Today, GRAMMY-nominated Nashville singularity Aaron Lee Tasjan released his new album Stellar Evolution. Produced by Gregory Lattimer, it marks an innovative new sonic direction, with a celestial collection of expansive anthems, that connect the far away universes of indie rock, hyper-pop and new wave.

Stellar Evolution is a collection of songs that celebrate love, scathe and protest, claim space and shine bright. Inspired by the dark times the queer community has experienced in the south, the album was written in the context of bathroom and drag bans, which were enacted in Tennessee, while right-wing rhetoric around LGBTQI+ people became uglier and uglier. Tasjan knew this album needed to offer a safe space for the vibrant queer community that has become home to him.

For Tasjan his songs are sonic and personal evolutions, and track his sonic shifts and share personal moments of overcoming challenges and embracing change. For tastemaker press, whose support has included the likes of Rolling Stone, FLOOD, PAPER and Paste magazine, and his fans, Tasjan’s songs are universal in appeal and inclusive in intention. Song’s like hyper pop adjacent raver “Alien Space Queen” celebrate living outside the gender binary and Tasjan’s bi-sexuality and queer identity. Tasjan gets funky on his ode to Talking Heads and Scary Monsters-era Bowie, “Pants,” a life-affirming call for authentic and righteous self-expression, and on powerful ballad “Dylan Shades,” he loves so much he lets it go.

He is perhaps his most Tasjan on slacker rock protest song “I Love America Better Than You,” which offers pithy and poignant observations of the challenges facing othered communities in the south, and America as a whole. “The song was my response to how the meaning behind celebrating of the 4th of July is so complicated. In terms of form, it's a modern version of a protest song. Protest songs are a bit tricky to write because you have to find a way to be both timely and timeless in the lyric. That's why "Ohio" by Neil Young still works today. The words written so many years ago still have meaning in today's world. So lyrically, I'm walking that line on this song. As a queer person living in the southern United States in 2024, I am examining my country's complexities, contradictions and hard truths in a way that's conversational. I'm reaching out to a lot of different kinds of people in this song and doing it with an awareness that only love can change someone's mind.”

Listen to the “I Love America Better than You” and the rest of Stellar Evolution - HERE

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer, band leader, activist, and Grammy nominee. Aaron Lee Tasjan has been and continues to be all of these things. Over his past decade plus of writing, recording, producing, Tasjan has released four excellent and critically acclaimed solo albums, which helped him land award nominations including, Emerging Artist Of The Year by the Americana Music Association and 2021’s Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan! caught the attention of high profile fans including Elton John and high praise by tastemakers from Rolling Stone to PAPER. He’s toured the world over, as the guitarist in the New York Dolls and later on his own, an acclaimed singer-songwriter opening for Sheryl Crow, Greta Van Fleet, Cheap Trick and Marcus King, alongside festival appearances at Stagecoach, Bonnaroo, and Newport Folk Festival. He co-founded and co-wrote all of the material for the band Semi Precious Weapons. In 2021 he was nominated for a Grammy for his writing on Yola’s “Diamond Studded Shoes” and most recently, Tasjan produced Mya Byrne's album Rhinestone Tomboy (Kill Rock Stars Nashville) which helped to establish her as one of the first openly trans artists in Americana Music. His activism has seen him curate benefit shows such as The Aaron Lee Tasjam which raised money for The Ben Eyestone Fund/Music Health Alliance which funds primary care and diagnostic testing for uninsured Musicians, and All Newport's Eve, the Newport Folk Festival kickoff concert event, which Tasjan used to support female and LGBTQI+ artists.

As he set out to work on Stellar Evolution, Tasjan knew better than ever what was important to him to express and the message he wanted to share - this was an album about personal evolution and societal revolution.

“I realized that part of being an artist means building a community,” says Tasjan, “What do you want that community to look like? Who do you want to be a part of that community? As an artist, it’s your job to curate that, and to be a reflection of the change you wanna see in the world. I gradually got braver to share more and more of myself through each record, and the music just kinda had to follow suit.”