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Talented musician Ron Artis II returns to Maui on Aug. 8

Listening to "We Are Not Machines," the most recent album by multi-instrumentalist Ron Artis II, you can hear echoes of greats like Jimi Hendrix, soul legend Sam Cook and blues musician Gary Clark Jr.

An exceptionally talented musician, Artis was praised by Seal as a real treasure and by guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel, who told him: "I've played with Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder and other greats. You have it."

Reviewing "We Are Not Machines," Guitar Player lauded him as "the hottest act to hail from Hawaii since Jack Johnson. In addition to his acoustic guitar excellence, Artis can also summon Hendrix-like histrionics on electric guitar. 'We Are Not Machines' brilliantly bottles his beautiful balancing act: electric and acoustic, rock and soul, feral and spiritual."

When he first played on Maui, Artis entranced audiences performing soulful, inspirational songs with his brother Thunderstorm Artis as an acoustic duo. Then he returned in 2017 as Ron Artis II and The Truth, an electric trio that blew everyone away.

Performing at Mulligans on the Blue on Aug. 8, Artis will deliver a memorable show of all original music. "There are no covers," he said. "It's all original. I try to keep it in an honest space of relatability, meaning writing about things that I think are important and sometimes putting a little light on our everyday decisions that we make."

Backed by a bassist and drummer, he continued: "We started dubbing the style 'people's music.' While it's focused on soul and singer-songwriter and a fair bit of rock, its primary focus is to remind everyone that all of us are made of love and none of us are machines. The reason I focus on we're not machines is it's so easy to pursue this artificial level of perfection or being mechanical in our approach to everything that you forget to check in on yourself."

The eldest son of 11 siblings, each of whom is a musician or artist, his brother Thunderstorm was a 2025 "American Idol" finalist and a finalist in Season 18 of NBC's "The Voice."

Raised on Oahu, he was first enamored with "classical flamenco and really soothing, softer sounds of guitar," he recalled. "I was not into rock guitar at all. Early on, it was Jose Feliciano, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia. I didn't get into Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, and Gary Moore, until I was about 16, and it wasn't only particularly the guitar. It was anyone who you could feel their whole existence inside of their performance, like John Coltrane and Jacqueline du Pré on the cello. It was across the board. These artists who lose themselves in the performance."

Among his admirers is Jack Johnson, who invited him to play Kokua Hawaii Foundation benefit shows. He also caught the attention of soul legend Booker T. Jones of "Green Onions" fame.

"We did some writing together, and I did a few performances with him," he said. "I play the organ a bit. A lot of my inspiration came from Booker T. and Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff."

He also got to hang out with Seal last year at a festival in Southern California.

"I gifted him one of the Made of Love sweatshirts, which we're going to have a few at the show," Artis said. "I got to talk to him about his music, and the pursuit of being a good person while being someone of his magnitude."

And then there were the Rolling Stones.

He was jamming with the Zac Brown Band in Philadelphia, when he was approached by their head of security. "He informed me that the Stones were in the audience and that they dug it, and they invited me to see them perform."

Artis operates, performs and tours as a family with his wife, a former East German detective, and his five children, traveling the world together.

"With the kids alone, we've been to 25 countries," he said. "Almost two months ago, we did eight countries in four weeks. We had a lot of firsts on this last trip. We went to Norway and Iceland, and we went to Costa Rica and El Salvador for the first time this year as well. There's so many cultures and so many beautiful things. It's easy to get in your own bubble, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can be beautiful to expand that a bit. We've been having an amazing time and people have been very kind to us. There are a lot of beautiful things about being a musician, but my favorite thing is making all these memories with my family."