From Shakespeare Scholar to Rock Musician: Aaron Kitch Produces Concept Album

Kitch’s latest musical project is a new departure for him. “True Believer,” available on a range of streaming platforms, is a concept album set around the fictional utopian community of Nazareth, in the Nevada desert. 

Characters include a pair of charismatic preachers (one of whom is obsessed with the other), a recovering alcoholic, an exotic dancer in search of a simpler life, and a queer teenager. The plot features, among other things, a doomed love affair, persecution by federal authorities, and an alien abduction!

Like many artists, Kitch found inspiration during the COVID-19 lockdown, when he composed the songs on the album.

“I wrote the title track, ‘True Believer,’ first,” he said. “It’s about a breakup in a park between a man and a woman who end up getting abducted by aliens at the end because they are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don’t notice the spaceship descending above them.”

Kitch then became intrigued by this fictional couple and who they could have been. As he explored their possible backgrounds, a wider story took shape. “I came up with the idea that they were ex-leaders of this utopian society outside of Las Vegas with lots of its own drama. That’s how I came up with the idea to write a series of songs that are loosely connected, many sung by different members of the cult/utopian society.”

Kitch plays all the instruments on the album, “except for a few played by my wonderful producer, Jud Caswell,” a well-known local musician.

“Jud and I worked together on every song, shaping the vocals with digital tools and adding tracks with ProTools, especially drums and bass.” The thirty-five-minute album features nine tracks, explained Kitch, with each track taking at least eight hours to record.

Occasional vocal backup is provided by the Bowdoin men’s a cappella group the Meddiebempsters, while album design is by another member of the Bowdoin community—retired art professor Mark Wethli. Fittingly, one of the songs, “Darkly Bright,” is an adaptation (and quotation from) Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43.

Music has been part of Kitch’s life from a very early age. “I’ve been playing piano since I could walk and writing songs not long after. In high school I studied classical piano and played in a rock band. I was also in a jazz combo and played in pit orchestras in college.” At one point, Kitch played piano in a pub in London to make some extra cash while living there after graduation.

On October 15, there will be a campus listening party for members of the Bowdoin community who wish to experience Kitch’s album “True Believer” in a communal, immersive setting. The event, which will feature video as well as audio components, will be at 4:30 p.m. in Bowdoin’s Center for Experimental Multimedia Art, a pioneering performance venue that opened earlier this year.