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

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.