Aaron Carter has had a difficult year, and he's the first person to admit it. He recently completed a stay in rehab, after entering a 90-day program following a "terrible" car accident in September, and was arrested in July for alleged DUI and marijuana possession. To make things even worse, his father Robert passed away earlier this year.
In a long-ranging interview, he talks about overcoming all of these obstacles, and how rehab has given him a renewed outlook. Mostly, though, Carter talks about how music helps him deal with his grief and trauma.
"I’m kind of like Taylor Swift," he said to Us Weekly, about his songwriting process. "I produce music when I feel depressed. It’s just my way out, my way of resting my mind." He also says that "I go through a lot of pain, and my pain is reflected in my music."
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Carter recently went through a tumultuous relationship, and says he's using that for creative inspiration. "That’s how all these songs came about. They’re about ex-girlfriend that didn’t work out," he says. "I wrote songs about them while I was with them, trying to get them to understand what they were doing to me."
Music, he says, is also how he deals with his mental and physical health issues. "I have post-traumatic stress disorder," he says, and mentions that it is a result of his "different-style" upbringing. As a child star, Carter says he "wasn’t able to go to school, have normal friends. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over."
In Feburary, he released his LøVë EP, but indicates that he's back in the studio. "I’m telling you, I love in the studio. It’s the safest place for [me] and [is] very therapeutic." After rehab, Carter gushes about his new "aspirations" but tempers it with the expectations that come with being 30. "It’s time to act like a frickin’ adult. I have new aspirations. All of those require my attention for music."
Earlier this year, Carter chatted with Vulture about how much he values his musical career as a motivating force. "When you lose everything you gain the hunger, you become hungry and when I go back to my instincts, my instinct was I love making music," he said. For Carter it seems that music has been his primary constant if life, even when his life is in turbulence.
"My goal is to be the phoenix that rises from the ashes," he told Us.