Aaron Bruno

Aaron Richard Bruno (born November 11, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician, who is best known as the founder, lead singer and last remaining original member of Awolnation.

He is a former member of the indie rock band Under the Influence of Giants, the post-grunge band Home Town Hero, and the post-hardcore band Insurgence.

Bruno was born and raised in Westlake Village, a city just north of Los Angeles.

He started playing guitar before he was 10 years old.

He was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder in high school.

During high school Bruno was nicknamed "AWOL" for leaving parties early and used this nickname in rap battles.

Bruno failed his Spanish I class second year of high school.

It was during his time retaking the class in summer school where he would meet lifelong friend Drew Stewart.

Bruno and Stewart immediately hit it off after realizing they had the same birthday and liked the same type of music.

Bruno briefly attended Moorpark Community College but dropped out after taking only two classes.

Bruno says he attempted to go to college to please his parents, but after realizing he was paying his own money to take the classes, started skipping to go surfing and record and rehearse with his band at the time, then ultimately dropped out.

Bruno was a member of the punk band Ice Monkeys with Drew Stewart, Jon Monroy and Dan Fowler while in high school.

Stewart, Monroy and Bruno later formed Insurgence, a punk band, when Bruno was in high school.

In December 1999, Bruno and Stewart started a new band under the name Home Town Hero with drummer Ray Blanco and bassist Todd Burnes.

Bruno was credited under the name “Blues” on the group’s first project, a demo CD titled Blues Tex Vince Hunter.

Doane worked with the band to help with the release of the album Let's Rock in 1999, before filming 42K in May of the same year.

The group signed with Maverick Records in 2001.

The band toured with several acts, including Stone Temple Pilots and Linkin Park, before they were dropped by their label after trashing a stage and after Bruno refused to shoot a video with a label-provided director.

The film was released in 2001 with added commentary from Michael Madsen.

Home Town Hero disbanded in 2004.

After Home Town Hero disbanded, Bruno formed Under the Influence of Giants and signed with Island Def Jam.

Bruno continued to write music.

He created the song "Sail" in 2010 as part of Awolnation's first EP, Back From Earth.

"Sail" would hit #5 on the U.S. Billboard Alternative Songs chart, going sextuple platinum in America and double platinum in Canada.

In 2011 the album Megalithic Symphony was released.

In March 2015, Awolnation released their second album, entitled Run.

Bruno, with some help from his engineer, recorded the entirety of the new album by himself, doing not only the vocals but also the instrumentals and the writing for the new release.

Bruno has collaborated with electronic music producer Kill The Noise on his 2015 album Occult Classic.

Bruno can be heard singing on the songs "Kill It 4 the Kids" and "All in My Head".

Hoping to jump-start their career, Bruno took young indie upstarts IRONTOM out on tour in 2015 with Awolnation.

During a conversation between Bruno and some of the members of IRONTOM on this tour, there were talks of the two possibly collaborating on a song.

Bruno remembers being stressed wondering if there would be any time to work on a song, or if it would feel right.

Sometime after that, both started working on songs.

Bruno worked with IRONTOM to produce the followup to their debut record.

The single "Be Bold Like Elijah" has been released through IRONTOM's various social media accounts.

According to Bruno in an interview from 2016, he sang on Deltron 3030's self-titled album that was released in 2000.

Their third album Here Come The Runts was released early 2018.

Their fourth album Angel Miners & The Lightning Riders was released in 2020, followed by an album of cover songs titled My Echo, My Shadow, My Covers, & Me in 2022.

Bruno, along with Mike Asman and fellow Insurgence band members Drew Stewart and Jon Monroy, starred in the movie 42K.

The movie was written and directed by Darren Doane and Ken Daurio.