Correction: The Tasjan concert is Friday, August 23. This story originally had the wrong date. The Houston Press regrets the error.
It has been said many times and in many ways that the only constant is change. People can either sink their feet in the sand and fight the current, or roll with the waves and see where life takes them.
During his solo career, Nashville based artist Aaron Lee Tasjan has been able to relax artistically somehow and see where the currents of creation take him. On his latest record Stellar Evolution, the result is Tasjan almost reading the tea leaves of a collection of songs only to find that the universal effects of change were the big takeaway.
“This particular collection really seemed to lean into that lane of change and I’ve been feeling it so much in life in general, and really in the past couple of years in particular. I feel like they just came through like Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking ball”, the change has been noticeable.”
Tasjan and his band will return to Houston for the first time in five years to perform at The Continental Club on Thursday, August 22 with Houston’s own troubadour Luba Dvorak opening the show.
Tasjan knows that he is not unique in experiencing waves of shifts, as the whole world has been pummeled with events and news cycles that create changes globally, some irreversible, creating a universal effect of questioning our reality and way of doing things historically.
“That energy is transferable,” says Tasjan of the collective subconscious of humans and how change impacts us. “I think humans are actually a lot more empathic than they give themselves credit for. I think we’re all feeling each other’s pricks, pushes, pulls and everything that we’re experiencing right now and that’s where the power of art really comes into the play I think because that’s the lens through which we understand those challenging times.”
“I think humans are actually a lot more empathic than they give themselves credit for. I think we’re all feeling each other’s pricks, pushes, pulls and everything that we’re experiencing right now and that’s where the power of art really comes into the play.”
Throughout the years, Tasjan has leaned into change in his songwriting. His talents as a guitar player, writer and singer have led him to play with a wide variety of artists as well as fronting his own projects.
His work with his first band Semi Precious Weapons and later Madison Square Gardeners cemented his name as a great guitarist who could play just about anything, leading him to work with legends like The New York Dolls, B.P. Fallon and Jack White.
When asked if working with such a wide array of influential artists helped him to further see the importance of being oneself and not being afraid of exploring new sounds, Tasjan agrees citing some great advice given to him from a short but monumental chain of Nashville giants, Todd Snider and John Prine. Tasjan recalls when Snider described being on Prine’s label and Prine advising the young Snider to push further into sounding more like himself and less like Prine.
“I think having those guide posts along the way of people you get to work with and you realize, it’s not that they’re the most amazing singer I’ve ever heard or the greatest guitar player in the whole world, it’s that they do something that you really can’t get anywhere else and that realization helped to push me to where I am today. I feel like where I am today is that I know myself really well as an artist as a singer and a musician and knowing that is giving me the ability to push beyond where I originally started.”
Applying this same concept to himself, Tasjan’s 2021 release Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! saw him branching out in new ways with Stellar Evolution picking right up and expanding the road map to his true self even further.
“On that last record I really wanted to try and open the door up to some modern sounds and song structures,” says Tasjan who describes a desire to branch out while not wanting to lose his Americana audience and community.
“I love being a part of Americana music or whatever you want to call it these days. I love that community of people and I didn’t want to lose them in trying to figure out who I was but at the same time, I felt like as an artist I owe this to myself you know and to really find out who I am.”
Stellar Evolution is a wonderfully eclectic collection of songs with lyrics that though at times serious in nature, counterbalance sonically with a lighthearted, synth pop sensibility.
The album kicks off with the funky “Alien Space Queen” describing a futuristic persona who defies gender, a theme Tasjan, who identifies as queer, has taken a big step into protecting and advocating for in his songs.
“It’s super important,” says Tasjan of the representation of LBGTQ imagery and stories in his songs. “It speaks a lot to how young people feel about themselves growing up. If that representation exists those heroes are there for them to look at and see and understand that the thing that they are actually afraid of about themselves is actually a super power.”
Tasjan playfully pokes fun at the concept of national pride and the identity of Americans with “I Love America Better Than You.” Though the song is clearly not to be taken too seriously with its many references to hot dogs and bible references, he admits some audience members have been offended.
He describes moments where he has been approached at the end of the show to discuss the meaning of the song and where the fan initially thought there would be a conflict, instead they have found a deep conversation around the tricky subject matter.
“Those kinds of connections are really the most special and the most precious ones that I think you get to have as an artist and musician. That’s not lost on me at all, in fact in this time that we are in where it seems like there’s so much dehumanization in the world, I really cherish and value the fact that we are able to connect with each other.”
Tasjan has always strived to be welcoming and inclusive and describes his recent tour as an on stage evolution of his song catalog starting with early songs leading to his current album and ending with some brand new, not yet released material.
“We really try to make what we’re doing a celebration of survival of life of what’s to come of what’s behind us and the show kind of runs like that too,” he describes.
When asked if stepping further into himself with new sounds and more direct song subjects has indeed caused him to lose any of his Americana fans, Tasjan thankfully responds that it has not.
“We’ve seen growth more than anything. It’s been really interesting on this record to see a lot of families at the show, generally with their young kid who is maybe discovering themselves, and the parents want to be supportive of that and our show feels like a good forum for that because everybody enjoys the music.”
Aaron Lee Tasjan will perform with Luba Dvorak on Friday, August 23 at The Continental Club, 3700 Main, 9 p.m, $20-30.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
