Q&A: Aiden Kroll Talks Guitar Techniques, Song Covers, Dream Collaborations & More
THE GUITAR IS A QUINTESSENTIAL COMPONENT OF MUSIC HISTORY — With centuries of use behind it, this instrument still remains a beloved way to communicate, with seemingly endless versatility between models, players, and techniques. When in the right hands, the guitar is hypnotic, captivating listeners with each melodic chord strummed. It’s easy to hear the music pouring out of someone through the way they play, and when you meet someone who has such an unmistakable passion and understanding for this craft, it’s difficult to miss. This is exactly how one would describe Aiden Kroll.
22-year-old Kroll holds an undeniable talent, though as musically gifted as he is, he remains humble and true to what truly got him interested in playing in the first place: simply enjoying the music. As of August, Kroll has acquired over 1.4M TikTok followers and 39.3M likes, finding the platform to be a useful tool in sharing his talent and progress as a guitarist with a large audience. His videos typically consist of short-form covers of almost every popular song you could think of, but he puts his own unique spin on each song, setting himself apart as a musician with a notable sound, style, and the ability to challenge himself to enhance each new track he takes on.
Read below to learn more about Kroll’s musical inspirations, what got him started in playing the guitar, and what’s to come.
Photo by Nicholas Whitmill
LUNA: Tell me what first inspired your love for music. How long have you been playing the guitar?
KROLL: It all started because of my parents. My dad plays piano — he played piano in college — so he's always been very talented and I've always looked up to him in that regard. That kind of sparked my interest, and my parents put me and my siblings in music lessons. I was six when I started piano and seven when I started guitar. I took lessons for a while. They sort of forced us to take lessons, and then at a certain age — I was 13ish — they let me decide if I wanted to keep going. And I, at that point, liked it enough to keep going. That's kind of what got everything started, was them forcing me to take lessons, and then I started enjoying it myself. Because when you're young, obviously practicing and doing all that is not what you want to be doing, but eventually I liked it.
LUNA: That's awesome. I wish I had that determination — my dad also played the guitar growing up, and he tried to get me in lessons, but it didn't happen. I should have done it. Walk me through your process of learning a song on the guitar. A lot of your videos feature you including riffs or different improvisational elements into these songs or popular covers that people know. How are you able to hear out what best compliments each song?
KROLL: It's actually kind of difficult sometimes. At first it wasn't as difficult, but now that I've covered so many songs it's starting to get more difficult to find ones that I think I can really add something to. So in general I could always play something over the song, but I tend to want to pick ones that I think I can really complement and add to without really taking away from the fundamental structure of the song. So it's getting more difficult for me to find songs that have that, but I can kind of tell when I listen to songs or search for them if they have enough space for me to play in them. That's the first key, me listening and trying to figure out whether or not it feels like I can actually add something without taking away from the song and if I actually like the song enough to spend time playing over it and learning something.
Once I have a song picked out, the next part of the process would be me picking a section of the song that I think is either more notable to people or has a better opportunity for me to play something, and I'll play that on loop and just mess around on guitar over it. Usually I'll look up the chords online just to see what the basic structure is of the chords of the song, learn those, and then I solo over it and mess around. That process could take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour of me just playing over it to figure out what sounds good. So all of the riffs and stuff, besides the basic chord structure of the song that I will learn, I just sort of make up on the fly and develop as I play over it until I find something that I like.
Once I nail that down, I play over and over again to learn it and get it prepped for when I actually film. Most of the time when I film something, none of that is improv at the moment. It's planned beforehand, but I made it up at some point with me messing around on the song. And that process varies from song to song, for sure, but I mean, sometimes it's an hour, sometimes it's longer.
LUNA: Is there a song you've covered that you're most proud that you've learned?
KROLL: It's tough, because in general it tends to be that the ones that I think are the best [that] don't do as well on social media. l'll do something that I think is really either musically impressive — or from a guitar technique impressive — and something that I'm really proud of, and they tend to do worse, which is interesting. The ones that are more simple tend to do better, and I'm not 100% sure why, but maybe it's because it lets the song breathe a bit more. The reason the videos do well, in part, is because of the song choice — people recognize the songs. So obviously, popular songs are going to do better. Even if it's just something really simple that I play over it, that slightly complements the song, if they know the song, the video will probably do decent.
Now, there are exceptions. There are a few where those two intersect, where I'm also very proud of it and it does well. In general, those are probably the ones that I'm overall most proud of. I guess one of them would be the first video that I had that got over 10M views on TikTok that did really well, [which] I thought was technically impressive. And it was the first time I experimented with a longer form of it — I think it was near a minute long and I was used to doing, like, 20 seconds. It was "Smooth Criminal" by Michael Jackson. That one did really well and I was really happy with it — I thought it complimented the song really well, so that's probably one of the ones I'm most proud of.
Another one, I would say is — and this one did not do that well — was a cover over "Edge of Desire" by John Mayer. That song is probably one of my most favorite songs of all time and so I'd almost been apprehensive to cover it because it's one of my favorite songs — I didn't want to ruin it, and John Mayer is my favorite artist. Usually I don't touch his stuff because I feel not worthy, in a way, to play over it. But I decided to do something over "Edge of Desire." I thought it turned out really well and I really like it. I have a friend who is also obsessed with that song and he loved it as well, so I'm proud of that one, but it didn't do that great overall. But I'm so proud of it.
LUNA: Yeah, as long as you're proud of it, that's what matters. It's something special to you.
KROLL: Exactly, yeah. Exactly.
LUNA: Speaking of John Mayer, I've seen some of the more recent videos on your account where you’re learning "Neon" on the acoustic guitar and documenting your process. I saw one of your captions said it was "a beast of a song to learn," and from someone who doesn't know all the technical standpoints to the guitar and just heard it, it sounds crazy difficult. How is that going?
KROLL: Yeah, it's interesting. The song "Neon" by John Mayer, it's not really a rite of passage or anything, but it's just a well-known song that’s known to be incredibly difficult by a lot of guitarists, especially people who are fans of John Mayer. It's largely because of the way that he plays it. There's this kind of rhythm aspect to it that he does — it's really complicated to describe, but he has a certain technique that he does with his right hand that I'm pretty sure he just invented, I don't think anybody that I know of has ever played that way before. So he kind of started this method of using your thumb and your pointer finger and picking or whatnot. So it's that combined with… I think he just has very massive hands. He's actually talked about it before, he has an advantage when it comes to certain things because his hands are so large, and my hands are decently big. They're not small or anything, so I can kind of play it. But I think something about the physical part of the way he plays the chords is just incredibly difficult combined with the rhythm — and he sings over it, so all of that combined makes it really difficult.
I learned a good portion of it and could play it okay a while ago. That was one of the songs that really got me more into guitar, actually, for myself, outside of taking lessons. So I've known how to play some of it for a while, but recently I took it on as a challenge, like, maybe I should try to perfect this, get as close as I can to how he does it. This summer, I would play for a little bit every night just to get comfortable with it. I'm definitely getting better, but it is a slow process. I mean, like you mentioned, like I said, it's a beast of a song. It's difficult, but I really like the song and I've really liked trying to learn it. Taking on that challenge is a lot of fun. So yeah, it's going well but it's going to be a process, I still have a long way to go for sure.
LUNA: From what I've heard, it sounds really great so far, so I believe in you.
KROLL: I appreciate it.
LUNA: I also saw you recently collaborated with Blu DeTiger. How was that experience?
KROLL: That was so fun, actually. It's kind of funny how it worked out. A little bit of background, I've actually listened to her music for a long time. There's a song by her called "Cotton Candy Lemonade," I think. I can't remember when it came out, but it's been a while, it might have been COVID or 2019 or something when it came out. That's been on my playlist, my main playlist, for a long time. I followed her on TikTok. She kind of blew up during the COVID era and she was doing covers, so I’ve followed her since then, and I can't remember when but she followed me back on TikTok. And then more recently, this summer, I followed her on Instagram and she followed me back.
Then I was in California for the summer and I was leaving, but I just happened to respond to one of her stories, and then we started talking for a minute and we found out we were really close by and I was only going to be there for like two days. So it just worked out perfectly, that I would swing by and we would jam for a bit. So I got to go over, we talked about music for a while and just played along to a few songs, and [we] decided we should definitely film a cover while we were there, obviously take advantage of that opportunity. She's incredibly talented. She suggested that we do "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake because we both knew it and had covered it in the past. So we worked through that and figured out what we were gonna play — it was a lot of fun. She's super talented. Yeah, it was just a very full-circle moment to be able to play with her because I've never actually played with somebody before who I've listened to their music a lot in the past, so that was a really cool experience.
LUNA: Do you have any other collaborations that you'd really like to make happen in the future?
KROLL: I mean, it's a dream to obviously play with John Mayer, like a lifelong dream, for sure. But that I wouldn't view as a collaboration, it's just a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, you know what I mean? I don't really have anything to offer him so it's not really a collaboration, I guess. I really respect Charlie Puth, too. So that's a dream meet-up too, because he's incredibly talented. I'm trying to think of somebody that's more feasible as a collaboration.
LUNA: Hey, you have to dream big. You can make it happen.
KROLL: Yeah, who knows? Shoot for the moon and we'll see.
Photo by Nicholas Whitmill
LUNA: Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get started playing the guitar but just doesn't know where to start?
KROLL: Yeah, I get that question all the time, and I really should make a video or something addressing that question because people ask me that a lot. I'm not the most qualified to guide beginners on how to learn, but what worked for me is that I took lessons for a while, so I had a really good foundation before I actually got super passionate about it myself. That obviously helps a lot. I think the biggest thing would be finding other guitarists that you really like, and for me that was John Mayer and Stevie Ray Vaughan and people like that. Finding people you really like and then watching tons of videos of them playing live or listening to recordings of them playing live or in the studio and doing your best to learn the pieces of that that you really enjoy.
Through that, you learn the techniques that are involved in the foundational pieces of what went into them being able to do what they do. I think as far as longevity, keeping up with the process of learning guitar [is important] because it's a long journey and it takes forever — you have to learn things that make you excited to do it. You can't just learn scales and theory all day. I mean, maybe some people can, but it's not for me to just learn the really technical aspects of it and stay passionate about it. So I think finding somebody that you really enjoy listening to and learning pieces of how they do it, and then even if you just are mimicking people, you'll end up developing your own sound regardless. You don't have to worry about sounding too much like one artist or another — it just happens that you develop your own sound. And so I think finding people that inspire you and just mimicking them as much as you can and learning the fundamentals behind what they do is probably the best mix of the technical side, but also staying as passionate about it as you can.
LUNA: Yeah, I think that's great advice. It’s important to maintain your passion for it.
KROLL: Exactly.
LUNA: Part of the reason I didn't want to pick up a musical instrument when I was younger is because I was so focused on the theory and the very technical aspects, so to have that balance there is nice.
KROLL: Yeah, because you get burnt out so quickly if you're just focused on that type of thing. It's obviously super important, and to be honest, personally, I wish I'd spent more time learning more fundamental stuff like scales, there's a lot of players that are much more technically advanced than I am, but I'm happy with where I'm at. And it's all because of finding people that I really enjoy listening to and keeping that passion alive, I guess.
LUNA: Yeah, absolutely. You’re a college student, right?
KROLL: I am, yeah.
LUNA: How do you create a balance between your classwork, your social life, posting, practicing your music, all that?
KROLL: It's a lot, for sure. It just comes down to having a really specific — not super specific — schedule, but I have to coordinate with roommates when I'm going to film and how that is gonna look and it's definitely a lot sometimes. And I mean, filming videos does often feel like a chore sometimes if you're trying to maintain a certain schedule. So that's kind of tough and it can be frustrating, but I think just having a specific time that you do it, then you just got to execute on it and do it over and over again, then you become used to it. There's less friction and you just make it happen.
I mean, this summer, I had a job, practically … an internship, and so I would prep the video the night before and then film it in the morning before I went to work. So you have to make adjustments depending on what your schedule is. I think one of the biggest benefits of going to college is the social aspect and meeting people and making lifelong friends, and so at the end of the day, that is a priority… But I also have a schedule that I want to stick to and try to post and keep making content for people. It's difficult, but I think you can do it — you just have to set it up well, so that you know what time of day you do it, and when you have that space and you just have to make sure it happens over and over again.
LUNA: Definitely. I've also seen you have a Spotify artist profile and some songs that you released a couple years back, are you interested in continuing to release your own music in the future?
KROLL: Yeah, that's something I've actually thought about recently. I don't have a 100% specific answer for you on that, but I definitely enjoy that process of writing and producing music. I do like the production side. I took a few music production classes a while ago in high school. I'm by no means super good at it, but I enjoyed doing it. I could see myself doing more of that in the future. I'm not sure if I want to pursue a solo artist route or anything like that, necessarily. At the very least, I would love to work on music with other people, even if it's not my own stuff. I just love that; I love that process. I released some stuff a while ago on my own and produced it, wrote it, mixed, mastered it — everything. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy it. So we'll see. I don't know, maybe I'll end up doing that some more, and at the very least work on other people's projects.
LUNA: Cool, that's awesome. I have one final question to leave you with today, and it's what do you see yourself doing in the next couple of months? Is there anything fun for people to look out for or is there anything you're looking forward to?
KROLL: Yeah. As far as music goes, I mean, I'm going to keep doing covers as much as possible. But I would say the one thing I'm trying to transition into a little bit is maybe some more long form music content on YouTube. So that may look like more long covers, which I get requests for all the time, people want a longer version of it. I'm really looking into doing that on YouTube and having a schedule of putting out a long form cover, which I think people really enjoy. And YouTube lends itself to being more creative because it's longer form. I may be posting more jam sessions, stuff like that. There's a few people at college that I play with a lot, who are incredibly talented — much more talented than I am — and I love playing with them. So maybe I'll film some stuff, working on some things with them. And so I guess some longer form content on YouTube might be coming soon, we'll see.
