His next EP was called The Green Room Sessions, a home spun recording entirely played and produced on his own.

As an independent artist once again in 2008, Hest created 52, a subscription based service in which he wrote, recorded and released a new song every week for a year.

In 2016, Ari co-wrote a number of songs with Judy Collins, and the two released an album of duets June 3 entitled Silver Skies Blue, after two years of on-and-off touring together.

Silver Skies Blue was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in 2017 but lost to Undercurrent by Sarah Jarosz.

This is not Hest's first collaboration - he has two other projects: The Open Sea with Rosi Golan, and more recently, the Brazilian guitar inspired Bluebirds of Paradise with Chrissi Poland.