Elton John speaks to Aaron Lee Tasjan on this week’s episode of Elton John’s Rocket Hour on Apple Music 1 to talk about his 4th album ‘Tasjan Tasjan Tasjan!’. He reveals why a change of scenery helped his songwriting and plans for his next record. Tune in and listen to the episode in-full this Saturday (May 15) live at 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm UK or listen back anytime on-demand here.
Elton John on Aaron Lee Tasjan’s new album ‘Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!’
Elton John: I absolutely love your album, ‘Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!’ Which is your fourth album, and we’ve been playing it so much on the program. This is a fabulous record. Tell me about it because the first three albums you made were really, really good. And this one I think, is a step forward, if you don’t mind me saying that. And the songs on it are so beautiful and so well crafted. And you moved from New York to Nashville in 2013, you wanted to do that to improve your songwriting. Is that true?
Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah, I think when I was living in New York, a lot of the work that I was doing was really as a guitar player. I was writing songs as well, but most of the work I was able to find as a musician was playing guitar. And Nashville is such a song based town and the community of songwriters here, they’re so talented and they all inspire each other in this really beautiful way. So when I moved to Nashville, the goal was to become a better writer. And I felt like this was a really great place to do that.
Elton John on Aaron Lee Tasjan’s songwriting influences
Elton John: I’m a songwriter, as you know. And so I always listen to the songs first and foremost. And every song, every single song on your album is really beautiful. And there’s a bit of Tom Petty in there. There’s so many influences. But you come across as your own man. And when I saw earlier a picture of you, you look like me when I was in 1970.
Aaron Lee Tasjan: People tell me that.
Elton John: Oh my God, when you’ve got the glasses on, I said, “That looks like me.”
Aaron Lee Tasjan on his inspirations
Aaron Lee Tasjan: When I was first starting to play the guitar, the Beatles Anthology was huge in America. So I started really there with the Beatles. And then right after that, the album, ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ by Oasis came out. And so that was a big one. But then as I got a little older, I started playing when I was 11, my tastes developed and I really fell very hard for a songwriter by the name of Elliot Smith. He became my gold standard in a lot of ways. So he would probably be my biggest hero.
Elton John: Well, of course, and he’s sadly no longer with us. But his music lives on.
Aaron Lee Tasjan on the reaction to the album
It’s been really amazing. I think maybe because in a lot of ways, the lyrics are much more personal than they’ve been on some of my previous records, people have maybe connected with it in a way that maybe they haven’t with some of my previous work. So it’s been really gratifying to put some of that stuff out there and have it be received so wonderfully by people.
Aaron Lee Tasjan on writing the album on the road
Aaron Lee Tasjan: We worked on the record for about a year, but we were doing it in between touring. So we would go out and do our couple of weeks on the road, come home, record a bit and then go back out. And I was writing on the road a lot too. So it was an action packed recording session for the record.
Elton John: Well, I’ve always been envious of you guitarists, because you can do that. You can take your guitar into the hotel room and write a song. It’s very hard to take a piano around with you. But to be honest with you, I don’t really want to anyway. But I’ve always wanted to be able to play the guitar and be able to write guitar based songs, but I’m hopeless. So I love this record.
Aaron Lee Tasjan on making another record
Aaron Lee Tasjan: I’ve been writing a bunch and I’m going to go into this studio starting in June to start working on some new material.
Elton John: If you need a piano player, let me know because I’d love to play on something of yours.
Aaron Lee Tasjan: I will absolutely take you up on that.
