For singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Aaron Troyer, making music in rural Ohio runs deep in his blood.
Hailing from New Philadelphia, Troyer toured the United States with his indie band Come Wind from 2009 to around 2017.
After disbanding, Troyer began writing and recording his own original music as a solo artist under the moniker the Blue Winter.
In late 2022, he opened his own studio to help other musicians in his rural community record their songs.
"[Music] still feels exciting. I guess my big hope would be that people can see that and want to do that themselves.”Aaron Troyer
Red Bird Studio is in an apartment attached to Off The Wall, a music store where Troyer also teaches lessons.
So far he’s recorded projects for up-and-coming area musicians like Megan Bouman, who performs as Wreck Like Me, and he is looking to book more clients from his rural community and beyond this year.
In addition to crafting his own music and recording other artists, Troyer’s main source of income comes from teaching music lessons.
“I'm mostly just wildly excited that 2023 is looking like a year that I'll get to make, and help other people make, a lot of new music,” Troyer said.
Shifting from touring bandmate to solo artist
Music is the nucleus of Troyer’s family. His father owns a music shop in Sugarcreek in Tuscarawas County, where Troyer spent most of his childhood learning and practicing guitar.
“It wasn't a thing my parents forced me to do or anything,” Troyer said. “It was just… I remember asking to be able to do that. You know, it was like not a big deal for me to practice four hours a day or something like that.”
In his college-age years, Troyer teamed up with four of his musician friends and formed Come Wind.
The quintet recorded in Nashville and Atlanta and toured around the country.
“We were very lucky, and we were all really good friends, so we would practice like all the time,” he said. “And then when it came time to play, we would play anywhere.”
The band called it quits after a successful run as members started settling down and establishing their roots elsewhere.
“It reached a certain point where we were all married, and I don't think anybody had kids yet, but it was, you know, the thought of, ‘Well, we’ll probably have kids’…and we kind of ended that like five years ago,” Troyer said.
Now Troyer makes folk music that leans on his indie-rock background as the Blue Winter.
He partnered with Come Wind drummer Benjamin Roth to flesh out and produce many of the songs, which incorporate influences from the singer-songwriters and folk artists Troyer listens to.
There are no tours or big promotion planned for Troyer’s solo work.
“When I was in bands, my absolute least favorite thing was the marketing stuff and the business side of stuff,” he said. “The older I get, I want to do it only if this is a really exciting thing to me.”
The first the Blue Winter album, “Volume One,” was released in 2019, followed by “Volume Two,” which came out in 2022.
Troyer plans to release new singles in February, with more in the works throughout 2023.
Uplifting musicians in rural Ohio
Aside from working on his own solo material, Troyer has a goal of supporting musicians in the Dover-New Philadelphia area with his recording studio and by teaching music lessons to the community.
He said Red Bird Studio is a place to help other solo artists in his community create a “full-band sound.”
There are many artists in the area, but because the rural region doesn’t have larger outlets to perform in, Troyer said people tend to venture to more urban Northeast Ohio cities to play or gain exposure.
“When I was growing up, the thing was just like, you always start a band. Most people would start a band here, but a lot of times they're going to play more in Kent and Akron because there's way more venues,” he said.
While teaching guitar lessons in his father’s music store in Sugarcreek, Troyer said half of the teachers working there were from Dover.
“I know a lot of people my age and older who are really invested in making this area a place that people love to be here... it sounds so cheesy, but I think anything is possible.”Aaron Troyer
His father didn’t love the retail part of the music store as much as the lessons and interaction with other artists.
Troyer said there are plenty of musicians in the area who are seeking a place to join together to collaborate or record without venturing out to Akron, Cleveland or another city.
“For the last 10 years or whatever, I've been teaching lessons, and that means just human interaction, talking to people, getting to know people,” he said. “And there's some really good people here.”
Opening his own recording studio
Around the time Troyer began the Blue Winter project, he would help some local artists record their music in his basement.
“It got to the point of I would have kind of borderline strangers, like friend-of-a-friend who would come, and then they'd come into my house,” he said. “You know, I have a wife and a now three-year-old son. There's something about that that, to me, feels a little weird.”
Recognizing a need for a separate studio space, he discovered Off The Wall had an apartment open up in its historic downtown New Philadelphia location.
Troyer began renting the space and moved his recording equipment in about a year ago.
He said the area’s growing art scene is inspiring, and he hopes there will be a renaissance in the Dover-New Philadelphia area.
“I know a lot of people my age and older who are really invested in making this area a place that people love to be here,” Troyer said. “I think when you have people like that… it sounds so cheesy, but I think anything is possible.”
He hopes to impact others in his rural community by teaching and recording and inspiring them to continue creating their own songs.
Troyer said that although he’s performed, taught and written music for more than 20 years, it still feels fresh.
“It still feels exciting,” he said. “I guess my big hope would be that people can see that and want to do that themselves.”
