How Tennessee-based artist Aaron Lee Tasjan is using his music to combat hate

By Randi Kaye, CNN

(CNN) — Long before singer songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan was collaborating with the likes of Lady Gaga and producer Jack White, he was just a kid growing up in the Midwest struggling to belong. He turned to music.

“It completely saved me,” Tasjan told CNN’s Randi Kaye in a recent interview. “There was that feeling of just like, man, I don’t know, like anyone at my high school who’s gay or you know anything like that…. being able to listen to, um, a record like Poses by Rufus Wainwright or something like that, you know, it allowed me to live fully in as myself, even if it was just in my bedroom with my headphones on for the night.”

The grammy-nominated Tasjan recently released his fifth studio album called “Stellar Evolution,” a deeply personal work.

One song, titled “Nightmare,” tells the story of a boy Tasjan remembered from high school in Albany Ohio, who was teased and then reported for putting makeup on in his car. Tasjan regrets not standing up for him at the time, fearing he would be ostracized by association.

“I wrote that song so that I could sing it every night and remind myself of the importance of not being afraid of who we are and remembering that oftentimes is our real strength,” Tasjan, who identifies as bisexual, reflected.

“That’s the genuine experience that I’m having as a human being, whose love is not dependent on, you know, somebody’s specific gender,” he said. “It just feels very instinctual to me, to just fall in love with people.”

As an artist and an advocate, Tasjan has his work cut out for him. He lives in Nashville Tennessee, a state that in recent years has passed numerous pieces of anti-LGBTQ legislation with more proposed. Since 2015, more than 21 laws targeting LGBTQ rights or existence have been passed in Tennessee, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that advocates for equality for LGBTQ communities.

He describes the current political scene in Tennessee as “totally haywire” and suggests some lawmakers are “trying to make it illegal to be a gay person.”

As a rising singer-songwriter, Tasjan sees himself as someone who can help shape today’s culture. His LGBTQ-advocacy work in Tennessee, along with his music, is part of that. He hopes to help bridge divides during this fraught time in our culture.

“At this stage, it’s really about using your music and message to build a platform of visibility, and then using that platform of visibility to sort of lead by example…just put the kind of energy and art out into the world that’s a reflection of what you’d like to see back,” Tasjan told CNN.

His music is his way of reaching out to others like him.

“I really had the experience growing up as a young person, feeling afraid of who I was and what that would mean if I were to say that out loud to somebody,” he recalled.

“The kids that are growing up in the Midwest like I did, you know, who don’t have a person in their life that they can relate to about who they are, can see someone like me, hear my story and know what I’ve been through and know that there’s another side to that, that you can come out of, and that you can find your community and find your people and be okay,” Tasjan said. “I feel like that’s especially important right now at a time when there is so much dehumanization happening across the board. “

Tasjan sees similarities between himself and some songwriters in the ’60s and ‘70s, like Bob Dylan, as well as other artists from today.

“This is the road that we have built as artists in the modern era,” he said. “I think that artists like Childish Gambino, Chappell Roan and Lady Gaga, they’re modern day protest singers, you know, and I, and I feel right in line with that.”

Tasjan believes “protest music,” as he calls it, “is the soundtrack of our time.”

“People are relating to these songs and shows coming up to me afterwards, sometimes in tears, because they just really needed to hear that message,” Tasjan said. “And at the end of the day, as a songwriter, that’s what I want to create, the songs that people need to hear.“

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