Warmack, 12, rocks lead guitar in New York City benefit concerts

The day after Petersburg Middle School let out for summer, 7th grader Ari Warmack boarded a plane bound for New York City to perform with his guitar at the invitation of Kids Rock For Kids (KRFK), a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that raises money for kid-related charities by producing rock benefit shows featuring outstanding teen musicians from around the world.

In March, Ari received a direct message on Instagram from KRFK inviting him to a zoom interview. He discussed it with his parents, Eliza and Glenn Warmack, and says, "We accepted their invitation because we thought what they did was really cool. We thought they might want to do a collaboration video or something, you know - nothing big."

"When we first got on [the zoom call] Ari complimented them on the work they do and told them that a lot of the bands he follows and really likes are ones from their shows - and they said, 'Well, that's why we're calling. We'd like you to play at one of our festivals,' and, I mean, the excitement was palpable!" Eliza said.

By the end of the zoom call Ari and his parents had agreed to travel to New York City in June for the Come Together Festival. Ari would be the guitarist in North South East West, one of the collaboration bands made up of musicians selected by the KRFK organizers.

Participating in the festival would require two performances at the Drom, an acclaimed world music venue, and two at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village, the oldest rock and roll club in the city.

"As soon as we got off the zoom call I was, like, 'Ahhhhhhhh! Yes!,' just super excited!," Ari said, waving his hands above his head.

"Yes, there was lots of jumping around and squealing," laughs Eliza. Then he got on the computer and started looking up his bandmates' social media accounts. "As soon as he did that he said, 'I'm in over my head!'"

"Well, yeah. These people are like, well, the bassist was on Belgium's Got Talent!" Ari explains.

Kids Rock for Kids co-founder David Miller said he and his team had been following Warmack on Instagram for about a year and not just because he's remarkably talented for his age but because they were impressed by "his overall vibe, which included his sense of fashion style and, most importantly, his sense of humor and fun," and noted that Ari "seeks out the non-trendy, non-pop culture stuff; whether it's musical or otherwise, he prefers to go his own way."

Ari grew up watching his father, Glenn, play the guitar and when he was six his parents gave him a Yamaha for Christmas. He says of that first guitar, "I just let it sit around. I mostly used it as a prop in make believe games."

When he was nine Ari chose a ukulele as his prize for participating in the library's summer reading challenge. Glenn says, "That summer we were running the Amelie [a gill net salmon tender], and there wasn't a lot for a kid to do out on the water, so he spent a lot of time playing that ukulele. When we were buying fish, he'd sit on the deck and play and sing to the fishermen. That was a real turning point, when he made the connection between playing music and making people happy."

Eliza adds, "Then, in fourth grade, Mr. K [Kowalski] did 'Beatniks' on Fridays, where kids do poems or songs or any kind of creative thing. And [Ari] would play the ukulele, and then, eventually, he picked up his guitar again. When that happened he was really receptive to Glenn teaching him chords and things."

Stedman Elementary School music teacher Dan Sullivan remembers Ari coming to his classroom after school when he was in third and fourth grade. "I had this room full of instruments and I'd encourage him to stop in and jam when he had time, and I gave him a bit of tech help for his first early recordings. One of them ended up winning first prize at the Alaska Technology Conference!"

At the time, Ari and his parents were living off-grid in a cabin along the Wrangell Narrows.

"I think that was probably the most formative part of my music education, and it probably will be the most important part for probably the rest of my life. And here's why. In that little cabin out in the woods I was learning from my dad - and he was just teaching me the basics. In making up my own songs, I was completely and utterly out of touch with what other people did. So I think that's what taught me to make things that were unique, and not according to what others did, you know, with music. I think sometimes isolation is the best teacher."

But the isolation wasn't always easy. "We were miles away from town. We had no internet, not really any connection to the outside world. I had to walk half a mile uphill just to get to the road. You know, that's a hard life. We had a very small house for three people. So, yeah, I got angry. I wanted to be a part of the outside world more. And because this wasn't possible I took out my anger on my guitar," Ari confesses. "To anyone who is genuinely angry at things, I recommend: write a song. It doesn't have to sound good. The ones I wrote didn't, but it helped me. It really helped me - and I fell in love with the instrument."

At the end of fourth grade his family moved to town and Ari had access to the internet. His musical journey was ramping up. "So, I could see other musicians playing and doing what I wanted to do, that was the most important part - I could see what they were doing. And I could maybe, you know, steal a little riff."

It was hard to tear himself away from the endless resources available on YouTube. "It was one of my greatest teachers in music because I would just look up videos of B.B. King, Eric Clapton, T-Bone Walker, even Eric Johnson. And, I wouldn't play along the with the song, I'd solo over the top of the song because that was easier."

His fourth grade teacher, Mr. Kowalski offered Ari a deal. If Ari could "test out," by taking and getting As on the vocabulary curriculum tests, he wouldn't have to do any of that homework - instead, he could write music. "And I did. And I used the vocabulary words. I felt this obligation because he let me test out, and I'm like, 'Oh crap. I have to write songs with vocabulary words now.'"

That spring the pandemic hit. "During the quarantine months, I would just stay inside and watch blues players do their thing - and I would learn from them," Ari says.

He tried taking traditional music lessons "for, like, six months, but I really didn't feel like it was a good direction for me because he was teaching me the way a guitar should be played, you know, the way it is played generally. But that went against the way I learned it before..."

"So he went back to YouTube," Eliza explained, "and he literally played guitar for three or four hours a day - like, solid. I remember I had to go on walks [each day] around noon time. Not that he was bad! The cool part was he sounded good from the get go. He would sit there and search YouTube videos of his favorite blues musicians and watch what their fingers did. And then he would do it! One time, he was playing away and I was listening to a school board meeting and I remember just bursting into tears because what he was playing was so beautiful."

Glenn came up with the idea of creating the Instagram account that led to KRFK discovering his talent. Ari was skeptical. "I'd hardly paid attention to social media. Actually, all I'd heard about was how bad it was for people and kids, so I was, like, 'You're sure this is a good idea? Bad things happen to people, you know?' But it ended up being one of the best decisions dad has made so far - and he's made some doozies. He married my mom! That was probably the best one."

They started making videos and posting them to Instagram, picking beautiful spots around the island. "Something that you wouldn't find down south, something that you can only find up here, right? There's only 3000 people up here," Ari explains. "So we're kind of privileged in that way. And so yeah, we would go to nice places and film videos, and we were getting attention. You know, it wasn't a lot of attention, but I was also starting to play gigs around town."

Ari collaborated with local band Del Gatto, accompanied vocalist Rebel McGrath, and participated in Sarah Hofstetter's Moving Music Concert Series, an idea that emerged during the pandemic when musicians had to play outside.

Hofstetter, a performer, teacher and music shop owner, says, "You know I was never his teacher. He'd teach me things. He would teach me different blues riffs and they would blow my mind. I remember at one of the Moving Concerts, we were performing at the Whale Observatory and we were jamming and Ari just put his guitar down flat on the ground, knelt beside it and started playing this amazing solo and there was this complete abandonment of all self-consciousness and this complete source of talent that just flows through him at such an innocent and powerful rate - right in from of my eyes! - and I just started crying with laughter, tears and the joy to be so close to someone who is such a powerful channel of music and giving. He's just such a cool kid... I mean it's one thing to flip a guitar on the floor and play it okay, because it's an impulse, but it's another thing to flip the guitar on the floor and play it in such a way that I've got chills all over my body."

Now he's performed on two of the music industry's most famous stages, but Ari says that the New York experience with Kids Rock for Kids was so much more than the performances. The welcome dinner with foods from all the countries represented by players in the bands, the walking tour across the Brooklyn Bridge and through Chinatown to Greenwich Village, and the hours of practicing with his new bandmates made the experience "one of the highlights of [my life]. The band really bonded. We really are the best of friends."

Eliza agrees, "The reward of gathering these kids together goes beyond music and encompasses international cultural understanding and friendship in such a beautiful way. I watched the kids in North South East West become fast friends, and super supportive ones at that. I loved seeing Ari with kids who understand music, but bring so many different world views. I'm so grateful that our family had this chance."

The band members are: drummer Gabe Gabremedhin, 19, of Kenya; vocalist and keyboardist Olivia Malbon, 16, of Croatia; vocalist and keyboardist Aarushi Kombia, 16, of India; violinist Sam Nihan, 14, of Canada; bass guitarist Lotte Claus, 13, of Belgium; and lead guitarist Ari Warmack, 12, of Alaska.

KRFK co-founder Lisa Schorr said, "It was such a delight to meet [Ari] - as a musician, and personally, and as a family - I really can't say enough."

Dave Miller agrees, "Ari was a joy to work with on every level."

On the last night in the city before they had to say good-bye, the festival players had a fun jam session at The Bitter End and Ari's band agreed to keep their group chat going because they plan to keep working together.

Ari says, "There's a platform called Bandlab on which we can collaborate, like, I can lay down a guitar track and maybe some lyrics. And then maybe Gabe gets on and says, 'Oh, that's cool,' and he can put down a drum track. And then maybe Lotte sees it and she can add the bass track. And then, you know, that's a way we can keep working together and growing a playlist for next year, 'cause, you know, we all got invited to go back!"