Hope, distortion, and the sound of letting go
Exploring the emotion, influences, and new music shaping Mount St. Helen.
Mount St. Helen: Finding hope in the noise
At 22, Aris is already acutely aware of the contradiction at the heart of modern creativity: the pressure to be seen and the fear of being judged. Releasing music under the alias Mount St. Helen, the artist occupies a space where classical training collides with alternative rock, and where restraint meets emotional excess.
In an interview with myself, Aris explained ‘the project started during lockdown, but it only properly came into fruition at the start of 2024.’ What emerged is a sound that resists easy categorisation; string-oriented alternative rock that blends shoegaze, post-rock, hardcore, and 90s guitar influences with the discipline of a classically trained cellist and composer.
Rather than seeing genre as a creative anchor, Aris treats it as an afterthought. ‘Genre, in my mind, is a marketing label,’ they say. ‘It comes after the fact. Music happens first.’ This is a philosophy shaped by years spent playing orchestral music, followed by a formative encounter with grunge. Hearing Nirvana for the first time at 14 was initially jarring – ’the harmony was off, it wasn’t behaving properly’– but that rupture from classical rigidity became the very thing that drew them in. ‘That’s exactly why [Aris] started to fall in love with it.’
Visually, Mount St. Helen is defined by stark black-and-white imagery: tailored suits, high-contrast photography, and an aesthetic that feels closer to arthouse cinema than gig culture. The choice isn’t accidental. Aris cites alternative rock bands of the 2010s – The 1975 and Royal Blood – alongside film noir, and gallery photography as touchstones. ‘Black and white is an easier way to create a coherent aesthetic,’ they explain, ‘but it’s also something that just speaks to me more than colour.’ In a world overwhelmed by choice, stripping things back becomes an act of focus rather than limitation.
That sense of clarity runs through the project’s ethos. Even the name Mount St. Helen, often assumed to be symbolic, was born out of letting go. ‘I realised I was procrastinating,’ Aris admits. ‘I had all these songs, but I wouldn’t release anything because I didn’t have the perfect name. At some point, I just scrolled through my notes and picked one.’ ‘What matters now,’ they say, ‘is that the name sounds like the music.’
Helpless and beyond
Mount St. Helen has been steadily building momentum with recent releases that reflect Aris’s evolving artistic voice. In July 2025, he released the single Helpless, a shoegaze-infused meditation on vulnerability and resilience that balances lyrical introspection with sweeping instrumental textures. The track has become a defining moment in his catalogue, underlining his ability to merge emotional depth with sonic restraint.
The emotional core
The emotional heart of Mount St. Helen’s work is perhaps most evident in Helpless and other similar songs. Written in the summer of 2022, the track grew out of a time marked by exam stress, personal upheaval, and the overwhelming simultaneity of modern life. Rather than surrendering to despair, the song juxtaposes existential weight with an insistence on movement and presence: ‘dancing whilst the room is on fire.’ It’s this polarity that defines the song and much of Mount St. Helen’s wider project: an insistence that music should not only reflect suffering but also respond to it.
Above Aris’s workspace hangs a plaque bearing a line that has become something of a personal manifesto: ‘A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.’ The metaphor is simple but resonant. Conductors cannot look to the audience for validation, they must commit fully to the work in front of them. ‘There’s no point turning around to see if people are enjoying it,’ Aris says. ‘You just get on with it.’
That philosophy underpins the advice he offers emerging artists hesitant to share their work: ‘What have you got to lose? If people hate it, big deal. Someone is bound to like it, and even then, why are you creating stuff to be liked?’ For Aris, creativity is about narrating experience and sharing culture, not chasing approval.
In an era obsessed with metrics, Mount St. Helen stands for something quieter but more enduring: commitment to expression, trust in instinct, and the courage to lead without looking back. If the world is loud and overwhelming, Aris suggests the most radical act might be to create anyway – honestly, deliberately, and without apology.
Looking back, moving forward
Released on January 20th, the official trailer for Mount St. Helen’s upcoming single, Nineteen, offers an early glimpse into the emotional atmosphere Aris is building ahead of the track’s February 16th release. Watching it feels less like a preview and more like an entry point – layered with nostalgia and restraint, and mirroring his description of the song as a meditation on youth, distance, and the strange pull of looking back while continuing to move forward. Even in its brief runtime, the trailer signals that Nineteen is designed not just as a standalone release, but as a tonal gateway into the live experience Mount St. Helen is shaping.