The Columbus rapper talks about retiring the backflip, leading the HeadBand, and why making more moments keeps him going.
Joey Aich has been a friend of the Army of Dreamers platform from the beginning. When AOD started in Columbus in 2017, he was already one of the city’s most electric performers. Nearly a decade later, he’s still here, still building and still influencing hip-hop culture and the community at large.
That staying power is expressed on his latest album, Moments Like These. Track after track, one word kept coming to mind: endurance. The energy you need after the grant you didn't get, the show that didn't go as planned, the long drives to the next city.
Joey sat down with AOD founder Chanda Davis (Panda) to talk about the album, the people who made it, and what it takes to keep going.
Hanging up the backflip
If you've seen Joey live, you've probably seen the backflip. He started doing them around 2017, and for years they were his signature. Before that, it was crowd surfing, roughly 2012 through 2017, much to his parents' concern.
"They were like, 'You cannot do this, you don't have insurance.’ In my mind, there's never a moment where I think nobody's gonna catch me. I'm like, what happens if they catch me and the crowd goes crazy? That's what I'm living for."
The flips had their own close calls, including one where the mic cord caught his leg mid-rotation. Last year, they stopped feeling right. He gave it one last send-off at Land Grant's anniversary party, surrounded by family and friends. He fell. "I was like, yeah, it's a wrap."
Mike Dow, a partner for a decade now and a well-known DJ, kept reminding him the flip was never the whole show.
"For some period of time I was thinking, if I don't do the backflip, people not gonna love the performance. Now the evolution is just: rap better."
From performer to leader
At 32, Joey sees himself stepping into a new role: a leader in Columbus hip-hop, in Ohio music, and in the community beyond it. He's traveling more and opening doors, not just for himself.
Every job he's ever had has come from music in some form. Working at Land Grant Brewing taught him a lesson he applies to his career. "Every day there's a new brewery that opens. Every day there's ten breweries that close. How do we remain one of the ones that continue to keep going?"
Then there is "Schoolboy," one of the standouts on the album. It's about learning in real time, carrying a career largely on your own shoulders, and learning to trust the people around you.
"At the end of the day, nobody is gonna lose sleep if my career doesn't take off…I will.”
"Now I need to get out of my own head and just lay foundation down and do the best that I can do."
The HeadBand and the family behind the album
Joey doesn't walk this alone anymore. His band, the HeadBand, is what he calls "the perfect partners." They research opportunities, say yes to the road, and want more. "I wanna do everything to keep them believing and reward them for believing in the vision," he said. Some of his best days aren't on stage. They're in rehearsal, or out bowling after.
The band's fingerprints are on the record. When it came time to finish "Take 1 Raise 1," he brought in his own drummer and bass player. And the very first voice you hear on Moments Like These isn't Joey's. It's Lynnasia, the band's music director, calling showtime. "You've been so instrumental to the last couple of years of building this stuff out," he said. "I want people to hear that."
That instinct to lift others is something he names as a superpower.
"Outside of me being who I am, I'm also a big cheerleader. I love to clap for people, even if it has no attachment to me. That's how we continue the ecosystem."
It extends to the visuals too. Photographer Rhett shot the covers for Moments Like These and Joey's earlier project Duo, both now pressed on vinyl and sitting in record stores. Rhett told Joey that seeing his work in a record store had been a dream since childhood. "As I'm able to build out my dreams," Joey said, "I'm also able to help other people realize dreams."
He credits his own foundation to his parents, who raised a house full of driven, creative kids. One brother was just inducted into their high school hall of fame. "They've laid such a great foundation," he said. One lesson stuck from childhood: you never know who's watching you.
Great humans only
The guest list on Moments Like These reads like a map of Joey's community. His rule is simple:
"I just want to have great humans on the album."
"Moments Like These." The album almost had a different name, All From Rap, because everything Joey has ever gotten has come from rap. The title shifted after he imagined a camera crew following him through one morning: waking up to a grant rejection, then pulling himself together for a podcast interview hours later. "People don't get to see the rejection that happened earlier," he said.
"Schoolboy." A song about being a one-man show and learning to trust the people around you. It's where Joey stays a student, figuring out a path no one in front of him has walked.
"Die Old" featuring Grand Ace. Joey calls Grand Ace one of the best humans in the scene. The song carries what he says is one of his favorite lines he's ever written: a turn from once wanting to live fast and die young to now wanting to live long and die old. It's a shift he credits to watching friends like Trek Manifest balance music, teaching, marriage and fatherhood. "Being able to grow old and experience life, share stories. That's so cool to me."
"Footprints" featuring Sarob. Joey and Sarob, who was a fixture in the Columbus music scene when Joey was coming up, figured it out side by side in college, on a path neither had seen anyone take. Sarob doesn’t rap as much these days, so Joey cashed in a favor. “I have an abundance of Sarob coins. For this one, I gotta cash it in. Introspective Sarob is my favorite rapper.”
"Take 1 Raise 1." The track where the HeadBand's fingerprints are clearest. When it came time to finish it, Joey asked why he'd use anyone else when he had one of the best drummers and one of the best bass players in his own band. Live drums, bass, and Lynnasia on keys made it a full-band record.
"Midsummer." In Joey's words, "the best song ever." The rock-star chant is a prayer he says out loud on purpose. More on that below.
"How Many?" The question at the heart of the album: how many moments does it take to reach the breakthrough?
"424 West" featuring Dom Deshawn and OG Vern. Dom, now producing more, was a no-brainer. Vern, a former Land Grant coworker, is someone Joey met at 17 or 18 and has watched grow into a man and a father.
"Grind" featuring Blueprint. Blueprint, a pioneer of Columbus hip-hop, is living proof of a sustainable independent career, including a 50-to-70-date tour last year. One piece of advice from him, "just get your first vinyl," is the reason Joey's records exist at all.
"Show Out" featuring Trav Hen. The Cleveland artist is the friend who texts to check on you on the exact day you needed it, without knowing.
"After Love" featuring N'Shai Iman. Joey has watched N'Shai's rise up close and says it's just a matter of time. Her parents were front row at a recent show, dad holding the camera. "Game recognizes game when I see a family like that."
On the production side, Joey leaned on longtime collaborators, including KMB and Gem City Nate.
To elaborate on Midsummer, The song's chant about everybody being rock stars is intentional. Over the past two years, Joey has been working on how he talks about his own life. Less "I'm tired," less "I'm broke." "It's power in the tongue," he said.
"When I say that I pray that we're all rock stars, that feeds into everything that I've planned for myself."
The sports and nerd references are there for those who catch them. He's had fans come up after shows asking if he really slipped a Steve Francis nod into the verse. He did.
"How Many?" asks: how many moments until the breakthrough? For Joey, the answer is partly about how people see independent artists. Ask most people what success in music looks like and they'll name Beyoncé, Kendrick or Drake. They don't see the sustainable middle class of the industry.
"How many moments until people can not feel like they have to worry, or people look at it as a success?" he said. Internally, the goalpost will keep moving. "We sold out this venue. Now, when's the next one?"
Art first, content second
Most albums follow a predictable pattern: the first track gets the most streams, the last gets the fewest. Joey decided to reverse-engineer that. He put promotion behind "After Love," the closer, with short phone-shot clips during the H Madness tour, a performance video, and an official video. The goal is to pull listeners all the way through the record, from "Schoolboy" to "How Many?" to "Grind" and "424 West."
"It's not going away from the album," he said. "Make content to support the album."
It's a philosophy AOD has pushed since the early days: do the project justice before moving on. A video, a run of shows, interviews, a photo shoot. Content has always existed, but it used to be understood as art.
Joey wants long form to survive. "I want it to be known for the music video and everything that comes after that. Not a meme or a TikTok. The vinyl pressings are part of that. Cover art, color, something you can hold.”
It's also a record that works in real life. Put it on for a workout, a drive, or a run. It's up-tempo and reflective at the same time: a full story about the work of being an artist, told by someone who makes it look easy even when it isn't.
What's next
Joey is between albums but not slowing down. A music video for "Midsummer" is in the works, and the HeadBand has shows on the calendar.
The bigger dream is a full tour, festival stages, travel across the country and beyond, and room for everyone around him to grow too.
"If somebody in the audience sees something and goes, 'I wanna be the best version of myself because I saw Joey Aich and the HeadBand,' that's all I've wanted to do with my life."
Find Joey Aich:
Website: joeyaich.com, for music and more
Patreon: patreon.com/joeyaich, with song snippets, footage, writing, and his post-show "Walk and Talk" recaps
If you have the extra subscription dollars, this is where they count. Supporting independent artists directly is how the shows, videos and vinyl keep coming.