Aaron Smith was 39 when he finally released his old guitar from almost two decades in the closet. This time, it stayed in his hands. Determined to use music to tell the stories that came to him as he strummed those rediscovered strings, he set out to conquer a lifelong fear of anyone hearing him sing. With those pieces in place, he wrote, recorded, and released his first EP, Red Wolf Mist, a collection of songs about horror, some based on reality, some on fantasy. A friend referred to Smith’s music as “Haunted American,” and Smith liked the label. Shortly after Red Wolf Mist, he wrote and recorded The Gun Song in protest of the plague of mass shootings in the United States and the government’s failure to properly act to prevent such crimes. Aaron is currently working on a new album. Part autobiographical and part philosophical, it will consider the passage of time and how human beings perceive it.