Aidan Kale, ‘19, is a member of the Cape Henry community with a beautiful talent. Aidan Kale has been going to Cape Henry since 3rd grade and has been an active member of the band program since the 5th grade. Aidan has contributed to the band program at Cape Henry for 7 years and his music has flourished greatly since.

As a young musician, Aidan was introduced to music by his parents. “They always did a really good job of surrounding me with music all my life, and that has made such a big impact on my understanding of music.” Aidan’s father is also very musically inclined, and they often perform together at local public settings.

In 5th grade, Aidan took his music to another level. Even as the young musician that he was at the time, his talent shined way above average and proved his capability to take his passion another step forward. Aidan’s instrument has always been his go-to instrument, but he also plays bass,piano, a bit of guitar, saxophone, and he sings. Aidan took his music from playing around his house and in the CHC band, to developing his very own band. Aidan and his longtime friend from kindergarten, Alex, ended up forming their own band together. They named their band Katanna “because it just sounds cool.”  Aidan shared how his partner in his band, and childhood friend, had a talent on the guitar and shared that “ever since we started together in 5th grade, we’ve stayed together.”

Aidan and his band members have taken their talents and combined them to form a very talented group. His ability to entertain a crowd doesn’t take much for him once he gets playing his drums. His band has played all around Virginia Beach at popular, local hot-spots like O’Leary’s, Eagle’s Nest, and OBS (Oyster Bar and Steaks). Aidan shared how he loves the experience of getting to travel around and share his music with people. “Although, I’m not sure that I wanna go back to Eagle’s Nest again.”

Aidan is particular about what kind of music he plays and listens to. “My favorite type of music is anything considered progressive jazz/rock/metal. I don’t like music that is made simply for money and entertainment purposes, which seems to be most music these days.” Aidan shared his dislike for them to the very last detail. He explained how “All of the radio singles are made using a template that is designed to appeal to the masses and make record companies rich. I find that almost all popular music is lacking creativity, originality, risks, and rhythmic/structural harmonious complexity. I like progressive music because it is basically the exact opposite of that kind of music.”

After asking him if he was interested in taking his music interests on to college with him, he immediately responded with, “That is my plan. I hope to even take it further than college, potentially into a career.” Aidan shared how a career in music is hard to get to take off right away, and so his plan is to not be completely reliant on a full time career in music, but absolutely still keep sharing it with people locally. “I am hoping to get ahead of the game as far as possible, to possibly get a career in music somewhere down the road, which is not easy to do. I do not expect to live off of that alone, but teaching music and filling in as a drummer in other songs in addition, will support me.”

If Aidan were to say where he would be with his life in 10 years, he said that he is “hoping that the music that [he] has been writing will take off a little bit.” When Aidan is not in school, or backpacking through the mountains somewhere, he is writing songs. Needless to say, writing songs is a special and rare talent. “It’s always been a quick process for me. I am not saying that I don’t get stuck somewhere sometimes, but I mainly know where the songs are going. When I do get stuck, I have learned the best ways to overcome it, and I am familiar with the process now of how to work around that problem.”

When asked the broad question of “If you could do anything for 2 hours of free time, what would you do?” Aidan simply and without any hesitation answered, “I would just keep writing songs.”