AJ Mitchell Is Entering His Most Honest Era Yet
Updated: Sep 7
Ahead of his September 4 single 'Easier,’ AJ Mitchell reflects on stalled releases, social-media pressure, heartbreak, independence, and learning to place greater trust in himself.
By Conner Tighe
AJ Mitchell once believed love could give him a clear sense of direction.
He was in love, writing songs for the person he thought he would marry and imagining a future that seemed more certain with every step. Then the relationship ended, changing Mitchell’s understanding of love, self-worth, and where he places his faith.
The breakup forced Mitchell to look inward and reconsider how much of himself he had invested in another person. It also gave him a clearer sense of what it means to value himself without relying on a relationship or anyone else’s approval to define him.
That realization captures the place where Mitchell now finds himself: on the other side of a painful relationship, years of professional frustration, and a period in which the demands surrounding his career nearly separated him from the thing he had loved since childhood.
For perhaps the first time, Mitchell is placing greater trust in his own voice.
Falling in Love—and Back Into Himself
Mitchell describes his forthcoming project as a journey. Its songs follow the arc of a relationship from the exhilaration of finding the person you believe is the love of your life to the disorientation of watching that person become a stranger.
“It never feels good to give 100 percent of yourself to somebody, only for it to end,” he says. “What made it hurt less is knowing that we’re not meant to be. It’s clear to see. You shouldn’t give 100 percent to somebody that’s not giving it back to you. I wasn’t putting any of that effort into myself either.”
The breakup did not erase the love. Instead, it forced Mitchell to reconsider what love becomes after a shared future disappears.
“It’s very interesting how you think of love,” he says. “Because love is still there, and it’ll always be there. But it’s different than the love that it used to be.”
That emotional shift shapes the forthcoming project both musically and lyrically. Mitchell says its latter half shares some DNA with As Far As the Eye Can See, while the first half moves into different territory. “Easier,” set for release on September 4, begins the next chapter in Mitchell’s return, with additional music from his forthcoming project to follow.
But his next project is not simply about a breakup. It explores where Mitchell places his faith afterward and what it means to reclaim the energy he once poured almost entirely into someone else.
That story has a striking parallel in his career.
The Other Side of the Dream
Mitchell has wanted to make music since he was four years old. At 14, he left his hometown for Los Angeles and began living the future he had long imagined: recording, touring, traveling, and meeting people throughout the industry.
Mitchell’s early success did not always translate into control over his career. As projects faced repeated delays, he became increasingly frustrated by the gap between making music and sharing it.
“Mentally, I was pretty exhausted and drained from what was going on behind the scenes,” he says.
The delays also affected his relationship with listeners. Mitchell worried that fans would stop trusting his promises about new music, even though many of the decisions surrounding its release were outside his control.
Now, with greater independence and a trusted team around him, he is focused less on revisiting those frustrations and more on creating and releasing music and rebuilding his connection with listeners.
The Pressure to Perform Everywhere
At the same time, Mitchell faced another kind of performance: the demand to remain constantly visible online.
Long before his professional career began, he had posted videos of himself singing original songs and covers. Social media initially offered a direct, natural outlet for his music. Under industry pressure, however, that outlet began to feel like an assembly line.
Mitchell recalls being expected to post multiple times each day on Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and numerous other platforms with different content for each account.
“It just got to a point where I felt like a robot,” he says. “I didn’t feel human.”
The expectation was not merely to make music, but to convert his daily existence into an endless supply of unique content. For someone who had been navigating the industry since he was 14, the pace became mentally exhausting.
“I have eight platforms to post on. They all have to be completely different. I have to post multiple times a day. How is this possible?” he remembers thinking. “It’s not possible. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Eventually, Mitchell stopped. He calls it going “on strike,” disappearing from social media for stretches of time, then briefly resurfacing to assure fans he was still alive. Those absences were not signs that he no longer cared about music. They were attempts to preserve himself from the machinery surrounding it.
There were fleeting moments when he questioned whether he wanted to continue at all. They never lasted long.
“There’s nothing else in the world that I’d rather be doing than making music,” he says. If music had not worked out, Mitchell imagines he might have become a carpenter. He is good with his hands, he says, and could picture himself building houses. But no alternative has ever carried the same pull.
How AJ Mitchell Finally Took Back Control
Now independent after leaving Epic Records, Mitchell speaks with the relief of someone who can focus more fully on making and sharing music.
“I feel better than ever,” he says. “I’m independent now.” With a trusted team around him, Mitchell feels supported as he moves into the next phase of his career.
Independence does not mean Mitchell has rejected promotion or social media. He recognizes their importance and says he is back on his “content grind” as his forthcoming project approaches. What has changed is his ability to set limits and distinguish useful advice from an impossible demand.
The shift also reflects a broader change in whose opinion he is guided. When Mitchell first posted his songs, he wanted validation from his friends. He wanted them to know that he made music and to tell him whether it was any good.
“Now I just do what I want to do, because I love making music, and people seem to love what I make,” he says. “I don’t think I really need anyone’s approval other than mine.”
That self-trust has been years in the making.
His debut album, SKYVIEW, remains closely tied to home; its title came from the drive-in theater in his hometown. Mitchell recorded the project in London, and it included “Slow Dance,” one of his defining releases. He also remembers believing “Maybe” would become the album’s breakout song, only to watch it become its least-played track—a result he attributes in part to limited marketing.
For As Far As the Eye Can See, Mitchell needed a change of scenery. Tired of Los Angeles, he moved to New York and began working closely with executive producer Kid Culture. Living near one another and close to the studio allowed them to work almost daily, following ideas instead of a rigid plan. An earlier writing camp in Denver produced the beginnings of five songs, including “Foolish,” “Me,” and “Flowers on the Moon.”
The album did not receive its title until midway through the process. Over dinner, Mitchell and Kid Culture began discussing what to call the project. Mitchell explained that he wanted the title to feel massive. “For some reason, when I listen to this project, I imagine myself standing on the highest mountain and looking out as far as the eye can see,” he remembers saying. They looked at each other and immediately knew they had found the album’s name.
Each project has carried a piece of where Mitchell was at the time: SKYVIEW looked toward home, As Far As the Eye Can See emerged from escape and creative renewal, and his forthcoming project turns inward.
Trusting What Comes Next
Mitchell does not spend much time mourning the ordinary life he might have lived if he had never left home so young. His early career brought experiences he is still processing, but he does not regret chasing it.
“I feel very blessed, honestly, that I was able to move out of my small little town at the age of 14 and move to Los Angeles,” he says. “I got to start my career at a really young age.”
He sometimes wonders whether staying would have given him stronger relationships with his hometown friends. Mostly, though, he tries to remain grateful and present rather than live inside an alternate version of his past.
That outlook may be the clearest expression of where Mitchell stands today. He cannot undo the years of stalled music, relentless expectations, professional frustration, or the end of a relationship. He can decide what those experiences mean and what he carries forward from them.
For years, Mitchell’s career required him to become whatever the moment demanded: an unfailing performer, a constant content creator, and a reassuring presence for fans waiting on music he could not release. His forthcoming project introduces a different version of AJ Mitchell, one more comfortable trusting his own instincts.
The relationship at the heart of the project taught him that giving everything away is not the same as love. Independence taught him that a successful career cannot come at the cost of the person living it. Both lessons have brought him to a clearer sense of self-worth and a deeper trust in his own voice.
You can listen to AJ Mitchell’s music and follow his journey via Instagram, TikTok, Twitter (X), Snapchat, and streaming music platforms.
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