Since arriving in East Nashville in 2015, Aaron Lee Tasjan has established himself as one of the most interesting and versatile artists in that thriving music community. His genre hopping escapades have gifted us with a catalogue of music that encompasses Americana, folk, power pop, rock and more. His recently released album titled TASJAN! TASJAN! TASJAN! is a treasure chest of poppy glam rock gems alongside a few heavenly ballads. It also contains the most personal and candid writing of his career. We chatted with the ever engaging and charming artist via Zoom recently.
Last year must have been an incredibly difficult period for musicians. Setting aside the negatives, did any positives emerge for you in 2020?
That’s a good question. Yes, there were. My partner Erica Blinn, who is a wonderful artist, has been making an album here in our house. She’s been recording and playing all the instruments herself for the album. It’s been a real gift during this time because the house is filled with incredible music and powerful artistic statements. That has been something that definitely improved the mood a lot last year. For me personally, I think I’ve been able to connect to my home life, which I haven’t had the chance to do before. I have been living with Erica for three years but we both tour constantly. We have known each other for a very long time, probably ten years before we got together. Normally we were only spending two weeks together here and there. So being at home together really felt like having a home life. It’s been grounding for me in many ways.
The new album TASJAN! TASJAN! TASJAN! is deeply personal and unguarded. Was it always going to be a ‘this is me warts and all’ type project?
At times in the past when I had made records, I kinda realised this passion that I had for creating records with intention. But at a certain point you have to leave room for the record to reveal itself to you and actually guide you, in terms of what it is you are actually saying on the record, which tracks are connecting, are really sparkling and lifting the music to the best place it can be. I did not start with the intention of writing and singing only about myself, but I noticed over time that the songs, where I was actually doing that, felt like the ones that were really compelling. In a lot of ways, I think it felt like something that was newer for me. It was a territory that I had not explored in depth before on previous records. I think there is a piece of me in every song I write, but that lyrically my tone had previously been more observational than on this record. This one is really about me and I think that these songs seem to just leap out of the speakers, and really feel exciting. So, it was an easy road to go down but there was a moment when I realised ‘I see what I’m doing, this is going to be a record where I’m singing about myself’. So, the songs are directly about me and out of my life. It did actually become that record about myself, which was not intentional at the beginning.
Did you have reservations as to how the material would be received, in particular the references to sexuality?
Yes, a little bit. Reservations might not be the correct word but you are aware of the fact that you are going to be categorised differently than in the past, due to the nature of some of the things that I am singing about on this record. Any time you sing about things that are super personal people often want to apply that label to you in a broad term. It is human nature to do that. We are all trying to figure out where each of us is coming from so that you know how to relate to each other. But we need to remember and acknowledge that people are many things, and it is not always that easy to use a wide brush stroke to describe an artist or music or whatever. We need to leave space for what that artist is becoming or about to become. I feel that if you are living life in the right way, it’s unlikely that you are going to be the same person in ten years’ time that you are today. That’s a little bit of what I’m trying to say on this record, to hold a space and allow people to become who they are over time. But also, to recognise the things about them in that moment, things that we can point to and say ‘that’s really interesting, I can relate to them this way unlike before’. It is a process, very much like a song, it’s a story that is slowly unfolding over time and that is why it is worth paying attention to.
Do you feel that honesty in writing is generally received with open arms, notwithstanding how difficult it may appear at the time?
Yes, I think you’re right. It’s interesting how those things that feel really scary at a certain time, but after you’ve gone through them, they turn out to be beneficial moments for all of us because it takes real strength to be vulnerable, I think. At least in America, I feel like our society has almost come to treat vulnerability as a liability. Whereas it’s actually an enormous strength, because it does allow us to relate to each other in a really intimate way. I think you make a really good point about how honesty and vulnerability tie right in with that sentiment.
With the song Don’t Over Think It, are you pointing at yourself or at the rest of us?
Oh, definitely at myself (laughs.) But I figured it is probably something that others have considered also. It was a recurring thing in my life, to the point where I finally said: ‘I have to write a song about this’ (laughs). I am always doing it to myself. For me, songs can be like a mantra because as a performer you sing the songs every night. So, you want to make sure that these words that you communicate every night have a meaning for you and that you can delight in, find your humanity in and be able to share that with people. I am sure there are people who might approach their art as more of an acting role going on stage. I can appreciate that, but for me I just couldn’t go on stage and actually fake it.
Are you generally very hard on yourself?
I traditionally have been but I have been trying very hard through different approaches including therapy to hold myself with a little bit more tenderness. I think I recognised on this record that when I am too hard on myself it gets to the point where it goes beyond just being a critical eye and gets to a place where I am actually undermining what I am doing. That is a pitfall that I try to avoid. It is about holding myself in that place where I don’t become overly self-critical and allowing myself the space to go: ‘I don’t have to be perfect and in fact what I currently am hearing as being wrong about this, is the same thing that may very well endear it to somebody else’. It’s a fine line. I think. as an artist, you’re always walking a lot of fine lines. I think it was John Lennon who said that an artist is the one that has the biggest ego in the room and then can turn around and be crushed in a second with one sentence from somebody. I do think there is some truth in that, it is a kind of tight rope walk.
You recorded once more with Gregory Lattimer who also worked with you on KARMA FOR CHEAP in 2018. How did the recording process compare this time around?
Some of the songs were done piecemeal from the beginning this time. Those were Now You Know, Got What I Wanted and Not That Bad . Interestingly, those tracks sort of stood as they were when they were finished. We felt like we just put them together piece by piece but the full picture was already there and we did not need to do anything else with those songs. It was more the ones that we played live from the floor that we ended up doing multiple versions. Some had different time signatures and different tempos, there was a lot more experimentation when there was a live band there. Simply because you can do it more efficiently when there is a group of people there.
I presume you played a lot of the instruments yourself on the album. Who else contributed?
I did yes. I played a lot of the instruments myself but I also had some great drummers. I had Dom Billet who plays with the wonderful Yola and others. Jon Radford, Devon Ashley from The Lemonheads and Fred Eltringham from Sheryl Crow’s band also played drums. Erin Rae and Andrew Combs also contributed and we had a super special guest player on Up All Night, the great bass player Keith Christopher from Lynyrd Skynyrd.
New West were not exactly on board from day one I understand. You waited for some while to break the news to them that you were working on a new album?
(Laughs). God bless them. They were apprehensive. This was the record I particularly wanted to produce myself having not done that before. I ended up co-producing it with Gregory (Lattimore) simply because he is such a good creative partner for me. New West were a little apprehensive, simply because I didn’t have the experience of producing myself. There was nothing for the record label to look at and say ‘well he produced that album and it went well’. I did have to prove myself a little bit to them but for an artist like me a challenge like that ultimately ends up being a good thing. I do have a certain level of ambition for myself within what I’m doing. I always want to try and create something that has elements to it that my previous work may not have had. Sometimes you need people to push you to do that. New West were honest and were not sure that they saw me as a producer. Rather than trying to change their minds, I thought why not record a few songs, send them to the label and they may be more apt to allow me to finish the project myself. So, I sent them four songs I had basically completed recording, Another Lonely Day, Sunday Women, Don’t Overthink It and Now You Know was the other one. I sent them those tracks and they listened to them with an open mind. They thought about it for a while and came back and said ‘actually we really like this direction and think you should keep going. Let us know if you need anything else’. That was really down to Kim Buie, who is A and R at New West and was in a position to make that call. She was the one who stepped up to the mark and believed in the project. Much respect and love to her for that.
Have New West and others tried to point you in a particular musical direction over the years?
New West signed me having seen me play a set acoustically and solo, very much in the vein of artists I had seen doing that and admired like Todd Snider and Ray Wylie Walker, Tim Easton, Mary Gauthier. It seems logical to me that New West would have perceived me as a folk singer. I feel comfortable playing an acoustic guitar by myself, but I feel equally at home playing in a band scenario playing electric guitar, sometimes very loudly and other times very quietly. I like the dynamic range of being able to go from solo to a full band arrangement. Allowing myself to remain open to my folkier inclinations, gives me a wide dynamic range musically and allows me to do all sorts of things, which is exciting for me. Bands like The Byrds and Bob Dylan’s mid 60s records combined those elements of folk music and rock music and that to me feels like a tradition and freedom that should exist in all kinds of music and cultures.
I understand you’re playing the 3rd & Lindsley to launch the album shortly. How long has it been since you’ve actually performed live on stage?
Since last March at the start of the pandemic. Unfortunately, because of COVID-19, the 3rd and Lindsley show is a solo stream without any audience. 3rd AND Lindsley ON SUNDAY NIGHT is the name of the event put on by the Radio Station Lightning 100 here in Nashville every week. They are a tremendously supportive Radio Station of local artists. They just debuted the full new album on the radio show the other evening. We are very grateful to them for all the support they offer. There will be an in-store event with a full band that we are going to do at Grimey’s record store in East Nashville in the coming weeks. It will be without an audience but with a full band and streamed everywhere free of charge.
Unlike the vast majority of today’s artists, you have a unique and individual fashion style. How important is this to you?
To me it’s really a part of my art. I create those looks for each record that’s based on the music that I’m writing, performing and how I’m feeling at the time. A lot of times I will start wearing certain styles to the studio when I am recording a record, because it helps me inhabit the space where the music is coming from in totality. That’s what I want to do: be a walking breathing piece of art. A lot of these pieces that I’m wearing on the record covers, I’m creating and making myself. It’s hard to find fashion for men that seems interesting to me. I love all kinds of fashion but I’m also not an artist in a position to spend $1000 on a pair of pants. (laughs). Instead, I can go to the thrift store and buy a suit for $10, come home and decorate it and make it something that it wasn’t before. That’s what I also do with my music as well, taking things that have already existed and putting them together in a way that feels interesting to me. So, there are parallels to be drawn between my music and fashion. It allows me to embrace the full identity of what I am making or creating.
When do you see normality returning for you career wise?
I’m certainly hopeful that it’s sooner rather than later. I honestly don’t know what the reality of that is. We did book a tour for November and I’m hoping that will happen. If it doesn’t, we are just going to keep doing everything we can to bring music to people in a way that we can for now. It’s not just about being monetarily compensated for my career or whatever. For artists like me, playing to a couple of hundred people, I love to get talking to those people after the shows, hear their stories how they relate to the music and get a depth of understanding of how they connect to the music. You cannot really do that via your phone or computer. There’s also the feeling of standing in a room with people in an audience and everyone is feeling the same experience together. That is very special to me too. And we will get back to that when it’s safe to do so. But safety is paramount and I hope that folks have started to realise that the more that we do now to wear masks, to be safe, to socially distance, to not go out except when necessary, the sooner we are going to get back to the life that we all love so much.
Interview by Declan Culliton Photograph by Curtis Wayne Millard