Aaron Lee Tasjan's 'Stellar Evolution' highlights musical growth, accepting accountability

Aaron Lee Tasjan has spent twice as long with a guitar in his hand as he's spent walking the streets of Manhattan and Nashville. In that journey, the 37-year-old artist has been profoundly creative, releasing a trove of Americana Music Association Awards and Grammy nomination-worthy material.

"As a queer musician living in the South, I'm finally using my interests in both abrasive and melody-driven music to combat internalizing watching a nightmarish and hatred-filled agenda creating unsafe spaces for me and my community," he tells The Tennessean about "Stellar Evolution," which was released earlier this month.

Embracing universal truths

"I love America better than you, her dirty water and her hot dogs, too," sings Tasjan on the tongue-in-cheek and guitar-driven protest anthem "I Love America Better Than You."

"As time passed on and American history unfolded, the words came to me as observations that I fleshed into a song that kept growing," says Tasjan.

"I love America," like some of the tracks on this album, took almost a decade to write. They were impacted by the intellectual and personal growth and evolution Tasjan has experienced in his own life.

Recently sober, a song like "The Drugs Did Me" smacks of his clear-minded honesty. "Horror of It All" sounds like what happens when remembering memories flooding back to the forefront after being subjugated to the recesses of one's mind -- and, as what a press release describes as "ugly right-wing rhetoric," entered his existence.

"In modern times, talking about the truth (in the best, most complete light) requires aligning yourself with a set of information that, regardless of political beliefs, is universal to humankind," he says.

Americana's multi-genre evolution

Akin to performers like Adeem The Artist and Allison Russell on recent releases, Tasjan is also consciously re-embracing his roots woth New York City's early 2000s glam rock revival act Semi Precious Weapons and diving deeper into synthesized sounds on his latest album.

The track "Alien Space Queen" is an astral synth-rocker that celebrates living outside gender binaries while “Pants" sounds like post-disco pro-punk David Bowie or Talking Heads.

Blending acoustic folk inspirations with bold deviations into indie rock, psychedelic soul, punk and synth pop allows for Tasjan's material to feel at home at the forefront of where the most progressive-minded segment of Americana, as a community, intellectually and psychologically exists.

"On ('album track) 'Ocean Drive,' I'm playing guitar solos where I'm trying to channel George Benson's jazz," Tasjan continues, making an homage to late 1970s era adult contemporary pop's appearance on the album, too.

Tasjan occupies a unique space. Though he's under the age of 40, he's got ties to history and one foot in the future.

His career spans working with the New York Dolls, Lady Gaga and Sean Lennon in Greenwich Village to collaborating with Mya Byrne, Sheryl Crow, Elton John and Yola in Nashville.

Almost four decades after its birth, Americana is less about being a catch-all for sounds that advance and regress against country music and its commercial tides.

Rather, it's now a genre consisting of artists pushing agenda-driven, intentional, personal and raw songs to the forefront.

Being part of a community of 'truth tellers'

Tasjan describes the power in songs that "re-imagine how (many people) perceive themselves in the world."

Nashville, he says, is filling with musical, political and social "truth tellers" who inspire visibility in the face of fear and isolation.

Like those leaders, Tasjan aims for his record to also represent him arriving as more than just a vaunted singer-songwriter.

"I'm prepared to show up for all of the communities of which I am a member as a steady, cool hand in the face of fiery emotions," he says. "This is a love letter to my queer and trans friends all over the world. The power of exciting songs that evolve an existing musical history allows for people to continue to not feel dehumanized in American society."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Aaron Lee Tasjan's 'Stellar Evolution' highlights musical growth, accepting accountability