Aaron Lee Tasjan was experiencing the worst bout of imposter syndrome of his career when he sat down and wrote Todd Snider a vulnerable email asking for advice. Tasjan, despite writing and recording some of the most astute Americana rock songs of the last decade and being nominated for a Grammy, just didn’t see a future for an independent singer, songwriter, and guitarist like himself.
Snider read Tasjan’s email and immediately replied: “I think I have some ideas. I’ll write you back tomorrow.”
The next morning, Tasjan awoke to a signature Todd Snider missive for how to move forward as an artist. It was a novel-length email that read like the battle plans for the Invasion of Normandy. Do this, Snider wrote. Then this. But never that. The specifics don’t matter — besides, that’d be giving away the secret — but Tasjan devoured his mentor’s words and took them to heart.
He began writing feverishly, unbothered by expectations and immune to any pressure to match his acclaimed albums like In the Blazes, Karma for Cheap, or his most recent, 2024’s Stellar Evolution. When he was through, Tasjan had Get Over It, Underdog, his most inspiring LP to date. Produced by Tasjan and his longtime sound engineer Mark Miller, the album is a celebration of the power of songwriting, the unbreakable bond of friendship, and the determination of the dark horse.
“I went to the ultimate oasis for a singer, songwriter, and troubadour: Todd Snider. And he said, in very Todd fashion, ‘You can find your path forward by going backwards,’” Tasjan says with a laugh. “But he was right. I set aside my ego, played shows solo without my band, and wrote a lot of songs. In that process, I found my confidence again.”
Tragically, however, he lost his mentor. Snider died shortly after Get Over It, Underdog, was finished, leaving a void in the folk-rock scene that will prove nearly impossible to fill. But Tasjan is committed to carrying on Snider’s unbridled spirit and lifting up underdogs everywhere.
Over 11 tracks, Tasjan’s new album kills sacred cows and pokes holes in the dam, while leaning hard into the idea of perseverance. In the talking-blues of “Science Friction,” he tells an abridged origin story of civilization that culminates with humankind editing itself out of its own picture. “Man made machines/putting man out of business,” he sings with a knowing wink. “Lost & Alone,” meanwhile, finds him feeling like a “stranger in this town.” It’s a compact blast of indie-rock with a sing-along chorus that underscores Tasjan’s gift for writing infectious hooks.
In “Twilight Zone Blues,” a shot of gritty T. Rex glam-rock, Tasjan wonders why we’re compelled to press the mysterious button just to find out what happens. “In society today, all this bad shit can become tempting, especially as the situation feels more and more dangerous as time goes on,” he says. “‘Twilight Zone Blues’ builds to that tension of, ‘What happens if I just give in to this or succumb to that?’”
And in the story-song “Ballad of an East Canton Lowlife,” Tasjan returns to his adolescent years in Ohio, where he moved with his family from Orange County, California, at 13. The vitriol he felt in Ohio as an outsider was unavoidable, but he learned to defuse it. “All these folks feel like they have their back up against a wall, cornered by what society is trying to force them to fit into. As a transplant into a town that was being redeveloped, I represented something that they saw as different, and I’d bear the brunt of their anger,” he says. “But then I could turn around and sing them a Johnny Cash or a Charley Pride song and suddenly everybody’s dancing. That was the power of music to me.”
Tasjan took pains to make sure that each song on Get Over It, Underdog was as concise and potent as it could be. Often, he’d run them by Snider for critiques, who shared stories of how the American songwriting treasure John Prine did likewise for him early in his career. The goal in writing was always to find the “emotional rock to stand on” of each song. Once Tasjan had that, he learned from Snider, he had something personal.
“Songs are like mantras — you’ve got to say them every night,” Tasjan recalls Snider challenging him. “So, what’s in there that you’re repeating every night?”
Tasjan found one such mantra in the “The Real,” a song that sums up Get Over It, Underdog. An empowering singalong with a gang vocal refrain and a snaking guitar line, it takes a hard look at all that is authentic in today’s culture, both the good and the bad. “Tell of our true history/violence that we must see,” Tasjan sings. “It’s up to us to heal it/ Sing this, if you feel it!”
It’s as much a song for the artist as it is the listener.
“That’s the point where I start talking to myself in the song and reconnecting with my mission,” Tasjan says. “I want to make songs that help people. I want to be an artist in the service to the community of music fans, but also to anybody that needs to hear these messages. On Get Over It, Underdog, I’m rediscovering something I thought I had lost.”
Tasjan needn’t worry. His mantras are coming through loud and clear.
