BY CAYLA MACKEY | PHOTOS DAVE PITTMAN
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he first time I saw Tristen was back in 2010. She was playing at 12th and Porter, and the audience was an even scattering of people. She played an unexpected and mesmerizing set that rocked my tiny little world. Tristen was boldly confident. Her performance was so well put together that not even wrecking ball could shake the tightly-built, pop-infused songs. At that moment, if Tristen was a color, she would have been the steely blue of industrial metal - strong and permanent. I was hooked, and so was everyone else in the room. The second time I saw Tristen was at Bonnaroo in 2011. She was at one of the small stages, and she had amassed a crowd so big that I had to stand on a picnic table to see. Earlier that year she had released her album Charlatans at the Gate, which received a firm nod from basically every legitimate music-reviewing institution—NPR, Spin, Paste, Slant, and Rolling Stone included. Then, in 2012, I got the chance to spend some time with her between shows on her current national tour. We met at Sip in Riverside Village in East Nashville. I walked through the small coffee shop out onto the patio and found her sitting with her back to the far wall. She had a new haircut, replacing her banged, midlength hair with an above-the-shoulder crop. And she was wearing a fantastic pullover, a black jersey with orange, glittery feathers over a tiger’s face. Tristen was instantly disarming. She had just gotten back from Bonnaroo, and I could tell she had enjoyed it, in that special way that only a musician could. No, I’m not talking about drugs. I’m talking about the electrifying energy of inspiration, of creative stimulation. She talked excitedly about how she was now in the middle of writing a new song and how much she loved being outside. I could tell we were going to get along. Tristen Gaspadarek is from Lansing, Illinois, which she will tell you is “basically Chicago.” She moved to Nashville five years ago in 2007 to pursue music, which she has done seriously since she was 14. Now 29, Tristen thrives in Nashville. “Me and my guitar-player-slash-fiancé live right here in Inglewood,” she says. “We have an awesome house. He has his space and I have my space, and we have rehearsal space in the house. Our dining room is where I do a lot of the CD stuff. We have a perfect creative space. I love my house, I love my garden. I love my home life.” Tristen is constantly re-inventing herself. That’s what initially drew her to Nashville in the first place. She initially came to Nashville to record an album after graduating from college. “I had a really great experience recording my record
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NATIVE
JULY | 2012