Cape Disappointment

Settle In

Since arriving in Seattle two decades ago, Aaron Semer has plied his lonely craft in the dirty backrooms, dingy bars, and basements of the Pacific Northwest, both solo and in a host of bands you’ve likely never heard of. His voice and worldview have weathered – fractured in some places, hardened in others – but the timeless, genre-defying quality of his songwriting remains.

Semer was raised in a farm town in rural Ohio. He spent as much time running amok on small town streets as he did on his German Lutheran Grandparents’ farm, a beautiful plot of land complete with an apple orchard, woods, and a crooked old cemetery bearing the family name. These formative experiences forever fortified his love of the rural Midwest but also made him long for more.

After two years of college in the mid-90s, Aaron dropped out, moved into a van with a friend, and set about chasing Kerouac fantasies. This eventually led to him falling in love with the Pacific Northwest and moving to Seattle. It’s here that his style began to take form. The songs you grew up with on the radio. The dusty back roads. The grimy alleys. Hobos. Hipsters. Intellectuals. Farmers. Your mulleted cousin. These characters, melodies, and stories effortlessly infuse themselves into Semer’s songs. It’s America itself, in all its glory and horror. Or as The Stranger once put it; “A listener feels as if these songs have always been there, waiting for someone to discover them.”