Aaron Lee Tasjan doesn’t like to sit still. By the time he was promoting Silver Tears, he already had new songs lined up and was talking like the next record was the only thing worth mentioning. “Music’s like breathing,” he said. “If I stop, I feel like I’m going crazy. And I think I’m going crazy anyway, so I just prolong the denial of insanity by touring and writing.” That’s not in the press release; that’s Tasjan explaining his operating system.
For a guy pegged as “Americana,” he spends a lot of time reminding you he’s not some twang-polishing traditionalist. He came out of glam rock and New York sleaze, the kind of bands that were more likely to name-drop Iggy than Hank. But to him, it’s all the same lineage. “Marc Bolan wore wild stuff, Bowie wore wild stuff,” he said. “To me, it’s no different than Webb Pierce in a sparkly suit or Porter Wagoner. They were singing these super masculine songs while looking like raging queens on stage. That’s rock and roll. That’s subversive art.”
That instinct shows up in his songs, sometimes unconsciously. He cops to referencing the Stooges in “Dime” and titling another track “Success”—the same name as an Iggy tune—though he swears the latter was coincidence. Either way, Tasjan relates to the misfit energy. “Semi Precious Weapons was not a band anyone understood. People loved us or hated us. Same with the Stooges. And honestly, sometimes it feels like that in Americana. We’re not the perfect mold for what goes over in that world. We’re just kicking the legs at the dinner table to see if anything’s loose.”
That tension is what keeps him interesting. He admires artists like Sturgill Simpson for throwing down gauntlets in a genre that too often rewards polite wallpaper. “You kind of have to say, I’m gonna do this, get on board or don’t. Otherwise you just disappear in all the wishy-washy.”
Even his loftier lyrics come from a left turn. On Silver Tears, he sings, “Are you ready for a worthy cause?” Asked what that means, he shrugged. “Anything worth doing in the moment, I guess. Honestly, I don’t even know what I was talking about. That song started with me being obsessed with ‘Green Onions’ by Booker T. I was on acid, listening to that, thinking, ‘This is meat-and-potatoes rock and roll at its best.’ It felt like a suit of armor I could put on in a world of opaque ideals. I just want something to believe in. And I believe in the music we play.”
Leave it to Aaron Lee Tasjan to explain the survival of roots rock through the lens of glam drag, Iggy Pop, and an acid trip soundtracked by Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Somehow it all makes sense.
Listen to the interview above and then check out "Little Movies" below.
