Aries pulls out a sketchbook. He flips through its pages, each one filled with drawings and scribbles, until he locates the original sketch of a wide-grinning sun that would become the cover art for Believe In Me, Who Believes In You, his first album since signing with Columbia Records in September 2019 and sophomore album overall, out Friday (Nov. 12).  “The album title is me talking to myself,” the 23-year-old, who prefers not to reveal his full name, tells Billboard over Zoom from his Los Angeles home five days before the project’s release.

The cover art indicates a more complicated message is buried beneath Aries’ clever and quotable hooks scattered across the album’s 12 tracks. Boastful single “Fool’s Gold” began Aries’ new era last November and elevated his signature whiplash sound — just when you’ve settled in for an alternative ballad, a collection of beat drops thrust you into an ear-splitting hip-hop soundscape. Aries’ eclectic production was juxtaposed between this summer’s guitar-based, pop rock-leaning “Kids on Molly” and October’s high-octane, rap-riddled “One Punch,” which made it on the NBA2K22 soundtrack as well as on ESPN’s broadcasts this week.

That’s where he is now, detailing how Believe In Me, Who Believes In You materialized. The cover was originally the photo of Aries now used as the poster for his 2022 Believe In Me Tour. His eyes are cast downward, his hands thrown upward, and his mouth is agape as if he’s either laughing or maniacally screaming. But after playing his friends the album for the first time to finalize its tracklist, they nixed the photo. “This photo is black and white,” they told him. “Your album is way too colorful for that.”

So, Aries did what he had done for as far back as he can remember. He sat down, opened this sketchbook and started drawing until the pages were full. The result is an album cover that is a more vivid self-portrait than the literal portrait ever was. An animated sun that bears a striking resemblance to the spiky, spooky Pokémon Haunter (“That might have been my subconscious mind”) is smiling as vastly as Jim Carrey in The Mask and hovering its human hands directly over a miniscule figure with arms outstretched toward the sky. The sky is dark, despite the sun, and dotted with stars and a storm cloud. The man is Aries. And actually, the full title of the album is Believe In Me, Who Believes In You: Journey to the Sun. 

Aries spent the first eight years of his life in Wichita, Kansas — “long enough for me to retain fond memories” — but he’s a Cali boy, through and through. Regardless of his location, music felt like home. He was surrounded by music from a young age, as his father was a professional violinist. By third or fourth grade, he was already developing an affinity for rock music by listening to Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory and Meteora albums. He asked his mom to go to Barnes & Noble to buy their Live in Texas DVD, thinking it was just another album of theirs.