Aaron Lee Tasjan is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, multi-record artist, and former member of bands such as The New York Dolls, Semi Precious Weapons, and Drivin n' Cryin. Here we talk about slowing down to do less more meaningfully, inspiration from finding alternate outlets for your creativity, and weathering tough seasons in life.
Aaron Lee Tasjan is a Grammy-nominated songwriter, multi-record artist, and former member of bands such as The New York Dolls, Semi Precious Weapons, and Drivin n' Cryin. Here we talk about slowing down to do less more meaningfully, inspiration from finding alternate outlets for your creativity, and weathering tough seasons in life.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
[00:00:00] Aaron: Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss
[00:00:05] Michaela: And I'm your host Michaela Anne. And since this is a brand new show, I'm guessing you are a brand new listener. So thank you for being here with us.
[00:00:13] Aaron: We like to think of this podcast as the anti album cycle show.
So what that means for all of you guys that aren't in the music industry is a lot of podcast, guests come on when they have a new record or they have a new tour and they're trying to promote it and we wanna specifically focus on the times outside of that, we want to talk to our friends a year and a half after they put out their last record.
And that's why we called this the other 22 Hours podcast, because we wanted to focus on the times that were not on stage.
[00:00:38] Michaela: Between the two of us, Aaron and I have almost 25 years of touring experience. I've spent the better part of the last decade putting out records on my own as well as with labels touring the world and building an independent career.
[00:00:52] Aaron: And I started making records with friends in basements when I was in high school, and I spent a long time on the road with a lot of different bands, and now I spend most of my time right here. If you're watching on YouTube, we're sitting in my studio in Nashville and I produce records and I write music for tv.
And what Michaela and I have realized over time is that there's no one right way to make a career around your passion.
[00:01:18] Michaela: And in an industry where everything can feel very out of our hands and can impact us in ways that we can't control So much is left up to look being in the right place at the right time.
There are a lot of ups and downs and we wanted to focus on the ways that we can help ourselves - what is within our control, how we can preserve and care for ourselves to make sure that we are able to create for the rest of our lives.
[00:01:43] Aaron: And so with that, we decided to invite a bunch of our friends on to have conversations around that topic. And the friend that we have on today is Aaron Lee Tasjan. He is a songwriter originally from Ohio via New York City that now lives in Nashville. He's played guitar in a bunch of hands from the New York Dolls to Semi Precious Weapons to Drivin N Cryin. He is Grammy nominated.
[00:02:08] Michaela: He's also one of my personal favorites
[00:02:10] Aaron: Show off that Tasjan shirt that you're wearing.
[00:02:12] Michaela: I've got my merch shirt. B ut Aaron Lee Tasjan is one of those people that I vividly remember the very first time I heard him. I was in the other room at our house the first year we moved to Nashville and this Aaron Shafer-Haiss was playing Aaron Lee Tasjan's songs to learn them to play drums for him, for his record release.
And I heard it from the other room and something about him just triggered emotions in me and I came and listened and I started crying and I cry every time I listen to Aaron Lee Tasjan. And this conversation is no exception. I also cry today.
[00:02:45] Aaron: It's because it was a great conversation. We touched, it was a great conversation.
We touched on so many things. It was one of those conversations we wished that we could go on for about three hours, but this podcast is not Armchair Expert, so we like to keep it short and digestible, . But what we did touch on. , there was a theme throughout kind of about slowing down and creating space to listen to yourself and your own needs.
[00:03:08] Michaela: Yeah. Allowing space for the things you need that might be in conflict with what we're told we should be doing to build a career. But how ultimately that can help preserve your creativity. We talked about allowing yourself to grieve and grow. We talked about community building
[00:03:26] Aaron: Yeah. And working in service.
And we even touched a little bit on intuitive eating. And talked to Aaron about what that means to him. So enough of us talking. Without further ado, here's our conversation with Aaron Lee Tasjan.
[00:03:38] Michaela: How are you doing this morning?
[00:03:40] Aaron Lee Tasjan: I'm good. I had one of those like weird things like I've been doing I've been switching up my exercise routine a little bit and doing some different things. And I like had one of those weird things where like, I pinched like some weird thing in my back or something like that. But it's kind of cool, like anytime anytime something physical like that slows me down, like my whole world just gets a little slower. It's like kinda like walking through a swimming pool. I'm just very slowly getting the oatmeal down from
[00:04:13] Aaron: Oh, I know that. Yeah. I had to I took a few ibuprofen before we got on this. It was one of those mornings.
[00:04:21] Aaron Lee Tasjan: This is life at 40, man.
[00:04:22] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:04:24] Aaron: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. For me, I mean, I exercise and all that, but for me it's definitely like, oh, cool. I slept wrong last night. Cool. This is gonna be that.
[00:04:31] Michaela: Or I sneezed.Yeah. I think I've like that thrown my neck out when I've sneezed before .
[00:04:36] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Definitely.
[00:04:36] Aaron: There was like one. Early on in the pandemic and, you know, I was like on a meeting, I think Curtis Millard was on there, and it was like kind of chilly. It was in the morning and I sneezed and I was like, oh no. And I could not stand up straight for like four days.
[00:04:48] Michaela: Oh, I forgot about this!
[00:04:49] Aaron: Like, could not, I was like bent over
[00:04:52] Michaela: That was when you were, you and Curtis were doing that telethon thing.
[00:04:55] Aaron: Jamie were doing that telethon thing
[00:04:57] Michaela: And you were literally bent over.
[00:05:00] Aaron: Yeah, it was great cuz I had like a lot of work to do in my studio, so sitting was totally fine, but then I was just like in that seated position as I stood up. It was a sad state of affairs for a while.
[00:05:09] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Oh, buddy. Well, feeling better now, yeah.
[00:05:12] Aaron: Yeah, thank you.
[00:05:14] Michaela: Well thank you for being willing to come and chat with us and just to set the tone and since this is a brand new podcast that's not out in the world yet, that will start in March we just wanna kind of set the tone of like, that the point of this podcast is to be a resource for each other and to not necessarily promote our most recent project or, promote our tours. But really to talk honestly about not only the challenges, but the ways that we've learned and continue to learn and seek caring for ourselves and our creativity.
And most importantly, because this whole business is built on our creative work and our music and our art. And I think especially a lot of us as we get older are learning how much work and how vital it is to care for ourselves to keep that going.
[00:06:07] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah. Well that kind of energy that it requires is not necessarily always a renewable resource . So you in that way, you kind of have to be very. You have to have a level of awareness for yourself and where your energy levels are at, and when you feel it creeping into that space where it's like, I'm overwhelmed, that's a great time to slow down.
Took me a long time to learn that
[00:06:32] Aaron: I feel like I'm still learning that. I feel like I blow, past that line. Then I'm like, oh, I've been overwhelmed for a while. Maybe I need to address this now. So I'm definitely still working on like, seeing that line coming up.
[00:06:43] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Hmm.
[00:06:44] Michaela: And I think what kind of in has inspired us to have these conversations is because, you know, we're in our mid thirties and we're like, we've been in this for a long time and we don't see ever-changing careers. We're definitely in this for life. And I think looking back on our twenties and when you start, everything that you kind of learn is the way to build a music career and be an artist is kind of counter to what it takes to be a healthy human being. like, just being out all the time, drinking all the time,
[00:07:15] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Oh...
[00:07:15] Michaela: Socializing all the time, like never being in one place. And it's like, oh, that actually you can burn out pretty quickly, or at least after, after a while. So learning and sharing the ways. There's not one way to be an artist. This kind of stereotype of rock and roll and, you know, tortured souls and whatever. That's not the only way to be a great artist. And like how we are all finding our way in that.
[00:07:47] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah. I mean, my experience has always been that I yield better results for my creative process, when I am in a good place mentally and physically. And I have over time sort of, you know, it's funny how your intuition at some points just kind of even takes over in ways like you don't even realize sometimes. You know, I've, I realized, you know, I'd been fighting for myself to do this for myself, to care for myself in these ways for a long time.
It was something that I always knew was what I needed to do. recognizing and following that, took a, took longer than than I wish it would have. But, I think of things like you know, I was I was getting ready to write my second, well, I was in the process of writing my second record and it was 2015. I'd been living in Nashville for a couple of years. My friend Megan Palmer and I had been sharing a house together over on Scott Avenue and the people who owned the house decided that they didn't want us to live there anymore.
So, we had to vacate our space and I was touring a lot at the time. And so I kind of became a bit nomadic. I had a a Volvo station wagon with everything that I owned in the back of it and a blanket over top of all that stuff. And , I slept a lot on Terry Rickard and Alan Thompson's couch. I slept a lot, on my friend Stacy Huckabee's couch. There were a lot of people who were very gracious to me about letting me stay places at that time. But, I was not you know, I was essentially sacrificing everything, including a home to do this at the time.
You know, not having rent, made the gigs, the bar gigs that I was playing for $200 a night, a lot more affordable to play. When I was trying to write the Silver Tears record I knew that I needed space to create and I didn't, I, I maybe had a romantic dream that perhaps I could write some of it in my car.
But ultimately I never was quite able to find whatever the right vibe is to write a record in your car. My dear friend Corey Chisel, who we all know from Appleton, Wisconsin, and. and he has a beautiful space up there called The Refuge. And I was talking to him and I was saying, man, you know, I'm trying to write this record , I'm not really living anywhere. I kind of don't know what to do. I feel bad about going into somebody else's space and making a bunch of noise. And he said, well, why don't you come up here and there's nobody here right now and you can use this space to, to write your record. And I went up there and it was so, it was the summertime. It was so beautiful and so peaceful. And I would go on a walk every morning. I mean, there was no one else around. There was no one to like interact with or anything like that. I suddenly found myself in this beautiful place thanks to my friend Corey, where all I had to do was just kind of take care of myself , and I did! I did write, you know, every day while I was up there.
And my friend Sam, who lives up there in town, came by with his laptop a time or two and I demoed up just acoustically in the chapel, you know, a few of the songs I was working on, but mostly, I was just, you know, there's these beautiful nature trails around there, and I was like really getting out, and exploring that. And I was eating really good.
[00:11:51] Michaela: You were taking care of yourself.
[00:11:52] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah, I was taking care of myself and I wrote, I wrote a bunch of songs , that I was really proud of. And it's, and it was like easy to do. And I didn't feel like I was in the way. I didn't, I wasn't thinking about anything , but like, man, this feels really good!
[00:12:11] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:12:11] Aaron Lee Tasjan: And I put, you know, I put nine of those songs together in a Dropbox file and I sent them to Kim Bowie at New West. And you know, just, what do you think of ease? And she said, well, listen to 'em. And, it was Friday. She said, well, listen to 'em over the weekend, and if there's something here, I'll call you back and I'll let you know what we think.
And they called me an hour later and said, you got a deal!
[00:12:36] Michaela: Nice.
[00:12:36] Aaron: Amazing
[00:12:38] Aaron Lee Tasjan: You know what I mean? So it's like, when I think about, why that played out like that I think it was because I was aligning myself with good things for myself.
[00:12:50] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:50] Aaron Lee Tasjan: And I created that kind of energy around what I was doing by just caring for myself, you know, more. And even after that, I still didn't really get the message.
[00:13:01] Michaela: Yeah. I was was gonna ask, was that a turning point for you? Or that was just a, that was a blip.
[00:13:07] Aaron Lee Tasjan: I wish I could say it was, I think at the time, my ego wanted to think that I had done something impressive, you know? And I didn't realize that really, I was just like, you know, channeling, being in harmony with the world and with myself and getting out of the way.
And that's why it really happened. I came to find out later on, you know?
[00:13:33] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:13:34] Aaron: Creating it's something I've been thinking about for the last little bit, but it's like, what can I do to create the best situation to be creative? You know, like we, we have a 19 month old daughter, so time is very limited. So I have to be like really intentional with, setting up time to be creative, which can be a total creativity killer, like scheduled creative time. But for me, it can also be like really inspiring, you know, it's like, it's like farming. As long as I fertilize the ground and till the ground and all that and set up the best situation for crops to grow and have great strawberries, then I'll have great strawberries.
[00:14:07] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah. I mean, Time management, is a huge thing. I really like that book, "How to Write One Song" by Jeff Tweedy. You know, I don't know if you've read that book or not, it's sort of an old a trick that's been around forever, you know, but the consistency. And that as a songwriter, it's one of those things. It's like the more you do it, the better chance you have of doing well with it also, the more you do it, the harder it gets over time.
It's this sort of like interesting dichotomy . But it's, I think how you come to it, you know. I think some kinds of emotions that, we can get caught in, as a result of being in the business that we're in, whether it's like resentments or, you know, frustration, anger, you know, those sort of things, those kinds of emotional spaces can, if you get caught in them, if you get caught in the trap of thinking along those lines, it takes away your curiosity.
And your curiosity is such an essential part of of writing songs, of asking you know, what can this be? And who can I be, in the context of this, song that I'm working on or whatever. If you aren't able to ask questions, if you think you have, the answers figured out because of some situation that happened to you. , and so you're not as open as you would be because you're in this place where you're holding on to this challenge that you had it's gonna at least in my experience, it's gonna make it difficult for you to move forward in a way creatively that feels satisfying.
So that ability to stay open even when bad things happen. And if you're in this business, they will, it's so important. And so, it's not just all about, managing your time in a way that like, you're able to be creative consistently. It's also managing like your emotional health in a way so that when you're in, when you have that time scheduled, when you're in that space, like you can really make the most of it because you're not dragging a bag of, you know, what happened before into that place with you.
[00:16:29] Michaela: So what are the things, because one of the interesting things I, I think people, especially just music fans, people who are not in the music business, they follow artists on social media and they see like, wow, they're doing really well. Someone would look at you and think, wow, he's got a record deal. He puts out records, he's got a agent. He's always touring, like he plays big shows and he must be doing great and not understand that behind the scenes there are so many disappointments rejections, you know, hardships throughout because everybody deals with that no matter what level. There's always things that hurt your ego, hurt your feelings that you don't get, that you doors that won't open whatever.
So how have you found ways to kind emotionally care for yourself to not let that stuff bog you down or get in the way where you do feel stuck ? To not develop like a chip on your shoulder because maybe something didn't go the way you wanted or maybe you didn't get something and still come to your writing and music with the same openness and curiosity that, we all did as a kid when we were first discovering writing songs and playing music. And there was no even, not even a thought of festivals and money and vans and buses.
[00:17:49] Aaron Lee Tasjan: How come my name's so small on this poster?
Yeah, I, you know, one of the ways that I began to notice this was, in 2000 and 21. I had a quite a day where in which I was nominated for a Grammy with my friend Yola for American Root Song of the Year, and I also had a meeting with my former record label that same day who sat me down and told me that I was a failure. And uh, yeah and talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn't see it. I did not see the label meeting coming at all. I thought we were just going to see if maybe there was further to do or further to go together or just have a nice kind of wrap up conversation.
I had completed my what do you call 'em, options for them. And so technically, was I was free to go elsewhere. But the business relationship officially contractually had ended. And they sat me down and basically said that, you know, it it was kind of too bad that , I hadn't done as well as they'd hoped.
And they even said we'd consider, this was a direct quote, "We'd consider still working with you, but we would have to amend your deal to reflect how few albums you've been able to sell."
[00:19:15] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:19:18] Aaron: Man. This was later in the day after you found out that you were nominated for a Grammy.
[00:19:23] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Got nominated for the Grammy in the early afternoon and then had this meeting at like 3:00 PM like two hours later.
[00:19:29] Michaela: It's just like making my heart race cuz , I'm just like, maybe because of being, becoming parents, because of the pandemic, I'm just continually evaluating the things that we've accepted as like, that's just the way that we do it.
That's just the way the business goes. And I'm like, it's so toxic though. And granted, you know, fine, they're entitled to make their business decisions because they are investing money. But ,do feel like, as artists, I was thinking about this last night, we're taught that so much of our value actually has nothing to do with what we create.
Our value is determined by others. By how much we can sell, how many people we can bring. Things that actually have nothing to do with our art. Because you can have a lot of friends that you can get to come to a show and convince people that you can sell a lot of tickets, but that doesn't mean you have long-term fans or that you make great art that will stand the test of time.
Like you can have a ton of followers. I'm like, Donald Trump has a ton of followers and can sell a lot of tickets.
That doesn't mean it's good.
[00:20:37] Aaron: He could get a great deal. Imagin e how many records that guy would get.
[00:20:40] Aaron Lee Tasjan: He doesn't have one song I wish I'd written not won. Yeah. Not one single song.
[00:20:46] Michaela: But it takes so much work for us to say, no, actually my value is in what I am making no matter how many people are listening to it right now. Because also that changes and can change so fast and can change 20 years from when you put out a record or you know, 20 days, whatever.
And I think that's the constant battle is how to still feel good about yourself and your work when everything outside of us that we have to operate in to create a career is telling us that we're actually deemed we're the only by these outside things that are not within our control.
[00:21:30] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yes. Yes.
[00:21:31] Michaela: It's like, especially with today's world of streaming and numbers and social media, that a&r isn't about artist development. I don't know anybody who's into like developing artists anymore. I mean, there's people out there, but it's about like, well, can't do they have big numbers? Okay.
[00:21:50] Aaron: Right. That's where I see artist development is on the major label side where you can easily just swap the word artist for product and it's the same thing.
[00:22:00] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:22:00] Aaron: You know, it's product development. How do we build, this sub-brand, , that is actually a living, breathing, human being, but viewed as a commodity, and a product. I can only imagine how much of a rollercoaster that world is. You sign to Universal Music Group and all of a sudden you're getting flown to all these places and you're meeting all of these idols and then like, you release four singles that don't go viral on TikTok and like, that's it.
[00:22:26] Michaela: Yeah. So how did you, can you take us through like how you reacted to that and then what the days following and how you process that and how you use it, how you recover from it?
[00:22:39] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'll be honest, it was sort of, it was kind of the beginning of a years long kind of, torrential downpour of those kinds of things, just over and over. I lost a manager to it. And that was really hard because that person was, still is, a dear friend of mine. And it got to a point where it felt like it was happening so much, so often that like, huh, I was still trying to process the thing that happened like four months ago, and I'm still like...
I knew that I needed tools to handle what was happening that I didn't have yet. That I needed a teacher, you know? And so, therapy became a big thing for me. Every week I meet with a guy on here and we talk about you know, all of the different kinds of resources that you can give yourself to deal with these kind of things.
One of the first things that my therapist, Jonathan, suggested to was, he said he loves Buddhism. He studied Buddhism a bunch. I love Buddhism as well. I would never consider myself a Buddhist, but I love a lot of the ideas within the scope of of that religion. And so , he said, I want you to read a book, that's written by this Buddhist teacher named Pema Chadron. And the book is called "When Things Fall Apart". And it's basically exactly what it sounds like.
It's a book about, how to manage yourself through stormy seas, you know, how to stay afloat, and, there was all kinds of great information in there. One of the things that was a game changer for me was just like, sometimes when you're feeling this stuff, like you can just create a space for yourself to feel those things. In other words, you don't have to create some magic spell that allows you to just push through and St. and still, you know, do a bunch of stuff anyway. What you can do as a, as an act of self-care actually is slow down and create space for yourself to grieve the loss of the things that you had. To understand why you know, reacted the way that you did to, to certain things that came up.
And that in and of itself takes time and energy and effort, but it's time, energy, and effort that you're reinvesting into your own wellbeing and your future if you will. You know, because if you don't process things like that day I kind of got nominated and then the massive reality check at the end of the afternoon. If you don't allow that to move through your body and out, it can make you physically sick, you know? It can make you ill.
And so, just knowing that, suddenly my goal was different. My goal went from, you know, can I find a good tour to get on? Or, you know, can I write some new songs for my record? It was like, I need to be able to process these things and sit with them probably for like a while, like, probably for like months for me, cuz I'm a slow learner, you know? It takes me time and what I need to do with my time right now is this. And it was hard.
And my partner Erica, is one of the most incredible people in the entire world. She was also, a resource for me at that time in terms of just allowing me to be sad . I tried to never be relentless about it, even though this stuff was happening all the time you don't just constantly wanna be telling the person you love every bad thing that's happened to you.
But her allowing me to express that in moments and not trying to give me advice on what to do or any, just being there and seeing me as I was and and not going away. You know, my goodness. Such a, such an incredible gift to give another person. I'll never forget that for the rest of my life, what she did for me in that moment, you know?
I think, when we're in those times looking for resources we can pull in to help us through, whether it's a book, whether it's a therapeutic whether it's a friend or a partner who truly knows us and sees us, who can be there for us in those ways, like looking for and seeking out those resources, taking that action in those moments is so, pivotal because it generates this energy of moving these things through your body and out so that you can make space for more.
[00:28:07] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:28:07] Aaron: That's what was resonating with me as you were talking cuz you, you mentioned it was so hard to kind of pull the brakes and create that space. I feel that 100% and I see that with a lot of people in our community. Like, I think it's a combination of the natural ambition that it, it takes to keep going in this career. The, sheer love for what you do when you are following your passion for a living. But the outside stressors of having an agent or a manager or even just like a band that are relying on you for income.
[00:28:38] Michaela: Yeah. If you stop you're going to lose it all.
[00:28:39] Aaron: There's all these forces coming in that it's so hard to pump the brakes for a minute and make time for yourself and make space for yourself because you're like, I'm gonna lose this, I'm gonna lose this. I'm gonna fall behind. When in actuality, you'll probably get back to things faster if you just create the space, handle that, and then get back to it.
Again, as a classic person that will just blow past that line and realize that I've been like overwhelmed and functioning at a lower level, I'm really trying to be conscious about, like, no, make the space now, be kind to myself and be gentle and then come back. And having, mikayla's good about holding space for me as well.
When she lets me be what I need to be - sad or irritable or whatever it allows me to be that for myself, you know? It allows me to be like, yeah, I'm sad and that's okay, and I'll be sad and then, it's not gonna be forever.
[00:29:33] Michaela: Yeah. I don't think you can really move through grief without really letting yourself wallow, for a time.
I remember , my mom had a stroke when I was pregnant and I still struggle with the loss of everything, but I remember one time saying to Aaron like, I'm gonna be sad about this forever. And I'm not as sad because I let myself be really sad. And I remember having that conversation. I don't feel as sad as I used to feel and that that moves.
But yeah, I think you're right. And in this business so hard to find people who will let you have that space and time to do what you need to do and will still be there to work with you and for you.
And having the personal strength to say, okay, well then we weren't meant to be on this path together and I need to do what I need to do for myself, and this is what's happening my personal life. And if you are someone who doesn't support artists as humans have ups and downs and need time, well then we shouldn't be working together. But that's so hard to do because it feels like it's so hard to find people to be on your team to begin with. And the way that you keep them is by working consistently because there's so little money out there. So you have to just make the little bit more often. It's so hard.
And that again, that's why we wanna have these conversations because like before the pandemic hit, I felt like I was finally getting going. I was finally like working and doing stuff. I got a record deal, I got an agent, and then the pandemic hit took everything away. And then I got pregnant, and then my mom had a stroke. And my life became solely about my family.
And I've seen how that's impacted my career and impacted the people who were on my team and how they viewed me. And thankfully, I have some people who are the most loyal, devoted teammates. My manager is insane with his just endurance.
But other people fell away and that felt like a huge loss. But hearing your story, I'm like, oh yeah, you just have to go through it. Because also as a fan, I hear your story and I'm like, please go through it, Aaron, so that you can happily get back to seeing your value and worth as an artist and get back to creating whenever that feels good for you. Because as a fan of your music, I don't care how many records you've sold.
[00:32:20] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Aw.
[00:32:21] Michaela: I just want more Aaron Lee Tasjan records. I think that's hard to remember though.
[00:32:26] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yes, it is. It is.
One of the questions that I came to ask myself through this process and it's become such an important question that I did ask myself is can I do less? Can I do less and make it, and make everything that I'm doing really mean something to me? And that was a very terrifying question to ask in the beginning.
I I would have this voice that would come in that would be like, like almost like it was somebody, like I was imagining what, like somebody else would say a about me, which is a terrible, don't ever do that.
What, what any, what anybody else thinks of you is none of your business. Zero.
[00:33:21] Aaron: Well cuz it's never, cuz it's never like a nice, you know, you're never a nice person .
[00:33:26] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Never.
[00:33:27] Michaela: Yeah. You're you're not thinking of Michaela who's thinking lovely thoughts about you and you're thinking of like the worst person.
[00:33:34] Aaron Lee Tasjan: This is not a person that's like, Hey, man, like you want an Oreo, bro? Like, I got some cookies here. It's like, they're like, you know, oh you've done so much work and how could you walk away from the potential of doing something that's more significant in favor of, you know, what whatever, non money making, non-famous thing you're thinking of today.
You know?
Like that voice was, would come in, and I would just be like, what is this voice man? You know, like, what in the world is this voice? Why is it so mean?
[00:34:15] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:34:16] Aaron Lee Tasjan: You know, and I remember at one point Erica said like, you know, you don't deserve to just be in this place all day long of just worrying and self judging and and fear, you deserve a life where that's not what your day is all day long. And I didn't even realize, at that time when she said, I was like, oh yeah, I guess that's what it's been and what, it's, what it has in a way become, you know.
But this idea of like, can I do less and make it mean more , one of the ways that I have dealt with some of the, the feelings and issues that have come up for me around my career has been to kind of turned to what I like to think of as community building. You know, you can only look inward for so long before you have to balance it out by looking outward . And I'd spent a lot of time looking inward and I was ready not to move on with anything creative necessarily for myself, but I was ready to use my creativity to help build community.
I knew that I had these skill sets and I knew that I could use them in ways to benefit other people. So that became another key part of the healing process for me. And also moving into this space of creativity again, where, it was actually a really beautiful and freeing thing to feel like, oh, I can be creative without these parameters of my, quote unquote music career, even being involved at all.
I've been producing some records for some people that I really believe in. I've been working with a a really cool non-profit organization here in Nashville called Pitch Meeting that I'll tell you about in a second. But they're all things that I have done that have allowed me to use my creativity, but in, in a way that is separate from all the trappings of, my career as an artist. And it's allowed me to reenter the arena of creativity with a softness and a curiosity that allows me to do my best work. Nothing in my life, I don't care what it was, and I have been an incredibly fortunate person. I've gotten to do so many wonderful things and I just am enormously grateful, every single day. But nothing feels as good as helping somebody somebody else.
The energy, the feeling, the mindset that, that we create for ourselves when we reach out to others is such a powerful conduit to doing that for ourselves it's almost like, you know, you're making a real time example of how to care some for someone that you can look at and go like, okay, I want to do this for me. Now that I've seen this work in, in this way, and now that I've seen this example of it, now I can apply this to, to, to my life, to me.
And so, that idea would never have even hit me, I think, if I had just kept the blinders on and been like, no, I gotta keep touring and I gotta keep making records and I gotta keep doing this and I gotta keep doing that, you know?
I'm finishing a record now that I feel like is the best thing that I've ever done. But it took a year of processing all of these losses in my career to get, be able to get back to that place. And the catalyst for the whole thing was taking on once I felt in the space to to do it again, was taking on projects really that were ultimately to benefit somebody else.
[00:38:34] Michaela: Being of service.
[00:38:36] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yes! Oh my goodness. Yes. Bob Dylan. You gotta serve somebody, you know?
And you and you do, you know, and it's like, you realize sometimes when you do get those blinders on, you have 'em here, so your vision forward is very narrow. There's a lot of beauty out here that maybe doesn't even feel like it's connected to going in that direction. But isn't it funny how it actually is!
[00:39:07] Aaron: Yeah. Entirely. We just recently had a conversation with our mutual friend Kyshona, who is a brilliant artist and brilliant songwriter, but also a music therapist. And so we spent a lot of time talking about the idea of a mission statement or an artistic statement, and it's basically like having this true north for yourself. I mean, it's something that I've been interested in for a bunch of years at this point, and it really opens up those blinders for me because it's like, okay, this is like, what is true to me and my ideals. This is what I'm aiming for and there's so many different roads that feed into that same thing that isn't necessarily like this one thing that I've had my sole attention on for years.
It's like, oh, I can also do this and that is, you know, pushing this cart in the same direction and it has just been so much more. Yeah, it all feeds the same thing and it's been so much more fulfilling and so much more, it's kind of like let off the pressure gauge on everything a little bit more to just be like, oh, I can do all of this. And it's been inspiring it kind of starts to feed itself as I step into doing other things besides like, oh no, I'm just going to be a drummer that plays with people around town, or I'm just gonna play on records.
[00:40:21] Michaela: You also grow as person, which then ultimately feeds your creativity, I think, in a way that's, I don't wanna like knock the single track path of pursuing your solo career because I mean, we've been on it and it's great, but at the same,
[00:40:40] Aaron: And that works for some people.
[00:40:41] Michaela: Yeah, totally. Some people don't have these kind of existential questions or unhappiness or discontentedness.
Aaron thankfully, like, thank God for good partners who want to be healthy and themselves. And then for their partner as well. But when I've gotten so caught up, which I'm known to do, and with my, especially my girlfriends who are also musicians, and we get really sucked into the career path, he's like, God, you guys are boring,
[00:41:15] Aaron: Whoops.
[00:41:15] Michaela: He's like, really? This is what you talk about?!
[00:41:21] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Oh.
[00:41:22] Michaela: It is crazy when you get to a certain point, you've done it. so many years to a varying level of degree of success and your idea of what success is starts to shift and things. You get things that you always wanted and it's like, oh, it didn't feel as like life changing as I thought it would, or, and you start to have all these changing perspectives, but you're still like, obsessively, like on the grind and all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, are we talking about art?
Are we talking about things that, that nurture us? Are we talking about like love or are we talking about how bad social media makes us feel and Spotify numbers and playlists and how come it's not working or it is working but it doesn't feel like. Ugh,
So that is one of the, our main things with having these conversations that Aaron especially has been like, Michaela we don't wanna dwell on the stuff that doesn't feel good. That's a part of the conversation. But like, what can we do to change the narrative and to realign ourselves with why we got into this business in the first place and sit around with friends and talk about songs and books that we love and, you know, not about our tour schedules, or man, I'm so busy, or, you know, whatever the is.
[00:42:49] Aaron Lee Tasjan: How busy is anybody? Busy. No, people are busy. Just never doing what they say they're doing. No. I, I mean, I'm so with you on that. I would rather go over to somebody's house and sit down and pour a cup of coffee and be like, man, I got this new amp. That's just killer, man. Like I plug my guitar in and it's just like, you know, fireworks are going off like in the house. You know, it's just, it's so inspiring to play through this thing, you know what I mean? Like,
That's such a, that's such an inspiring conversation, certainly, you know, compared to like, oh, my new singles, like really doing some numbers, you know, or
[00:43:29] Michaela: Yeah. I got some playlist adds.... I know, I also, get it, but it's toxic. After a while I think.
[00:43:37] Aaron Lee Tasjan: You know, I think times are changing too, we live in a world where prominent music magazines that we used to see on a newspaper stand when we were young people and think like God to be in that would just be, I don't even know what I would think. That would just be so amazing, you know? And now they are selling features for $1,500.
[00:44:05] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:44:06] Aaron Lee Tasjan: You have to get approved by somebody over there, but you can buy yourself an article in the thing. You know what I mean? Like, recognizing that element of it. I think even though it's kind of scary to like, wow, that's where we're at. But it's also, I think, very freeing to sort of like, understand the scope of the way that the industry works at this point. And to also understand that your ultimate success, however you define it is up to you to determine. You know, the way in which it's viewed by somebody else has nothing to do with your talent.
There are so many other factors that contribute to that kind of thing, and it's never a reflection of what you can or can't do, what you can or can't be, that is you know, something that's purely determined by the artist and somebody else's perception of it, you can't control.
Although people do pay a lot of money to try and control other people's perceptions of them. My feeling on that is, if that's what you wanna do, and you have the money to do it, like I'm, you know, I'm not gonna tell anybody how to like, spend their money or whatever, but like, in what way does that ultimately, benefit you beyond that moment? How is that contributing to a, a better overall future, for artists and for this industry?
Because what I would like to see is for it to continue. I would like to see some eight year old kid, that heard a Michaela Anne record and loved it, decide to pick up a guitar and write a song that blows all of us out of the water, cuz that's what we need, ,you know?
And the only way that's gonna happen is if we ensure that this is able to continue by contributing to the ways in which we can leave this better than we found it. And I think a big part of the way that you start doing that is by having conversations like the one that we've had today where you're talking very real.
You're not like being disparaging towards anybody or what anyone's trying to do, but you're just being very real and honest about what it actually is and being very honest with yourself about what are ways in which you can contribute to the betterment of that.
And what I have found is that sometimes it will be as an artist, sometimes it will be as just a friend who's listening to somebody else who's in a similar position. To me that's having a tough time with it. Sometimes it's as a producer or a co songwriter for somebody to, help them see their vision through.
There's all these different ways that I can contribute to that, and it would be silly of me to just focus solely on, you know, oh, I just need to be an artist, or I just need to do this, or just need to do that. When there's all this wealth of opportunity for me to be helpful, in the scope over all of it, and therefore helpful to myself.
You know, taking care of other people in that way is also an act of self care at that point.
[00:47:48] Michaela: Yeah. That's beautiful. Wow.
[00:47:51] Aaron: You had mentioned your work with the non-profit.
[00:47:53] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Pitch Meeting!
[00:47:54] Aaron: Yeah, Can you tell us some more about that?
[00:47:56] Aaron Lee Tasjan: I will. Yeah, so Pitch Meeting was started by a couple of friends. The, there's a really great guitar player called Lindsay L and she, my friend Eric was the MD in her band. He's originally from Australia and came over to America to play with her. And Eric is just one of the best bass players in Nashville. I mean, one of the best bass players in America, probably. He's really good.
And he told me that a couple years ago I guess maybe over a year ago now actually is the real timeline, they were just kind of getting back to it, like a lot of people were, but, things were going very well for Lindsay. They were playing in arenas, and and he told me he was standing on stage and he was looking around and he thought, you know, I've done, like, this is the pinnacle of what I wanted to do. I wanted to play at the highest level in the best venues. And I, here I am I've accomplished that goal. And he thought like, well, what do I do now?
And he looked at Lindsay. singing in that moment and looked at her and the joy that was coming from her and looked at the audience and the joy, the way those people were responding to her in that moment. And he thought, I don't need to play anymore arenas.
What I need to do is figure out how I can help other people have that experience that she's having right now. And in order to do that, I need to go all the way back to the very most basic and essential place where that happens.
And so he started this thing called Pitch Meeting, which is essentially a very high level kind of open mic type experience. You sign up on a sheet, and they have the pitch meeting house band, which is filled with people who are on the same level musically as Eric. And this is meant to give this opportunity to play with a world-class band that a touring artist would probably be shelling out, you know, five to $10,000 a night for on tour.
And anyone can come have this experience of playing their music with this band live on stage. And these guys are so good that people come up and they go, yeah, my song goes like, da da da da da da. And they're like, great. Got it. 1, 2, 3, 4, kaboom. And it's unbelievable.
And you watch these pe I mean, I've seen singers crying on stage because they can't believe that their song is sounding for the first time ever has been realized in such an incredible way. And they create these sort of once in a lifetime experiences through that.
So they have, at the beginning of each evening, they have sort of a special guest who comes up and plays some of their songs and and also makes themselves available to whoever's there as a resource if, people want to come up and ask questions. How do I do this? How do I do that? During the course of the evening. It's a community of people who are working as hard as they can to help lift each other up.
And they have expanded this operation now into where they have a recording studio space where they're having people now come in and have this experience in a recording setting. They can come in with their song. This is all free, by the way. This doesn't cost a dime. And the goal, the ultimate goal of all of this and as soon as I heard this, I was like, I have to get involved. The ultimate goal of all of this is to eventually own and operate a nonprofit record that will then take the recordings, that are made in the studio and release them in a way where they can, you know, receive, some attention and interest from the greater public at large.
So it's a, it's a fascinating idea that I don't, that to my knowledge, I don't think has been really done before. But it's such a beautiful thing. We're actually getting ready to kick off the the next season of it, tomorrow evening. And just check out PitchMeeting. Com , the website there, give you all the information on where to come. Usually about 50 people sign up, 30 to 50 people sign up, every week, so they don't get to everybody.
But I would say just attending it is a valuable experience because it is so beautiful and so positive and people are really working together to create, some beautiful moments in the world that wouldn't have existed before if this wasn't happening. So, yeah.
[00:52:58] Aaron: That's really amazing. We'll make sure to put a link to that in the show notes to this so people can check that out. Cause that sounds like a really amazing organization. And that's only in Nashville right now, is that correct?
[00:53:08] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Is only in Nashville at the moment. Yeah. But you know, my my guess would be there's definitely room for expansion there, so hopefully, it'll, keep going and keep growing cuz it is a really beautiful thing.
[00:53:20] Michaela: What is your role that you're playing with them?
[00:53:22] Aaron Lee Tasjan: So they did a a big fundraiser last month at 3rd and Linsley. And they basically needed some local folks in the music scene that kind of had a reach outside of where their reach was to help pull more people in, to help people understand what they're doing. A lot of people hear the word open mic and you know, it has certain connotations and all that kind of stuff, but this is something that's particularly special, I think, in that way.
And so I came on board initially to do that. And then I'm going to be the special guests tomorrow evening to kind of kick things off. And as I said, you know, I'll be there the entire evening as a resource for anybody there that has any questions about anything.
And then Eric and I are getting together and figuring out what more can be done in the long term and if there's, you know, some sort of, official capacity in which I would ultimately be involved. I would be thrilled to do that. But mostly. My role has been to just call up Eric and say, what do you need?
[00:54:27] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:54:27] Aaron Lee Tasjan: And how can I help? And how can I lend a hand? Because I believe in what you're doing.
[00:54:32] Aaron: That's awesome. That's great. Yeah. Well, we're kind of getting down to the end of our time that we had set aside here. I do have one question actually when we were talking about this before we hopped on, you mentioned intuitive eating as something that helps you. What is that?
[00:54:46] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Yeah. So yeah it's funny when you slow down especially after you've been like going, which I was for, about five years there. When you slow down, you sort of start to, you know, pay attention to different things. Particularly relating to your body. I at this point am a completely sober person. That clarity definitely is a different kind of thing too. You, you learn how to hear, basically, what your body is asking you for. And, so many times, I have been trying to like manage my eating in ways that have all these hard, fast rules to them, to like, I'm only doing this right now, and it becomes like this whole other thing to manage.
So, you know, intuitive eating is really just kind of being like more in touch with if you want something, in particular, like there's probably a reason for it, you know what I mean? And so it's listening to your body in a way , because the way that you feel like as you're eating about what you're eating, you'll process that, that food like completely differently then if you're, then if you're just like, oh man, like I don't really want these, like chicken nuggets or whatever, but like, I'm gonna eat 'em anyway. Your body will process it like that. And so for me it's, just been about like being in touch with what I think I need paying attention to when that comes up and eating based off of that rather than, trying to be adhering to whatever random set of rules I've decided to have for myself around that at the time.
And it's funny how when you're giving your body the gift of what it wants and what it needs to function. You just, you feel so much better. You have so much more energy. I think eating on the road is tough for, for all, everyone That's ever you guys know.
I remember telling a Margo price one time and she was just like, I'm so just sick of like nuts. Like, I . I don't wanna see if I see one more bag of almonds. That's it, man. I'm just like,
[00:57:02] Michaela: And hummus. yeah. And chips and salsa. Yeah.
[00:57:06] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Why is everything that I eat tan? I don't understand. Like, I'm just on this beige diet man. Like, what's going on here? Trying to be healthy. You know what I mean?
And so, yeah. Being intuitive about it, you know, listening first, and trying to react to that, has been something that I've found has helped me a lot because I did at one point have some like health issues around that and had to go through a bunch of tests and lost a ton of weight and everybody thought I was dying, and it sucked.
But learning how to do that definitely helped me manage not only my physical health, but my mental health as well.
[00:57:46] Aaron: Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a theme here of just taking time and listening to yourself. You know, both for like what you mindfully Yeah. Mindfulness.
[00:57:55] Aaron Lee Tasjan: We have so many answers. Yes. Yeah. We have so many answers to questions that we have, but we need to move slowly enough to hear them sometimes.
[00:58:04] Michaela: Oh, man. That's beautiful. Yeah. It's something I have to work on every day.
[00:58:08] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Me too, yeah.
[00:58:11] Aaron: It's one of those things that it, it really is the journey and not the destination. Yeah. You know, I think it's like a helix. It's something that you can just keep tightening down and, you'll be in a similar spot, but it is just a constant kind practice,
[00:58:23] Michaela: Yeah. This was such a beautiful. A very helpful conversation. Thank you so much for being so open.
[00:58:31] Aaron Lee Tasjan: Oh, thank you guys for doing this. I think this is so incredibly important what you guys are doing, and I think it's gonna help a lot of people. And, I just really appreciate, that you guys are spending your time and energy doing something like this. It's really inspired me a lot to know that and so thank