Aaron Lee Tasjan

Throughout his career as a guitarist, Aaron Lee Tasjan has performed alongside a range of acts that includes Alberta Cross and the New York Dolls. Working on his own, he fuses blues, classic rock, and country-rock with a 1970s sensibility that evokes the singer/songwriter approach of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman. His first full-length solo outing arrived in 2015 with the roots-oriented In the Blazes, after which he shifted closer to 1960s and 1970s rock textures on his third album, the 2018 release Karma for Cheap. Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! appeared in 2021 and took Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty as reference points for its mixture of confident and exposed material. His most adventurous recording in terms of tone and range, the 2024 album Stellar Evolution drew from the queer community’s battles with prejudice, especially while he was living in Tennessee.

Tasjan grew up in New Albany, Ohio, just beyond Columbus, and began playing guitar at age 11. Working without formal instruction, he had already supported Peter Yarrow and claimed first prize in a guitar contest at Jazz at Lincoln Center before turning 16. After finishing high school he issued the 2005 release The Smile and Nod E.P. and then moved to Brooklyn.

In 2006 he helped launch the glam-tinged indie rock band Semi Precious Weapons alongside Justin Tranter on vocals, Cole Whittle on bass, and Dan Crean on drums. Their debut album, We Love You, came out in 2008 under the production of studio figure Tony Visconti. That same year Tasjan left the group and put out the country-rock-oriented Hard Love EP. The five-song set August Moon followed in 2011, and another EP, The Thinking Man’s Filth, appeared in 2012. During this period he also worked as a session guitarist with outfits that ranged from the New York Dolls to Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and Everest.

Tasjan relocated from New York to East Nashville in 2013, issuing the EPs Crooked River Burning and Telling Stories to the Wall before self-releasing his first full-length album, In the Blazes, toward the end of 2015. New West Records signed him and issued his second LP, Silver Tears, in October 2016. While those projects mixed various roots elements through his idiosyncratic lens, the more streamlined Karma for Cheap, released in August 2018, drew on the power pop, psychedelia, and Lennon-McCartney songcraft that originally sparked his interest in the guitar. Exactly one year later, Karma for Cheap: Reincarnated presented the same songs in stripped-down arrangements. Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! arrived in 2021 and applied a contemporary, personal perspective to his classic influences. In 2023 his outside work included guitar contributions to the Jessye DeSilva single “Firecracker” and the Butch Walker album Butch Walker As…Glenn, as well as production on Mya Byrne’s LP Rhinestone Tomboy. Motivated in part by legislative and cultural pressures on the queer community in Tennessee, he emphasized color, breadth, and openness on Stellar Evolution, which came out in April 2024 as his sixth solo album and his first for the Los Angeles-based Blue Élan Records.