A One Man A Cappella Group From Outer Space

By Jeannette Madden
Contributing Writer

The Twin Cities’ own Heatbox will be heating up The Aquarium Friday night, December 2, with his awesome style of beatboxing, featuring everything from a cappella, Mowtown, to beats faster than you ever thought possible. Born and raised in the Minneapolis area, Heatbox, whose given name is Aaron Heaton, has been performing for eight years and got his start with the Minneapolis’ Root City Band. “I was beat boxing with all my friends,” he said, “back in the day when we were all just hanging out in the garage. I was always probably the best one back then, of all of my friends, so I just kept on doing it with Root City Band.”

Heaton described his live show as a “one man, a cappella, weird, funky, group from outer space, or something like that” and said he progressed to using so many different types of music in his own because he never had a favorite genre, so it’s easy to be open to everything. “I was always just messing around and doing different stuff.” He explained. “When you make weird sounds with your mouth all your songs definitely sound like you so can do all these different sounds and still make it sound like the same sort of…sound. I don’t know, I never really cared to pick one.”

Heaton’s been described as having a positive message, but when asked about it he didn’t seem to be too concerned with having any message at all. “My positive message?” He asked. “I don’t know if I have a positive message. Maybe it’s just that I have a positive vibe, you know? I don’t think I have a message but my vibe is definitely trying to be like ‘Shut up and you know, don’t be terrible and shut your mouth and have some fun. Forget all your problems for just a little while.”

With two albums under his belt, Heaton’s now working on a third. But he has a lot going on that might just delay that album for a bit. “I bought a home recording studio so I’ve been making the demos at my house.” He said. “So, that’s been cool but what’s going on is I’m in this other group called ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me Now’, which is four tap dancers, I beatbox, and there’s a full band, a lot of the guys from the Root City Band. They won a couple of Sage Awards for the best dance show and they were the best dance show in the City Pages so we’re trying to go off Broadway next October. Heatbox has been kind of slowed down by this whole crazy kind of vaudeville show that I’m in with all my friends. If the off Broadway thing takes off I’ll be living in New York and working on the album there. If it totally tanks then I’ll be right back in Minnesota really going strong with Heatbox after that so we’ll see how it goes.”

Heaton is also involved in a kind of a late night comedy show he calls “G’Night Jam” (http://www.gnightjam.com) where he’s “sort of like Conan O’Brian” and his buddy is “sort of like Andy Richter” and they have a set that looks like a late night talk show. The show, which they do every six weeks at Minneapolis’ Bunker’s Music Bar & Grill, features musical guests, video skits and prizes.

You can hear about where Heatbox has played and more about his positive message by listening to the podcast of this interview!

Check out Heatbox’s music here: http://bit.ly/tgTZFD

Get more info on Heatbox here: http://bit.ly/sCQSS4

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IF YOU GO:

WHO: Heatbox
WHEN: Tuesday, December 6
WHERE: The Aquarium 9:00 pm show
INFO: 21+ $10 & $12 Tickets on sale at Mellow Mood