A few piano chords, a few strums of strings, and snippets of stories that Simon Buret notes in his notebooks. Simple, instinctive, AaRon is a little tune you keep in your head. “We sing about the emotions of everyday life. You come out of a movie, you have things to say, you write them down. Our lyrics tell stories we’ve lived,” explains Olivier Coursier, the pianist and guitarist. He’s 30 years old, Simon 26. They are from Versailles and met at a mutual friend’s house. A musical love at first sight. That’s where the harmony of the duo was born. The harmony between the two friends and their universe, between their melodies and their presence. Two dark-haired heads, four big black eyes, two warm voices, and a lot of melancholy. The duo likes to ride imaginary worlds, as highlighted by the AaRON acronym: Artificial Animals Riding On Neverland. Why this name? “Why not! It evokes the part of dreams we lose when growing up. We tend to forget the imaginary over time. There’s reality, work, taxes, but we must know how to keep this part of dreams, which is important for living.”
Without pretension and without complex, these independent artists wander somewhere between nostalgia and hope, between grace and broken loves. Simon studied at the Beaux Arts, then became a model, and later an actor. Olivier, a former guitarist of Mass Hysteria, was a graphic designer. They started the AaRON adventure in 2004. Simon sings more willingly in English, 11 titles out of 12. The young man, with a French mother and an American father, is bilingual: “Simon thinks in both English and French. It’s always strange when you have two native languages; he sometimes dreams in English. It’s the same in life. We made several tracks in French, but we found there was only one that had a coherent place in the album. It’s primarily music, the language doesn’t really matter.”
A Cinematic Music
Their success began, somewhat by chance, when Simon starred in Philippe Lioret’s “Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas.” The young girl seen (surviving) in the film was initially to be named Elise, but became Lili: the melody of AaRON, U Turn Lili, charmed Philippe Lioret, who made it his film’s soundtrack. A painful story, with notes of hope, for a French film filled with modesty. A year later, when you listen to U Turn Lili, the emotion of the film still clings on. “If the two atmospheres are similar, it’s a coincidence, it worked out well. Our album was written before Simon began filming. Indeed, right from the start, our music has been quite cinematic: we work first on the lyrics, to tell a story, create a setting. Then, the music follows. This is how we create images.”
When you say November 24th, Olivier responds without hesitation “the Olympia.” His first reaction? “It’s scary!” A year ago, the two boys could not even imagine doing a concert. They hold a magical memory and a lot of chills from their first stage. “For the Olympia, we want to do something really special. It’s a mythical venue! Brel, Piaf, and many others have been there. It’s strange to find ourselves there, now.” Their album is gold, and might be double gold by September, with the release of a live album. But what matters most, for Simon and Olivier, are the 20 festival dates of this summer, and the 35 concerts to come: “the goal of a tour for us is really to play in as many places as possible, to meet as many different people.”
The duo has never been to Nice. Maybe it will be an opportunity to visit the city, on December 6th? “Exactly!”
[Official AaRON Website](https://www.aaronwebsite.com/)
[www.myspace.com/aaronrecordings](https://www.myspace.com/aaronrecordings)
