I was ten when I woke and found myself standing at a window, looking at a brightness I could not explain. Around the same time, I met the girl who would shape more of my songwriting than anyone else. We were young, but our families and much of our town knew us as a pair.
War separated us and placed us in different countries. We lost contact, and I began putting the distance, the memories and everything unsaid into words. Years later we found each other again, became parents to a daughter and eventually ended our relationship without ending the human connection between us. That history still runs through the music.
Learning to write
Songwriting also grew through poetry. A musician friend and I exchanged poems while most people slept. In the late 1990s I formed a band, wrote songs, made demos and learned in studios. Summertime reached second place on an early online chart.
Later I worked with a producer who could play almost anything. Together we rebuilt old material and wrote new songs. He showed me how close a finished production could come to the music I heard in my head. Family life eventually took priority, and I stepped away from music for years.
The way back
In 2025 I tried Suno and began working on music again. Compared with a full studio production, Suno costs very little. It lets me test lyrics, melodies and arrangements at a scale I could never have financed in a traditional studio. That difference is about cost, not value. Good musicians and producers bring skill, judgment and human experience that matter deeply to a recording.
The process is still demanding. I rewrite, compare versions, change melodies and keep listening until the song feels right. The words, the stories and the musical direction remain mine.
If a song connects with people, I would like to take it into a studio with musicians and a producer and build a new version together. Aston River is not an argument against studios. It is how I can bring years of writing into the present and decide which songs deserve that next step.
Why the songs exist
Today, close to a hundred songs are finished, with many more in handwritten pages and old drafts. They come from my life, people close to me or situations I could not ignore. The first goal is simple: let the songs reach listeners and see what happens from there.
I still cannot say exactly what I am searching for. I know that I experience the world differently, and the songs have helped me understand part of that. I have found enough to keep going, but not enough to stop searching.