Your Country's Right Here: Tristen Introduces 'Charlatans At The Garden Gate'

posted in: Country • Music News

You have to love a young songwriter who has guts enough to say she’s bored with “people’s diaries entries made song.”

But that remark perhaps underscores why Tristen Gaspadarek”known only as Tristen in music circles”is one of the bright new lights in Nashville music. Tristen was never one to write and perform songs that seem like sonic issues of True Confessions magazine. Ever since she began writing as a young teen, Tristen would step back, observe the human condition and share her musings in songs much the same way as do her musical icons including Emmylou Harris and the Indigo Girls.

“No Doubt’s ‘Tragic Kingdom’ rocked my 13-year-old world,” said Tristen of some of her early influences. “When Lilith Fair hit, that was also the time when you were listening to mainstream music and there was a lot of attention paid to women in music. I was pretty into that.”

Yet the world is full of rabid teenage music fans whose passion for the art fades as they mature.  Credit her father’s love for music that gave her access to his home studio or her own tendency to throw herself fully into beloved pursuits, but it wasn’t long after Tristen graduated from DePaul University in Chicago that she decided to fore go graduate school and a traditional career path, instead moving to Nashville to develop her musical artistry.

“I didn’t know anybody there but I’m kind of the person that once I make up my mind about something, I throw myself in,” she said. “I was ready to get out of Chicago andstart something new and it was really exciting to get to make music. I realized I didn’t need all the thing a lot of people are trying to acquire in life. It’s a lifestyle choice you make.”

Now as she and her band travel in a van to play at various club dates in support of her just-released album Charlatans at the Garden Gate, she reflects a bit on how she began to develop her musical chops in Music City.

“I played with anybody who would play,” she said. “Lots of people in Nashville do the same thing.”

As she played more and joined singer-songwriter circles, the songs she wrote shifted and matured as the stack of completed tunes grew. Although her observations and influences vary widely, Tristen has always been true to her style of songwriting. That’s likely why the song on Charlatans, though penned at various times, meld perfectly into an album.

Although the record has just been released, Tristen’s already gained critical praise for the songs that seems deeply personal yet are universally understood. One stand out track is “Matchstick Murder” in which she sings about the pain of losing love while “Heart and Hope” concentrates more on the physical side of love while steeling oneself against the emotional ties.

“I’m the person who likes to talk to her friends about life,” she said. “That is sort of the same way I am about movies. If the story isn’t compelling, I can’t watch it. I have a hard time with action movies. I can’t suspend my disbelief. I try but it doesn’t work. Then I go through phases where I’m listening to an artist, like Dolly Parton, and I think ‘Oh, I want to use ‘Cheatin” in a song.'”

The path to major musical success may”at this time, anyway”may revolve more around songs as diary entries, but Tristen is content with the path she’s taken. It’s not a stretch to believe many will continue to join her as she examines the many facets of love and life.

“That’s what I love about old country, the topics and the twists and turns in the songs,” she said. “A lot of that you can hear in more modern country music but it seems less sophisticated to me. I like to look at [situations] and try to figure them out.”

Find out more about Tristen and her tour on her MySpace page.