Summary

In this episode, we sit down for a great conversation with the always-inspiring Aaron Lee Tasjan, known for his work with bands like Everest and the New York Dolls. The spotlight is on his latest album, In the Blazes, a project shaped by creativity, collaboration, and a spirit of spontaneity.

Aaron shares stories from the road, including recent shows in Texas and his time at Americana Fest in Nashville, giving us a feel for the vibrant, supportive community that fuels this genre. We dive into the making of In the Blazes, where he talks about the joy of working with talented friends and the magic that comes from capturing real, unfiltered moments in the studio.

Throughout the chat, Aaron offers thoughtful insights into his journey as a songwriter and reflects on the unpredictable (and often thrilling) nature of live performance—giving listeners a deeper look at the heart and soul behind his music.

Show Notes

• The conversation takes place in the heart of East Nashville, where Americana music is not just a genre but a living, evolving community.
• Aaron Lee Tasjan—known for his work with bands like Everest and the New York Dolls—talks about his recent projects and his upcoming album, In the Blazes.
• He shares his thoughts on Americana as a genre, describing it as a mix of diverse musical styles. While that variety is exciting, he acknowledges the challenges it brings in connecting with wider audiences.
• Aaron dives into the creative process behind In the Blazes, explaining how the album came from a real need to express something personal and honest.
• Recorded at New Monkey Studio in California, the sessions were shaped by collaboration, spontaneity, and a strong focus on capturing moments as they happened.
• He emphasizes the value of working with talented musicians and a great producer—key elements, he says, in giving the album its genuine, lived-in sound.
• The conversation also highlights Aaron’s approach to recording: keeping it live, keeping it real, and staying open to the unexpected.
• Beyond the album, we explore the strong sense of community in Nashville. Aaron recalls putting together a one-night band with local artists—a perfect example of the camaraderie among musicians in the area.
• We also touch on his journey from being a guitarist in other people’s bands to carving out his own voice as a songwriter and solo artist.

Aaron Lee Tasjan writes folk songs for an indie rock crowd, weaving storylines with humor and social commentary. His debut full-length album, In The Blazes, includes friends from his former band, Everest, at the helm, and the vibe of Elliott Smith’s studio, New Monkey. Tasjan is touring heavily in support of the album, opening for Ray Wylie Hubbard, and playing solo and band gigs across the country. NOTE: We previously featured ALT, following his debut EP.

Takeaways

• In this episode, we have a thoughtful and engaging conversation with Aaron Lee Tasjan about his journey as an artist.
• Aaron talks about how important community and collaboration have been throughout his career in music.
• We dive into the making of his latest album, In the Blazes, and how spontaneity played a big role in the recording process.
• The conversation also touches on the unpredictable nature of live shows and how those unexpected moments can shape a performance.
• Aaron offers great insight into his approach to songwriting, including the artists and techniques that have inspired him along the way.
• We take a closer look at Americana as a genre, and how its wide range of influences makes it such a rich and evolving musical space.

• 00:00 - A Chat with Aaron Lee Tasjan
• 03:08 - The Process of Making an Album
• 05:01 - The Evolution of a Songwriter
• 07:14 - The Neighborhood Jam Session
• 13:44 - Live Performance Dynamics and Audience Interaction
• 17:00 - Music and Touring Plans

• Aaron Lee Tasjan
• Aaron Lee Tasjan on Bandcamp
• You may also like our conversation with Kevn Kinney of Drivin n Cryin
• Sloane Spencer now hosts a Gen X sleep podcast, Sleep with Rock Stars
• After you buy music or see a show with these musicians, consider tossing a few bucks into our Tip Jar

• Country Fried Rock
• Everest
• Drivin n Cryin
• Madison Square Gardeners
• New York Dolls
• Elliot Smith
• Delta Spirit
• Steelism
• Billy Joe Shaver
• George Satellites
• Lilly Hiatt
• Brian Wright
• Ray Wiley Hubbard
• Lightning 100
• Curtis

Aaron Lee Tasjan, Americana music, Country Fried Rock podcast, Nashville music scene, folk music, songwriting techniques, live music performances, music collaboration, indie music, music production, guitar player interviews, music festivals, in the Blazes album, Texas music gigs, music video production, Americana fest, Elliot Smith influence, creative songwriting, live recording sessions, neighborhood music collaborations

Transcript

Sloane Spencer

00:00:00.560 - 00:00:33.160

This week, I got to hang out with Country Fried Rock alum Aaron Lee Tasgin.

You might know Aaron Lee Tasgin from his time playing with the band Everest as the guitar slinger for a time with Driving and Crying, his stint with the Madison Square Gardeners, or even on the road with the New York Dolls. We spent some time at his place in East Nashville just before his brand new album, in the Blazes, came out.

We'll chat with our bud, Aaron Lee Tasgin, the alumni tour of Country Fried Rock, and I'm your host, Sarah. Sloan Spencer. So, Aaron, what you been doing?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:00:33.880 - 00:01:10.040

Well, I just came back from a bunch of gigs in Texas that was really fun. I haven't played in Texas too much, so it's been an exciting adventure playing down there. But, yeah, I just did that, and that was really cool.

And here in Nashville for the big Americana fest this week, it's cool to have, like, a community of people that care about the records, that great artists who maybe. I don't know. I feel like Americana is like one of those things that's combination of all this different stuff.

So that might make it sometimes maybe too eclectic for certain people or something like that.

Sloane Spencer

00:01:10.440 - 00:01:25.230

Hey, y'. All, this is Sloan Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock.

We've had an incredible year with more people finding us on the radio and our podcast than we ever imagined. Thank you all so much. Careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:01:25.230 - 00:01:28.030

Hey, this is Aaron Lee Taschen on Country Fried Rock.

Sloane Spencer

00:01:28.430 - 00:01:41.070

So at Country Fried Rock, we've been on board with what you're doing for a while, since your ep. Well, I guess since before that ep. Anyway. It's been a bit of a process to get in the Blazes recorded and released.

How did all that end up working out for you?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:01:41.390 - 00:01:55.220

You know, it was really a process of necessity, I think, more than anything. I was doing this tour with my friends John Moreland and Caleb Cottle, and I think you actually sponsored the tour or some of the tour anyway.

Sloane Spencer

00:01:55.700 - 00:01:56.740

One Good Night's Sleep.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:01:56.740 - 00:03:08.200

Yeah. Yeah, no, it was awesome. Thank you very much for that. But, yeah, I was, you know, and I wanted to have something new to give people on that.

So I just made this little another EP here in town really quick, just me and my guitar. Kind of like I do my gigs, and that was cool.

And I didn't even really try to do anything with it, but I just kind of put it up online, and some people actually ended up writing some stuff about it that was really nice. Kind of out of nowhere and that was kind of cool.

But, you know, I guess my point in saying all that dumb stuff I just said is that there wasn't really much ambition for it at all. And I knew I needed to make like an album because that's.

If you're gonna be a songwriting guy that makes records, at some point you have to do like a whole one.

So I kinda, you know, I kind of felt like, I don't know, some just weird self imposed thing to just want to prove to myself that I could put something together that lasted longer than like six songs or whatever. And so I did that. I just called, called up a bunch of my friends and said, let's, you know, make a record together.

Just a bunch of people that like I'd met throughout the years that had offered to help, like, you know, hey, if you ever want to make a.

Sloane Spencer

00:03:08.200 - 00:03:11.000

Record, where did you end up recording it?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:03:11.240 - 00:03:13.320

We did it in California.

Sloane Spencer

00:03:13.560 - 00:03:15.960

Oh, okay. I don't know why, I thought you were in New York.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:03:16.120 - 00:03:32.740

Yeah, no.

Well, we did Crooked River Burning in New York, but this one, we in California at this studio called New Monkey, which is a really cool little studio. That's where Elliot Smith came from, a base. He like basically put the studio together and they've gone a long way to kind of keep it.

Sloane Spencer

00:03:32.900 - 00:03:35.460

So, yeah, I mean, they kind of kept Elliot Smith's vision alive.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:03:35.700 - 00:04:23.500

Yeah, it's so. It's cool. I don't know, it's fun to be in there and it's just a great room with a great vibe. And, you know, that's the other thing too.

I think I learned a lot.

This guy Eli, who we hired to produce it, he really taught me a huge lesson about recording, which is like, I think the two most important things are a good engineer and the other people that are playing on it. It's like if it's the right group of people, you can just really fly, fly through getting great stuff. And.

And we did a lot of that live thing, you know, we did a lot of the live thing where it's like there wasn't a whole lot of overdubs or anything like that. And yeah, it was just fun to. It was just fun to make a record that way.

That's kind of like very much like in the moment, like shooting from the hip kind of vibe, you know.

Sloane Spencer

00:04:24.060 - 00:04:25.980

How did you connect with Eli originally?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:04:26.140 - 00:04:28.060

We were in this band together called Everest.

Sloane Spencer

00:04:28.300 - 00:04:29.820

Oh, okay. That Eli.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:04:29.980 - 00:04:40.540

Yeah, he was the bass player in Everest and then he also produced the first two Delta Spirit records, which are still, I think, my Favorite Delta Spirit records. They're so good.

Sloane Spencer

00:04:41.340 - 00:05:01.119

Well, so for folks that I mention you to, I think most of them recognize you as a guitar player for other people's bands. And I don't think it was till the EP with Crooked River Burning that they were like, oh, he writes songs, too.

And then the work that you do tends to be a little more, I guess, coming from a folkie or a folk songwriter base. And I've had a lot of folks.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:05:01.119 - 00:06:01.370

Be like, oh, yeah, that's true. I think there's definitely some truth to that, you know, And I'm.

I'm kind of, you know, thinking about it much more in terms of, you know, the songwriting things these days, just because that's, like, what I'm just choosing to put my time and efforts into, you know, or what I feel like. I don't know. I feel like that's what I wanted. Like, doing that makes me feel happy and. And I have a lot of fun doing it, so. But, you know, I can't.

I certainly can't deny, like.

And there's good reason for people to know me as that, because that's pretty much all I've done, really, for the last, like, 10 years of my life, you know, was. I'd always did this in between, but it was very much that, you know, in between playing guitar in bands. But I still. I still.

Every once in a while, I get to get up in town, someone will call. Joe Fletcher called me up a couple weeks ago and asked if I wanted to jam with him. And Brian Wright did, too, which was really not fun.

Man, those guys are so good.

Sloane Spencer

00:06:02.730 - 00:06:19.910

Oh, man, Brian Wright is the best. We featured him a couple records ago, and then it got picked up. And, you know, he was Texas, then he was Los Angeles, then he moved to Nashville.

Anyway, that dude is amazing. I totally love him. I cannot wait to see him play live again. We need to get him back on the show, too.

Brian, when you get back off tour, we need to talk. We've been chasing Joe Fletcher for a while, too.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:06:21.350 - 00:06:32.070

Yeah, he's so good. He's so good, man. He's got. Joe has a song on his new one about this dream he had about Hank Williams. It's just amazing.

Sloane Spencer

00:06:32.310 - 00:06:53.610

Hey, y', all, this is Sloan Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock. Those of y' all who listen on our podcasts, it's a quick hit of just the conversation.

If you want the full radio program with all the songs that we talk about, ask for it on your local radio station, joining 20 other stations across the country get the [email protected] hello, my.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:06:53.610 - 00:07:06.610

Name is Aaron Lee Tasjan. You can catch me on tour for all of the time and you can find out where that's [email protected].

Sloane Spencer

00:07:07.010 - 00:07:13.730

I'Ll admit I'm super excited about your set at our party tonight with Erin Lee Tasjan and friends. Who did you give a buzz to?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:07:14.080 - 00:07:20.400

Yeah, just, you know, a bunch of people from the neighborhood. We're just a band of neighborhood folks.

Sloane Spencer

00:07:20.720 - 00:07:22.240

In a really cool neighborhood.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:07:22.400 - 00:08:17.260

Yeah, in a really cool neighborhood. That's kind of what it feels like to me. You know, it's not. I don't want to get all high school football about it.

You know, we're not, like, representing our community or anything, but, like.

But it is fun to, like, be like, man, all these people just live right around here, and you can call them up and start a band for, like, one night, and that's what we're doing.

So we got John Radford who's, you know, played with everybody in town, but probably most recently people would know him from his band Steelism that he plays in. So he's playing drums with us, the great Keith Christopher from Billy Joe Schaefer and Steve Marriott and the George Satellites on bass.

And then we have Lily Hyatt singing. Love Lily Hyatt. She's so her.

Her album that she put out earlier this year is one that I've listened to a bunch, and we're actually doing one of off of that tonight. A song of hers called Jesus would have let me pick the restaurant, which is.

Sloane Spencer

00:08:17.260 - 00:08:19.100

That's the best lyric ever.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:08:19.100 - 00:08:49.379

Isn't that so good? That one made me green with envy. I was like, man, that's good. You Lily Hyatt. But yeah, so we got Lily Hyatt singing.

We've got Brian Wright is singing. We're gonna do.

Since the whole night is basically kind of a fundraiser for Eddie's piece spaghetti, we're gonna do a super sucker song that Brian's gonna sing and he. Oh, man, he sounds so good. And then Alan Thompson's coming by and he's gonna sing some Grateful Dead with us.

Sloane Spencer

00:08:49.859 - 00:08:50.659

That's fitting.

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:08:50.739 - 00:09:49.980

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So we're excited about that. And then we've got our special end of the end of the whole thing. Closer outers.

Our good friend Kevin Kinney's gonna come sing the last one with us. So it should be a lot of fun.

So it's kind of like a little Rolling Thunder review, you know, I Mean, it's nowhere near that good, but just people in the neighborhood, it's really fun to see.

You know, I always loved, like, looking back through like, magazines, music magazines when I was a kid, you know, and it would just show, like these one time things that happen where all these people, like, just happened to be on stage together at some cool moment. And I don't know, I just feel like that kind of stuff is fun and like, totally forces me to consider different things creatively.

You're working very closely with a bunch of other people who thing you really like respect and. Yeah, it's a great thing for a lot of reasons. For me, you know, I enjoy it on several levels.

Sloane Spencer

00:09:50.460 - 00:09:52.700

So what's happening with the release of in the Blazes?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:09:53.100 - 00:10:30.850

Well, there's a bunch of. Basically, there's a bunch of gigs. So there'll be a lot of that going on.

I'll be in Washington state and then I gotta come run back to Nashville because I'm doing something for the very fine people over at Lightning 100. And then it's just like a bunch of gigs. I've got some stuff opening for Ray Wiley Hubbard and then some.

Some stuff that I'm doing kind of on my own and then some gigs. What are you doing? Is a very intimidating question for me. And I've always. I've always tried to shy away from having to answer it.

Sloane Spencer

00:10:30.850 - 00:10:33.290

I feel like, what's your aversion technique?

Aaron Lee Tasjan

00:10:35.870 - 00:11:50.300

I don't know. I gotta mix it up. Because a lot I get asked that question more than probably some other people do. So I try to keep it fresh.

So my answer always seems genuine. But change the subject is always a good one, especially if it's something really interesting.

Yeah, I saw an episode of Seinfeld where I learned that when I was a kid. In the episode, Jerry was gonna get this girl's number off a charity list. And he was wrestling with the morality of that.

And I think he ultimately decided to do it at