Aaron Barrett is the lead singer, lead guitarist and songwriter in the ska-punk band Reel Big Fish. He has been in a few other bands like The Scholars and is also affiliated with the band The Forces of Evil. He is best known not only for his music, but also for his sideburns which have yet to be successfully mimicked by anyone and for his extremely sarcastic nature.

Aaron Barrett was born in 1974 in San Bernardino County, California. He started out in big music playing the trombone in the band The Scholars along with a few other members who would become Reel Big Fish in the mid nineteen nineties. The band took a few years to break into the mainstream music scene, but it managed it by 1998 as the band’s first single ‘Sell Out’ broke into MTV and made it into the charts. The band has changed members a few times, but Aaron Barrett remained with it. At the same time Reel Big Fish was making the rounds, Barrett put together a side band The Forces of Evil which has a similar sound to Reel Big Fish, but with a more negative spin on the lyrics.

Although well known in punk circles, Aaron Barrett is still a very ‘real’ person, complete with self doubts about music, deep pits where he considered quitting, and anger towards the music business in general. This was channeled in what he considered the final trilogy of the original recordings in We’re Not Happy Until You’re Happy. In his own words, he claims ‘It’s the negative energy that keeps me going’ and he was only half kidding when he said that. Although he may seem dark, Barrett is instead very realistic about the music business, knowing its pitfalls and how many musicians have had their lives ruined through their own indulgences, he maintains a sense of realism about the whole thing and strives to sound good rather than cater to what the masses want-in true punk fashion.

Aaron Barrett is married to Molly Terrance; he married her in Las Vegas in 2004. He is most well known for his outrageous antics on stage, including the most memorable one in 2004 in Syracuse where he appeared on stage apparently intoxicated, played for about three quarters of an hour and then trashed his equipment and left. He is also well known for his mutton chop side burns and his white Gibson Les Paul Studio with the cigar smoking devil decal and his U.K. made Gordon Smith graduate guitar. They complete his image of a ska-punk singer and guitarist and as being completely true to himself in real punk fashion.

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