Aaron Rhodes of hardcore band Burning Bush on the two-way street of music journalism’s influence

Burning Bush. // Photo Courtesy of G Spence

The new demo from Kansas City hardcore band Burning Bush has already sold out its first pressing of 100 copies from Ohio’s Delayed Gratification Records. It’s an impressive achievement for a band that hasn’t even been playing shows for a full year.

“It’s funny because I figured out that the first day we met up to write songs is gonna be exactly one year from the release show,” frontman Aaron Rhodes says. The release show for said demo was last weekend at Howdy with Prevention, Slug, and Stakes Is High, but you can celebrate belatedly when the band closes out Manor Fest’s final showcase on Saturday, June 1, with Flooding and Collidescope at Big Mood Natural Wines.

Given that Rhodes is a longtime local music journalist, known for both his own Shuttlecock publication and past writing here at the Pitch, we asked the lead singer what made him want to start a band after covering music in the city for years.

“Well, I’ve kind of been wanting to specifically start this band for at least four or five years now,” Rhodes says. “I had written lyrics for two of the songs that are on the demo about four years ago and had the ideas for the band name after I wrote the title track.”

Rhodes explains that he made use of a mood board to determine how he wanted the music to sound and what the visuals would capture. It was just a matter of finding the right group of musicians to portray this image, he continues, saying that he needed help to bring all of that to life, considering that he plays no instruments himself.

Half a decade is a bit of a long tail in terms of getting a band up and running, and it’s impressive that Rhodes was willing to wait until guitarist Harrison Hawkins, bassist Daniel Evans, and drummer Ethan Payton came along. The songs came about in a less positive way, however.

“They were just from a kind of an angsty, sad, dark period of my life–One of several at this point,” Rhodes says of the demo’s six tracks. “That’s just how I decided to try and find some catharsis after some personal turmoil and some fallings out.”

Additionally, Rhodes happened to be engaging with and embracing Jewish filmmakers, along with other reference points from Old Testament stories, which also influenced the sound and visuals, on top of his personal experiences.

It’s a well-done mélange of imagery, and the way Burning Bush’s demo begins with “The Golem” makes for a unique perspective for the traditional Jewish story—given that the golem is traditionally portrayed as a figure of vengeance, especially when one looks at it in terms of filmmaking. It’s a great album intro, and certainly a unique way of tackling a traditional hardcore lyrical topic.

“It’s kind of a Frankenstein-type monster within Jewish folklore, and I thought that was a pretty cool way to frame a punk song,” Rhodes says.

After having written about music for well over a decade at this point, we asked Rhodes what thoughts he had about putting his own music out there into the world. He had a unique perspective, explaining that he’d sung in a couple of punk bands when in high school, but hadn’t made any music since then. In another bit of odd kismet, it’s been almost exactly ten years since those bands existed.

“After paying attention so closely to other people’s music, lyrics, and performances, and just overall how that stuff gets presented, it’s funny,” Rhodes says. “I think coming back to doing it now, after engaging in music journalism and criticism for a lot of that time, I think I better understood what I believe makes an engaging, cool, exciting piece of music.”

Once the singer had some personal inspiration and something that he felt like he wanted to say, Rhodes was pretty excited to try it and give it another go. Once he found the trio of musicians required to bring this idea to life, things started happening almost immediately, with a couple of the songs on Burning Bush’s demo written the first day they got together last year.

“After maybe three-ish months of practicing and writing, we played out for the first time,” Rhodes says. “Maybe two or three of the songs were kind of edited and adapted after playing them live, but the more recent ones, we probably had a little bit of momentum and a better idea of how we wanted our music to sound.”

As we wrapped up our conversation, we asked if having this demo in physical form makes it feel more real or valid in any way. Rhodes had this thoughtful answer.

“I can’t speak for the other guys right now—I don’t think that’s something we’ve discussed ourselves—but personally, I think there’s plenty of amazing music on the end of hip hop and more modern experimental stuff that will never be on a vinyl or cassette,” Rhodes says. “But I think people would generally agree that if you care enough to put it into a physical format, clearly, there’s a chance it is something a little more thought out and worthwhile than something that’s just kind of haphazardly thrown onto the internet.”

Burning Bush plays the final showcase of Manor Fest at Big Mood Natural Wines on Saturday, June 1, with Flooding and Collidescope. Details on that show here.