“Aaron Keylock: Oxfordshire's teenage Blues brother sets his sights on the big time” says the Oxford Mail as support slot with Nine Below Zero and a tour with The View looms!!!

Aaron Keylock with Dennis Greaves of Nine Below Zero

Schoolboy Aaron Keylock is making waves as a blues musician. TIM HUGHES talks to a young artist who is planning to go all the way. Read and listen here...

“Aaron Keylock is a pretty fine guitarist and an impressive singer-songwriter.

A respected name on the Oxfordshire blues circuit, he has also made waves in some of the capital’s best venues, playing alongside many of the people who have inspired him. Nothing particularly unusual there, you may think... except that Aaron is only 15 years old.

While his classmates at Bartholomew School, Eynsham, are kicking a ball around or playing on their phones and Xboxes, Aaron practices the blues – a style more at home in the Mississippi Delta than the rolling West Oxfordshire countryside. But all that finger-picking has paid off, with the schoolboy virtuoso attracting a fanbase for his accomplished performances, and a technique which puts many more experienced musicians in the shade.

“Everything is going good,” he says confidently, talking from his home in Freeland, between Oxford and Witney. “I play blues-rock, inspired by the people I love. It comes pretty naturally and I practice every night. “I have always listened to music from the ’70s, that’s my thing. I grew up alongside it and was taught how to play that stuff. But I am also lucky enough to have played alongside people who I have been listening to since I was five.”

They include Dennis Greaves’s South London rhythm and blues band Nine Below Zero – with whom Aaron plays on Monday.

The gig, part of The Haven Club series of blues-rock sessions at The Art Bar (the new name for The Bullingdon) in Oxford’s Cowley Road, follows support slots and jams with the band at London’s Blues Kitchen.

Aaron’s love of the blues started early, encouraged by his father Paul (a drummer). He got his first guitar aged eight, and took lessons from respected guitar teacher Darrell Walls, from Witney.

But it wasn’t until Paul took him to a jam session at Oxford’s Jack Russell pub that he flourished – and others began to take notice. From there, he went to the capital, guesting at venues in Camden and the West End. He formed his own band at 12, backed by adult sessionists, though now plays with a younger band of teenagers. He recently headlined BBC Oxford Introducing’s Upstairs night at the O2 Academy and is set to go on tour with Scottish lad-rockers The View.

“There has always been music,” says Aaron. “I’ve always loved it. Now I want to take things as far as I can.” And what does that mean? “The top,” he says cheerfully. “Stadiums! I’d love to be able to do that. I think I’ve got the ability. I’ve just got to get the right people to move it along. “My friends all support me and come and watch when I’m playing in Oxford. They think it’s all pretty amazing. And the teachers at school are really supportive too.”

Remarkably, Aaron plays his own stuff, with only two covers in an hour-and-a-half set. So how can a teenager, with little experience of hardship or suffering, write the blues? “It comes from experiences,” he says. “It’s everyday stuff you notice in your life; things you see, people you meet and stories you hear which leave you thinking ‘that’s cool’. You’ve either got the blues or you haven’t. It’s a feeling in your soul.”

And what advice would he give to any other aspiring musicians? “Just play as much as you can, and get out there. But above all, be yourself. Play what you want, how you want!”

CHECK IT OUT

Aaron Keylock supports Nine Below Zero at The Art Bar (The Bullingdon), Oxford, on Monday.

Tickets are £15 from www.wegottickets.com