JOB Interview: Aaron Clark

In 2012 I picked up a 12” from Pittsburgh Track Authority. I’m not sure how I found it; I’d guess the New Arrivals bin at Academy Records. I loved it and remember thinking, “Pittsburgh, eh?” A few years later while working at Ace Hotel I met Aaron Clark, who had been hired on to help Ace open in the City of Bridges. I remember a few people at work saying, “Wait till you meet this guy. He’s one of the good ones.” They weren’t wrong. Aaron Clark isn’t just the super talented DJ and producer who co-founded Honcho and Hot Mass, he’s also a legitimately warm and caring person. Even when he’s shit-talking, he’s nice about it. While I was just learning about Pittsburgh’s dance music in 2012, Aaron and friends had, since the mid 2000s, been actively building what’s become one of the most well-respected, expertly curated, and generally fun underground dance communities in the country. We spoke on March 30, 2020.

Ben: Aaron, thanks for taking some time tonight. 

Aaron: Yeah, totally. How are you doing? 

Ben: Well, you’re the sixth or seventh person that I've interviewed so I feel this is turning into a bit of a canned response, but the long short is I'm doing better than a lot of people right now who are sick or have lesser means. I feel appreciative of that while at the same time, with our daughter out of daycare...I basically just watch Sesame Street and get kicked in the nuts a lot.

Aaron: I mean, that doesn't sound that terrible. 

Ben: I just described a party that you've thrown? 

Aaron: Not yet, but thank you for the idea.

Ben: Where are you are right now and what’s going on there?

Aaron: I'm in Pittsburgh. The vibe is probably less chaotic than a super dense city like New York. Our neighborhood feels like a very old, old suburb. There's space and kids playing, which is nice but also slightly creepy ‘cause none of this should be happening right now in the middle of the day. People are just out on their porch, chilling. I think people, myself included, are still figuring out what to do with it. I've never had a moment in my life where every single thing I worked on just hit a wall. Everything I do stopped. The day job, running a club, upcoming tours. There's also a strange relief that comes with this. I've felt in the past that I needed to stop but didn't know how to. That's a really strange layer to all of this, while also being horrified. I’m still processing the different feelings.

Ben: I hear you. I’d been having hard luck getting new freelance work when this all happened. It now feels…less my fault? Feeling relief and anxiety at the same time is confusing.

Aaron: I'm hoping however we emerge from this, I can bring some lessons with me. 

Ben: Where’d your life lessons start? You’re from Ohio, yeah?

Aaron: Right. North Canton is where I grew up. Teen-Aaron was transitional obviously; coming to terms with being gay. My family was really religious. They were kind of evangelical-right…nondenominational megachurch kind of people.

An evening scene from Honcho’s Campout event. Photo by Ryan Michael White provided by Aaron Clark.

Ben: I’m going to guess that coming out...didn’t go over well?

Aaron: You know, it was a lot less bumpy than I figured it would be. My parents are pretty amazing. My sister and I were both adopted at birth so in some ways, we’re nothing like my parents and in others ways we're very alike. The process of getting myself out of the religious shit started before I came out; like I would get a job and ask to be scheduled Sundays. I thought about not telling them until after college because I was worried about them not helping me through. But one night I just couldn't sleep. It was the last couple of weeks before I moved away and I had this horrible dread that if I didn't tell them now, I'd move away and it would be harder. I woke them up in the middle of the night and they didn't know what to do with it, but said they loved me and they were going to try to, you know, process it. I mean, there's a lot of horror stories out there. Mine is not a horror story.  

Ben: These megachurches...

Aaron: My parents actually worked for one of the largest Christian music festivals in the country. 

“Honey Soundsystem showed the template. They were our holy shit moment. Musically dialed at a level that’s off the charts.”

Ben: Megachurches feel like big spectacles; they’re very performance driven. You think coming up in that world with all it’s high production levels, if it had any impact on your getting into events?

Aaron: Yeah, I think it definitely did, especially the music festival. It actually took me a long time to draw the lines between those two things. I had that epiphany embarrassingly recently. Then there's a bunch of Ohioans living here now, in Pittsburgh. I'm at an after party and dropped the knowledge that my parents were really involved in all that and a bunch of people had total brain-exploding looks on their faces. Fully shook. It triggered bad memories for all these people. 

Ben: Well, I'm glad that you're folks took it so well in the middle of the night. Speaking of afterparties in Pittsburgh, let’s talk about how you ended up there. For school, yeah?

Aaron: So my first real interest was building stuff, like engineering. But I had this media arts class in high school, sort of a college prep thing that gave college credit.

Aaron playing on a rotary mixer during a Humanaut event at Pittsburgh’s Sanctuary Nightclub [closed] in 2004. Image provided by Aaron Clark.

Aaron: That got me into the arts more. I was never really a conceptual or fine artist or anything, but I loved the aesthetics of design. Pittsburgh was the city that looked nothing like Ohio, but was still close to my parents. It was the opposite of Ohio. So those two things kind of just went together. I'm going there for school at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh…near my parents, but far enough away where I can be gay.

Ben: What were you up to right out of school?

Aaron: I was with a small agency doing creative campaigns for packaged goods. We’d be designing wrappers and ad stuff. I also worked on some experiential thing for Sundance but never actually went. But it turned more into UI, UX and building large systems. What do the buttons look like? Styling fonts across a brand. It was nice ‘cause I like taking things that are a mess, cleaning them up and making them easy to use. But as time went on it was interfering with this music world that was slowly opening up. 

Ben: Were you already playing records around town? 

Aaron: I actually started back in Ohio. I was always into dance music. I remember buying a Chemical Brothers CD in sixth grade and bragging to my friends. In high school my friend Christie, her older boyfriend had a whole setup for vinyl and taught me everything. He had kind of a similar taste in music, which was really corny back then but some of it's still relevant, and is actually swinging back around now again... 

Ben: You sent me that Glastonbury live mix the other day and I was kinda shocked to hear a Meat Beat Manifesto track. Like a cool surprise but out of context and threw me way back.

Aaron: It’s funny what happens when you place a song out of context into the middle of a three hour set, yeah. 

Ben: So this local DJ dude...

Aaron: He was a bedroom DJ. I don't think he was really going out to any parties anymore, but he had always loved playing music. There's a lot of people like that, especially in suburban Ohio ‘cause,  where the fuck are you going to DJ in Canton? Then I got to Pittsburgh and I started actually doing parties. Small ones with my friend Paul.

“…we took it into these smaller less fancy clubs that we knew would piss people off. We kind of went more the punk direction…”

Ben: What kind of venues?

Aaron:  Dives, bars, anywhere that would have us. We had no concept of how to make a good party or make something better. The scene in Pittsburgh was so small back then...there had been a big rave scene but it had just imploded. I basically arrived right when it ended. Maybe I, maybe I killed it. 

Ben: “Hey guys it’s me, Aaron! Who wants to hear Setting Sun?”

Aaron: Nobody. Everyone's running away. 

Ben: What got you from shitty bars to the level Honcho’s at today? Or was it Honcho all along and just slowly grew? 

Aaron: I'd already been throwing larger parties by the time a Honcho rolled around. I was involved in this crew called Humanaut, that's when it got really real. We basically took all these crews [Night Vision, Dynamics, and SoulGlo] that were tired of low quality events, and got serious. We made a charter and made everyone agree to X amount of work. Over time it naturally whittled down to six people. We started doing big kind of bottle service club parties. 

A flyer for one of Aaron’s appearances at New York’s infamous Bunker parties. Image used with permission from Bryan Kasenic.

Ben: So these parties were more for a general dance and techno crowd, or a specifically queer crowd?

Aaron: Yeah, it was more music oriented. We were getting better sound systems and bigger headliners...that mid-2000s progressive house kind of zone, if that makes any sense at all.

Ben: I'm trying to get a visual... would you describe the crowds as being more uptight and normy than you find at say, the Bunker parties in New York?

Aaron: Absolutely. Oh yeah. Yeah, totally. It was pretty uptight. We kind of had a series of purges over time. We took it into these smaller less fancy clubs that we knew would piss people off. We kind of went more the punk direction with the vibe and brought in really insane sound systems and booked more weird and obscure DJs. Cutting the commercial fat…we maybe lost half our crowd. That sorta sorta was the reset button. Then Honcho was the next step. 

Ben: Did Honcho have a roadmap? What set it apart from Humanaut?  

Aaron: We went out to Honey Soundsystem for the first time. I had never been to San Francisco. We came back inspired to go more in the direction Honcho would become known for. So there was Pegasus, a legendary gay spot in downtown Pittsburgh. The only places you could hear house music on a rotary mixer with a mustached bear [Tony Ruiz] spinning. So that place closed but they still had a liquor license for a month and they let us throw a party. And that was what. That was the first time that a giant gay crowd showed up to our thing. That was when we thought, “Oh, okay, gay people actually want to go to a safe space. They want to go to it.” I didn't know what a “safe space” was, I’d never heard that word. That got the wheels turning. All I really cared about was dancing to the music I liked, and I wanted to dance with other gay people. It wasn’t necessarily about wanting to throw a gay party, I just wanted more gays at my party. But Honey Soundsystem showed the template. They were our holy shit moment. Musically dialed at a level that’s off the charts. And it's all queer people and homos. We just came back and we decided we'd try. 

Ben: That's amazing. That same era is when I met Ron Like Hell. I started taking over booking of this venue Coco 66 and they didn’t have a lot on the books but some neighbors spun there. Ron was one of the DJs and was like, “Hey if you are here to clean house, could you not cut me? I like my Wednesday nights.” He was so nice, and so good. I am pretty sure his being there is what got us guest DJs from Honey, from Clone Records, and all that.

Aaron: Yeah, right around then...that’s also when our first warehouse fiasco happened. We pretty much got raided before the party even happened, but we had the bathhouse as backup...

Ben: Oh yeah I want to hear the raid story. And where was the bathhouse at? 

Aaron: It’s the same place Hot Mass is at now. Before it was Hot Mass, we threw a couple parties there. But that was weird and we were not taking that space seriously.

An evening scene from Honcho’s Campout event. Photo by Ryan Michael White provided by Aaron Clark.

Aaron: The warehouse...during Pride…that just blew up in our faces. I had set the bathhouse aside as an emergency venue and we ended up moving our party there with two hours notice. We got so much backlash from people. We had sold almost 600 tickets to the original location, there was a line outside, it was going to be crazy. But that crowd, the gay crowd in Pittsburgh, they didn’t understand what an underground party was or the risks that come with going to a warehouse. So you know, a police shutdown happens and the crowd was furious. Then they were mad that we made them go to a bathhouse. They thought the bathhouse thing was disgusting. They were all sex shamed and not comfortable. There are a lot of hangups. 

Ben: You’re saying the city kinda was a repressive environment?

Aaron: That was the word I was looking for. Yeah. Sexually, super repressed. They want upscale and bottle service. They maybe wanted a sex party in a warehouse, but they would not step foot in a bathhouse. It had a stigma back then still. I mean, it still does with a lot of gay people. But it was all also, I think it was another necessary purge. Unintentional but necessary. Had the original party gone off we probably would've had bigger crowds, but the change let us get weirder.

Ben: As you started to get, as you say, more dialed-in, Honcho began throwing the Campout events, yeah? How’d you approach this huge party in the woods from a production standpoint? What are the logistics in getting that rolling? 

Aaron: It started out as a fun thing to do outside of the club. You know, we'd done a boat boat party and this party at a mansion. So we were trying to do new twists on the formula. Our first venue was kinda training wheels because it was a gay men's resort in West Virginia. They actually didn’t allow women. It was very backwards, but at the time we weren't trying to...our goal was not to create a super community. It was just to do have DJs at a pool with gay people and stay for a couple of nights. They had all the staff. So really all we had to do was bring the sound system and book the DJs. The scale of it was nothing like what it is morphed into. But over time I think it's sunk in...how much it meant to people, and what it could become. You start to see different ways you can push the needle. We tried for years to get them to change their rules about gender and stuff but they're just...of a different era maybe.

Ben: They are not welcoming of trans men, and gender non-confirming people?

A promotional poster for a Honcho party at Hot Mass. Found online, design by Jacque Beas.

Aaron: You know, it's all contradictory. They never had a consistent answer. It was just kind of messy, but we tried. We took special weekend trips down there to talk with them. And man, I can't...the amount of time we spent trying to convince them…to build a roadmap. They just wouldn't hear it. So we found this other space and made the move to a 24 acre interfaith sanctuary, 

Ben: So from the evangelical music festivals to a hippie church in the woods, by way of bathhouses and bars. And you’ve found the new spot to be really welcoming?

Aaron: Yeah. They try to be really good neighbors. The police tolerate it, you know? No one's really misbehaving too badly, and we’re one of the bigger events of the year. We’re there to dance. We’re not poisoning local salad bars or something.

Ben: How many people are attending at this point?

Aaron: Last year we had about 900 onsite. This year, who knows with this shit going on. We were expecting a jump to about 1,100 but who knows with all this shit going on.

Ben: Fairly recently, Resident Advisor ran a lengthy piece on Campout which noted the event “still has some lengths to go when it comes to diversity.” I know you all gave some replies in the article but, what are you thinking about today?

Aaron: I think most of the decisions we're making today are passed through the lens of the Queer Fam Fund to make sure they hold up. Clark Price started that initiative, and now it's a whole team. It has begun to make a noticeable change in Campout on that front. The questions we ask ourselves every year are “What could make this even more perfect? What are the emotions and needs people have that are not being addressed correctly? How can we push things further?” That could be everything from food or sound quality to hosting talks and workshops. It’s everyone's peak summer moment and we want to do everything we can to deliver the best thing we can give, and also to build our friends up. Who in our community has a talent? Who can we push that can step into that and really knock it out of the park? 

Ben: But what are the mechanisms that allow for community feedback? How do you sort through valid critiques versus noise?

Aaron: People are really honest with each other and if you don't know someone, you know their friends. You’re one or two degrees from everyone else. It's such a tight knit group that you kind of get a moment with everyone. It's not a walled off thing, we are not walled off people. We have so many positions for staff, for managers, directors and volunteers. Last year, probably 200 to 300 of the attendees were in active roles with the festival. So feedback really kind of bubbles up, you know. We have a lot of serious discussions. All year long and especially right after it, and even during the festival where we are asking, “What’s working? What doesn't feel right here?”

“ I don't think we should talk about lube wrestling.”

Ben: So Campout is a symposium that designs Campout?

Ben: Yeah. Yeah. That's a really funny way to put it, but it's absolutely true. 

Aaron: We’re queer creative people. So you kind of get this natural, pulling-up of people from all over the place. Everyone opens their Rolodex of who they think is an amazing human that would love to be involved. You know, and we try to involve them.

Ben: How does that ethos play out when the party’s less a self-designed thing and more in collaboration with a corporation. I'm thinking specifically of Trade Show, which Red Bull Music Academy supported. You had people from D.C.’s Needle Exchange, from Men’s Room in Chicago and more. How do you keep it true to your community, for everyones’ communities, while also satisfying the needs of an energy drink corporation? Like you once told me a story once about designing the specific height for glory holes at the party...how does that meeting with RBMA go over?

Aaron: To be honest, Honcho doesn’t really get involved with corporate entities. That specific one, Trade Show, was very much spirited by Jacob Sperber AKA Jackie House of Honey Soundsystem. He’s kind of the wizard of Oz. That was his idea, that he pitched at Red Bull as part of their festival because you know, they're trying to highlight sub scenes. That's kind of how that festival ran. They would work with a creative person at the forefront of each of these scenes to design kind of their perfect event. This was Jacob Sperber’s. I think that's a rare thing to have. 

The gym at Ace Hotel Pittsburgh, one of the spaces Aaron is responsible for programming. Photo by Rob Larson, provided by Ace Hotel.

Ben: Do you know Adam Shore?

Aaron: No. Huh? 

Ben: He was the head of RBMA for many years. He's a very nice guy. I've only met him in person a few times, but I think he had a remarkable ability to just sort of find and then trust the right people. 

Aaron: Cool yeah. We did kick ideas around with Jacob a little bit here and there, but I didn't know what the glory holes were going to look like or how the bar was going to be laid out. Well actually...we were somewhere else and they called about the glory holes and we...we had to measure a bit to help them figure it out. You're going to pull that quote out and put it in the bigger font aren’t you. 

Ben: Yes. But maybe this is a good time to transition to your work for Ace Hotel? I remember a bunch of us came down for a summit and you gave a hardhat tour as the Pittsburgh property was still being built. How did you get linked up with Ace?

Aaron: I was in touch with this guy Travis Blue out in Portland, and Ashton from Ace at different times. There were just all these small connections and overlaps between this company and people in my life. It was such a long development process that it allowed for an extremely long conversation that led to a job. 

Ben: One of the things people have credited Ace for was entering new markets with some level of humility and respect for local scenes. I think of Pittsburgh as giving zero fucks about New York or LA so, how did you help them navigate an entry into the city? 

Aaron: Oh, man. I don't even think I realized what I had kind of stepped in when I took the job. I've grown a lot as a person, I'm better by having been thrown into this. My intentions are always pretty good and I try to care for people. I'm always really concerned that someone is being taken advantage of. I think that just informs how I made the decisions that I made, and there were a lot of really amazing people to work with at the beginning. My budget was minuscule but even minuscule goes a long way in Pittsburgh.

Ben: I know you spend some of that budget on a rather infamous lube wrestling event.

Aaron: I don't think we should talk about lube wrestling. 

Ben: Hah okay. Is there a particular event or a series that you feel most proud of?

Aaron: The True T ballroom stuff. They’re a recurring story, from the beginning. I've tried to address their needs, to help them grow, to improve quality. Let's get them a better sound system, or better lighting. Just little things, giving them the room and making sure that they're getting that money instead of some group of people that don't need it.

Ben: Maybe similar in terms of being niche, but very different than a ball or a wrestling event that shall not be discussed, was something you hosted called KeyCon.

Aaron: Well, I'm a nerd, right? Airplanes or techno or whatever. I just thought that it was the weirdest thing and so cool that people were so passionate about building keyboards and how the buttons felt, and the mechanisms underneath that make the best keyboard.

Ben: You're a music person so I want to be clear. We're not talking about Juno synthesizers here.

Aaron: We're talking about QWERTY stuff. Custom computer keyboards. They contacted me. They had done their event in Columbus and were just looking for space. I thought, “Whoa, this is really amazing. And they didn't even ask for money.” So I had some budget, and I wanted to make sure it happened at Ace, so I just pulled out all the stops and got them a bar, I covered their staffing and offered flyer designs. They were kind of bewildered.

Ben: So that's one of the nicest things about curation right? When you recognize something is great and are in a position to offer money, before they even realize they can ask for money.

Aaron: Yeah. And it went off. They had a crazy turnout. They made me a little keyboard that glows and clacks and drives my coworkers crazy.

Ben: At the moment, Ace is temporarily shut down.

Aaron: I honestly think they're just as bewildered as we are, you know? It's just in straight up survival mode right now and I'm not the guy that keeps the lights on. We all should be going back, though no one knows when. And then, when are people gonna feel comfortable traveling again? You know before Ace, I’d never been in a professional workplace that let me be me so much…I really do want to work for that company again. Right now I’m just on hold.