Aug Stone has been making music for decades, but it wasn’t until last week that he released his first single under his own name. “Rachel on the Rooftops” is power pop-tinged rock jam that showcases the musician and author’s knack for narrative. The single also features backing vocals from Rachel Love, best known for her time in Dolly Mixture, the seminal British indie pop band that would later sing backup on Captain Sensible singles like “Happy Talk.”
“They’re one of my all time favorite bands,” says Stone of Dolly Mixture. “It’s punky in attitude, but it’s like all the great girl pop of the ‘60s. I love all those songs.”
Stone had interviewed Love on his podcast a few years back and thought of her when he knew “Rachel on the Rooftops” needed female backing vocals. He “nervously” asked Love to contribute. “She just went to town on it and came up with all these parts,” he recalls. “She came up with this thing at the very end where it’s just her vocals and it’s lovely. It really makes the song soar. I love it.”
The single, which is available digitally and also includes the song “A Lighthouse I Ain’t Ever Been To,” is representative of what has been a very fruitful year for Stone. Overall, he’s written about 20 songs in 2025. The irony is that Stone thought he was more or less done with music.
Stone, who is based in Connecticut, and I first met many years ago, when he was visiting Los Angeles and stopped by a club where I DJed, and have kept in touch over the years. He’s played in loads of bands, amongst them H Bird and the Soft Close-Ups. He has also recorded solo material, although that was released under the same Rock Stone. (If you ever come across Rock Stone’s 7” for “Cherry Vanilla,” get it.) Eventually, though, writing took over for Stone. He has released four books (a couple of which I helped proofread) in a little over a decade. His 2023 novel, The Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass, a hysterical journey into the world of music obsession and the quest for rare releases, was named one of the “best comedy books of the year” by Vulture. Last year, Stone released Sporting Moustaches, a short story collection about facial hair and competition.
While Stone played music less frequently in recent years, it remained very much a part of his life and art. “The fake bands is kind of my thing, which I love doing,” he says. Take Buttery Cake Ass as an example. That was a band that he and his best friend made up back in high school. Decades later, when he sat down to write The Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass, Stone had enough IRL music experience to add to the tale. He wrote a 50 page discography of related fake bands for the book. “A few of them I fell really in love with, such as the band Clown Damage,” he says. “Now, I’m working on the oral history of Clown Damage.”
His stories are set in the same universe. The day before we met up on a video call, Stone was working on the Clown Damage book and wrote a references to The Lowbrows, a fictional new wave band that appears in the Sporting Moustaches story “An Early History of the Three-Faced Race,” and Glucose Maman from The Ballad of Buttery Cake Ass. (Glucose Maman was also the name of a real band that Stone and his best friend had long ago.)
As for his own music, Stone had been working on a project fairly recently and was frustrated when it didn’t pan out. Early this year, though, an introduction to the music of Damien Youth , via a collection that David J compiled for record label Glass Modern, offered new inspiration “There are 58 releases on his Bandcamp, so every day for the first two months of this year, I had something new to listen to,” he says of Youth.
At the same time, Stone started playing his guitar first thing in the morning. “I realized that if I do that, if I get out of bed and grab a guitar, I’m in a good mood for the rest of the day,” he explains. “Rachel on the Rooftops” came out of that practice, with the lyrics inspired by the dream.
Stone played the song live earlier this summer at his first solo show in eight years. That night, he also played another new song, “Sour Apple,” that he’s hoping to release as a single later in the year.
As for a full album, that’s a possibility. “I’ve had an album in the back of mind for a few years that I’ve always wanted to make,” he says. “There are some songs from that and some new songs. I think it will be a killer album.”
Aug Stone’s music, and books, are available on Bandcamp.
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Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates.
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