Aaron Lee Tasjan has always been fluid.
Videos by American Songwriter
Musically, sartorially, sexually, it doesn’t matter. An accomplished jazz musician who won the Duke Ellington Prize—presented by no less than Wynton Marsalis at Lincoln Center—as a high school senior. He eschewed his Berklee education for drugs, glam and a stint as co-founder and co-creative driver of Semi-Precious Weapons, the shock rockers who opened Lady Gaga’s Monsters Ball Tour. He’s been an Americana-impaling singer/songwriter, a New York Doll, a garage rock minimalist and a space popper, so the arrival of his most integrated hybrid, Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! (read our review), should be no surprise.
“I had a goal after Karma for Cheap to make a guitar record that doesn’t really sound like guitars,” the eve-cheerful prodigy explains. “Here there are a lot of things that sound like synthesizers, second generation keyboards, but often it’s a guitar I manipulated.”
The delight bubbles down the phone as Tasjan calls from his Nashville home, where he’s been quarantining since COVID came on strong. “People are doing a lot of interesting things on guitars, and I wanted to find an interesting way to represent guitars that wasn’t what people expect,” he says.
Whether it’s the sleek, Beatles-esque “Sunday Woman”—his voice an ether-like caress—the slinking new wave-ish “Don’t Overthink It” with a side-mouth delivery or the Cheap Trick power-pop “Up All Night” with phased vocals that tumble from the abyss, the Columbus, Ohio-born multi-instrumentalist demonstrates a Todd Rundgren-style flexibility to move from subgenre to subgenre without losing cohesion.
“Trying to create a sound, a persona or a life—a person that can exist in a place that’s one thing…” The mop-haired, bespectacled performer’s voice drifts off. “I think it’s best to not be defined,” he continues. “I’m no stranger to the complexities of any certain thing. We don’t always acknowledge them, because we want to define everything in these neat clean terms. It makes people comfortable.
“But what about everything that doesn’t fit? That’s usually the most interesting stuff.”
Tasjan should know. In many ways the Zelig of 20th Century Pop embraces it. He speaks of playing behind rock texture/founding father BP Fallon on the spoken word “I Believe In Elvis,” at Fallon’s behest, and opening a Kills’ special Terminal 5 show like going for milk. “It had a fuck ton of words, like a Dylan talking blues; I played slide. Afterwards, in the hallway, there’s Joan Jett. She says, ‘Was that you playing slide guitar down there?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and she goes, ‘You’re good,’ then turns and walks away. I was like, ‘Wow.’”
Parties on top of the Delancey Hotel, thrown by Lizzy Jagger. A brainiac girlfriend who worships the MC-5 and sources his clothes. Tripping balls on mushrooms. It’s all part of the kaleidoscopic Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!. His love- and adventure-seeking avatar in the old school video gaming “Computer Love” clip melts the influences down, pours them into an Electric Light Orchestra string bath and flies into the universe.
“We had a marathon 15 hour/two day filming session to get the videos, but I thought it was important,” he says. “No clip is ‘the definitive’ interpretation, but an access to things that don’t seem related, but are.”
Ironically, his new project is perhaps the most personal. Suddenly, the smart ass chronicler (this is the man behind “That Bitch Cant’t Sing” and “Another East Nashville Song About A Train,” after all) has turned his gaze inward. He didn’t realize it was happening, but suddenly, there it was. And so, the triple eponymous moniker.
“I’d recorded 22 for this record,” he begins, “and I chose the 11 I thought were the best. It turned out they were all about me. I think they had musical things that hold them together, but maybe… the ones that were about me I was investing more in emotionally. I bring it all to everything in the studio, but there’s still something about those songs.”
The darkly acoustic “Feminine Walk” traces his gender blurring, his glam roots and his journey. Invoking “Tin Pan Todd” (Snider) and suggesting he was once “a Metropolitcan Conway Twitty,” the money lines come early, I’ve got rags like a drag queen dream, coming undone at the seams/ I’ve seen Bowie, Bolan, and Jagger, too/ Grace Jones, Joan Jett and ‘To Wong Foo’…
“Yes, it really happened,” he says. “With the exception of ‘Sunday Women,’ everything on here happened in one way or another. ‘Feminine Walk’ absolutely happened, but it’s how you respond to people [who say those kinds of things].
“When it comes to my sexuality, rather than define it, I would rather remain curious. That’s what I’ve found feels good to me. Bisexuality or pansexuality, does it matter? I’ve been attracted to really butch lesbians. It’s about the attraction, isn’t it?”
Even more, his melting definitions seemingly also open a deeper well of truth. Yes, truth.
“I had some growing up to do,” he offers, “to the point that I felt I needed to sing about it. For a long time, I was a person who’d find fault in something before I could ever find anything good about it—to the point where it put strain on certain relationships.
“It came in waves, very slowly or in some ways, maybe I was resistant out of fear. When I think about it, some were destiny, or just going to happen. You can’t hold things inside; at some point, they’re going to come out. Why not make it music?”
In classic Tasjan fashion, though, he’s delivered a festive, narcotic, enlivening, mellowing work from all it. The kind of album that—no matter the subjects—invites you to put on, then get your swerve on, jump up and down, make-out, chill out.
“I look back at my goals, and I laugh. Play a late night TV show? Convince a major label to put out a record? You know, the danger isn’t that we set our goals too high, because that’s not the deal. I think it’s how do we get creative with what we have.”
