Aaron Lee Tasjan Heads East Nashville’s Songwriting New Wave

There is excitement and celebration with the music coming out of East Nashville.  A new wave of singer-songwriters is channeling the outlaw spirit, crafting stories of relationships, trains, and alcohol mixed with cannabis. I first caught wind of Aaron Lee Tasjan by simply being at the right place at the right time. He happened to have a showcase slot in the High Watt at last year’s Americana Music Association conference’s closing night. The kid from New Albany, Ohio, located just outside of Columbus, who performed a short and very sweet set, was one of the highlights of the entire week. I hitched onto his Indiegogo bandwagon in November and am happy to report that his debut album In the Blazes is scheduled for an October 6, 2015, release. 

Tasjan rolled through Cleveland at the end of July touring with the lovely and sweet Lily Hiatt on a summer tour and from what I heard that night, In the Blazes sounds like it’s worth the wait. 

Then again, there is listening to an Aaron Lee Tasjan record and then there is seeing one of his shows.  His dry, satiric wit is comedy genius. He plays “Captain Folk,” the roadie, warming up the audience with his trucker hat, vintage Carrera sunglasses, and magic marker t-shirt. He covers John Prine, Todd Snider, Shel Silverstein, and Billy Joe Shaver songs.  A quick trip to the back of the stage to turn the shirt around and change into his regular spectacles and hat, brought Tasjan back to the microphone, spinning stories to set up his set list beautifully.

The soon to be 29-year-old artist began playing in garage bands until joining the high school jazz ensemble.  After winning an award for performing a selection from the Duke Ellington songbook at New York’s Lincoln Center, Tasjan was offered a scholarship to the esteemed Berklee College of Music.  But like many others, the party lifestyle became more of a priority than his studies, so Tasjan left for Brooklyn and a band called Semi-Precious Weapons.  From there, he had stints playing guitar for the New York Dolls and Drivin ‘N’ Cryin.  All along Tasjan wrote songs and played solo gigs in-between being a hired hand.  After paying his dues and learning the ropes, he finally decided he was ready to make a go of it alone and released his first EP, Crooked River Burning, in 2014.   

Tasjan began writing songs for the new record, in a haze that was inspired by Guy Clark and John Prine. The successful Indiegogo campaign for In the Blazes placed Tasjan into New Monkey Studio in Los Angeles with his good friend Eli Thompson producing and engineering the project.  The ten-track live recording session took seven days with the only overdubbing being backing vocals and piano.  Helping out were Dan Bailey on drums and David Vandervelde on guitar, piano, and vocals.

From the opening chords of “The Trouble with Drinking,” Tasjan grabs the listener with a tune that may one day be a cult classic. Wetting our appetite for more, the disc delivers some nice lead guitar highlights on “The Dangerous Kind” and “Made in America,” which are old school rockers.  Some retro sounds ala Band of Joy can be heard in the gritty twang of “Git Gone,” while the toe-tapper “Lucinda’s Room” bleeds the lyrics “Drunken angel / How’d you get so lonely.”  

Two beautiful storyteller ballads are “Judee is a Punk” — more about Jesus freaks — and one about stuff that’s cool in the sunshine state called “Florida Man,” which has some nice piano fills.  A garage punk song is tossed into the mix with “Bitch Can’t Sing.” There’s also a story about Tasjan and fellow musician Tim Easton titled “$66.00 Blues,” which closes out the album with a rockabilly finish.  The best song of the bunch is titled “E.N.S.A.A.T.” which translates to “East Nashville Song about a Train.”  There’s some great lyrical content embedded into that tue, like, “I need you like a teenager needs a song,” or “Just think about things you’d change about your past,” all intertwined with some nasty guitar riffs.   

Aaron Lee Tasjan has proven he’ll be an outlaw gunslinger to be reckoned with when In the Blazes hits the record store shelves.  There is no doubt this underdog phenom’s album will be on many year-end lists … and enters the clubhouse vying for Album of the Year.

e on many year-end lists … and enters the clubhouse vying for Album of the Year.