after all, he’s only 20, though experienced enough to have worked for NBC at the Olympic games in Sydney.

“I didn’t hear any mistakes,” says Katz after a take of one of the new cuts, “Birth by Fire.”

“There was one,” Bucci says staring at the floor, momentarily deflated.

“Well, then, you get hit with the ruler,” Katz says, laughing.

It’s the laugh that gets everything and everyone back on track. Katz may be an accomplished musician, but he’s fully aware that mistakes happen, and it’s the fun that really makes music special.

“This is my musical family,” Katz says, spreading his arms to encompass those in the room. “It has been a real blast to work with these guys. We’ve been working since this past Tuesday (Aug. 8), and we’ll be recording through the middle of next week.”

Katz sits with an acoustic six-string in hand, awaiting a chorus that showcases his ability to create great harmonic vocals, yet never stops moving as his body reacts to the music. While Bucci stares straight ahead, working hard to track the right notes, Katz’s head bobs and weaves as if in a slalom, and as he sings his face contorts into many different emotional expressions, which help shape the song.  The veins bulge out of his neck, and his feet tap furiously on the hardwood floor in unison with Bucci’s. You wonder how he can sing so well through the smile that stretches the width of his face. He’s into it. He’s excited to be playing music with a young group of kids, who are in turn excited to have been given this opportunity to jam and record with an established musician.

“I’m inspired to write and create music because it makes me feel more alive, whole and connected to my spirit and to other people,” Katz says when they take a break. “It’s of great importance (to me) to put as much positive energy and beauty back out into the world so that more people are motivated and inspired to do the same.”

Most of us know Katz as the drummer from Percy Hill, a band he’s been in since he was asked to join in 1997. But he started showing up on the scene with a horn-driven funk band called Vitamin C back in 1995 while at the University of New Hampshire. When Percy goes on hiatus, he dwells on record production (he produced Lipton’s 2006 release “Solid Ground”) and on his own solo career. In 2001 he released his first solo CD, “Simplest Warrior,” a lovely ambient rock record. The new material is a bit rawer than the Percy Hill material or “Warrior.” It’s edgier. With Percy Hill you expect the jamming and the funk element that gets the crowd moving, the oft-referenced Steely Dan influence. But with Katz’ solo work, you hear a man who is very conscious of writing a good melody, a catchy hook, and lyrics it takes a moment to catch up with. It’s sparse and exposed. The songs and the songwriter are in the spotlight here.

It’s fun to listen to Katz, Bucci and Lipton (singing backing harmonies) tracking their parts live while hearing pre-recorded tracks roll out of the speakers that Katz created using Garage Band on his laptop computer. There are random digitized sounds coming out where different things will come in to play and be tracked live.

“Imagine distorted guitar… here,” Katz says mid-verse. “And… here,” just slightly down the line.

And then there’s the unexpected. A hideous, lo-fi gaming type solo shows up towards the end of “Awaken.”

“God, that’s simply awful,” Goodell says with an expression on his face that looks as if he’s just had a tug of sour milk. “We need to fix that immediately.” At which point he picks up his own acoustic and bangs out an intricate, moving blues solo.

“Mark’s the man,” Lipton says as Goodell rips away. Goodell claims he’s been playing guitar since the age of 5.

By creating such stripped-down music in the comfort of his own home, Katz leaves himself open to the distractions of the outside world.

“Oh, that train’s right on key,” he jokes as a train rolls past his apartment and toots its horn every two seconds.
Katz claims that this is the first time in his musical journey that he’s openly collaborated with another writer to co-write some of the tunes. He and Bucci worked at it, and ultimately, it was a successful endeavor.

“It wasn’t as hard as you would think,” Bucci says. “We’d toss ideas back and forth, fill gaps, and by the end of the day, we’d have something.”

“I like to call it Katz-Bucci Soup,” Katz says, chuckling.

“Silence is music undisturbed,” is one of the clever lyrics Katz sings on “Awaken” in his slightly gravelly, Peter Gabriel-esque voice.  He’s got a way of making a musical analogy out of everything, even nothingness. In theory, this line could be accurate. The ability of listeners to take a scene that’s painted in words, such as the aforementioned quote, and play it out in their own minds and plug it into their own lives, is what makes Katz’s writing so accessible and inspiring.

Katz hopes to have his new record out by the winter or early spring. He’s got two titles in mind, “Birth by Fire” or “History Sends Warning.” Several tracks are already recorded, at least in a preliminary stage, on his laptop, and from what was heard in this one session, fans will be thrilled.

“I am making this new album after just turning 30 this (past) June. Looking back I see all the changes I’ve experienced—bands, friends, locations, relationships. They’ve all gone through the cycles of birth, decay and death. Through it all music has been with me as a traveling companion, always by my side unconditionally. These songs are the pictures and prayers captured along the way.”