A remix has hit the South Bay. Cover songs from Anita Baker, Tracy Chapman and Snoop Dog flow together in perfect harmony like it was meant to be.
Aragorn and Olivia are known to transform mainstream hit songs from any musical genre into acoustic wonders, taking their audience along for the ride.
And on a weekly basis the duo can be heard throughout the South Bay.
“We keep everything fresh – it’s never a thought-out thing,” said Aragorn Wiederhold, guitarist for the duo. “We pull the audience into the arrangement and keep them engaged and do stuff with the song that is completely unexpected. It’s what a really good remix does.”
Aside from their local gigs, they have dabbled in both commercial and television music production. Aragorn and Olivia’s songs can be heard on Fox Television’s Saints and Sinners, Men in Trees, Modern Family, Burn Notice, 13 Graves and Vanished, VH1’s Andrew Dice Clay Show, Axe Body Spray commercial and the Cartoon Network’s Ben Ten.
It all started four years ago when the two were brought together.
After his original vocalist moved to London, Wiederhold, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, invited Olivia Pucci to sing during a weekly performance at Michi Restaurant in Manhattan Beach (which has since closed).
“My friend said she was the one to do it, she would be perfect,” Wiederhold said. “I didn’t even have to ask any questions.”
Pucci, a graduate of Musicians Institute, a leading music school in Los Angeles, took Wiederhold up on his offer and instantly fell in love with his style of music.
They sat down after the gig and realized there was a connection.
“It was fun, it was exciting and different,” Wiederhold said about that first performance. “It wasn’t just playing cover songs – it was very spontaneous.”
Wiederhold, a native of New York, left the East Coast in 2001 after graduating college and moved to Hermosa Beach. It was an easy transition – not only was he living on the beach and soaking up the sun, but the music scene was everything he had dreamt it would be.
“Once I saw how many places there were to play music in an eight mile radius and there was no snow or rain, I was sold,” Wiederhold said.
And before long, Aragorn and Olivia had established themselves as a musical force to be reckoned with, performing five to six nights a week in Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. Pucci, who is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, decided to leave the Hollywood scene in 2007 and settled into the South Bay. The duo had found a musical home, and a true community, that offered a place for their music to take root.
“Olivia and I love playing in the South Bay and we love playing for the people that come to see us,” Wiederhold said. “We want to include more and more people into what it is we do because we love it so much. My thing has always been a real working musician should be able to give and present what it is they do to their immediate community.”
Together, Aragorn and Olivia make challenging music. They rarely play the same song the same way twice. The duo typically changes the harmony and rhythm around each song, only keeping the melody concrete.
And if that isn’t demanding enough, Wiederhold’s guitar virtuosity creates the illusion of multiple sounds using one hand.
He plays a Heritage hollow body jazz guitar. The instrument runs through an octave pedal which affects the two lowest strings. He uses the first through the fourth strings as the guitar part and the fifth and sixth strings as the bass. He also connects the guitar to a loop pedal to layer phrases and produce a really deep sound.
“It is complicated,” Wiederhold said. “People sometimes ask us where we get our pre-recorded tracks – we don’t play with tracks. This is all in real time.”
And Pucci is constantly throwing out a bit of unexpectedness by singing in a different tone or coming in with her voice at a different place in a song.
“When I started playing with [Wiederhold] it actually made me feel creative – it made me feel like I was being an artist,” she said. “Ultimately it is very spiritually enriching on every level.”
From Latin, African, Cuban, Goth, Pop or Rock, Aragorn and Olivia’s musical remixes are here to stay.
“It is the responsibility of music to challenge and excite people,” Wiederhold said. “And music must do this in order to bring a community together.”
Aragorn and Olivia play at The Shore Friday night. See their Facebook page, Aragorn and Olivia, or www.myspace.com/aragornolivia. The duo also plays throughout May: Mondays at The Lighthouse in Hermosa, Tuesdays at H.T. Grill in Redondo, and Thursdays at the Salt Creek Grille in El Segundo. ER
