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"   Photo by Rachel Briggs  Nashville may be known as the land of honky-tonk and Taylor Swift, but for singer-songwriter Tristen Gaspadarek, who performs as just Tristen, it&amp;#039;s also a place for making &amp;quot;neo-traditionalist pop.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;s how the Tennessee-by-way-of-Chicago musician describes her sound, which layers country twang over perfectly executed folk-rock. Since releasing her critically acclaimed album Charlatans At the Garden Gate earlier this year, Gaspadarek has been busy traveling the country and recording her follow-up, which is set for release in spring 2012. She&amp;#039;s giving her new songs a test-run with a slew of dates this month and then again in December. Having spent much of the year on the road, ELLE.com caught up with Gaspadarek to get her travel tips.  ELLE: How do you pack for weeks on the road? TG: I would say I pack light, my band would say they pack lighter! I always end up wearing the same few things over and over again. Brown boots, black oxfords, a couple dresses, my leggings, my favorite pair of jeans, a few button-ups and my Bruce Springsteen T-shirt for pajamas. ELLE: Have you made any exciting purchases while on the road?TG: Last trip, [bandmate] Buddy&amp;#039;s aunt, who we stayed with in Seattle, gave me this amazing pink button up with black fringe across the front along with some handmade dresses that were his grandmother&amp;#039;s. They fit me perfectly. I&amp;#039;d have to say I was most excited about these pieces. ELLE: Are there any beauty essentials you can&amp;#039;t leave the house without?TG: Moisturizer, red lipstick, and mascara. ELLE: What&amp;#039;s the first thing you do when you get back from touring? TG: Sleep, cook food at home, play my piano, and run out to see all of my friends that I&amp;#039;ve missed in Nashville. Absence always makes the heart grow fonder. ELLE: With so much touring this year, what&amp;#039;s been your most memorable show?TG: Our Bonnaroo performance was probably most memorable. We were playing &amp;quot;Avalanche&amp;quot; and just as I sang, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just the raindrops falling down,&amp;quot; lightning struck and it started to pour and everyone rushed up to the stage. The energy was electric at that show. ELLE: What&amp;#039;s your favorite part of the music process: writing, recording, or performing? TG: I enjoy them all and they are all a part of each other. Nowadays I write and record simultaneously, it&amp;#039;s become closely linked. I like the private exploration; I like coming up with a concept and following through until it&amp;#039;s happened. I get my self-confidence and sense of purpose from working on recordings. I&amp;#039;m always happy to find that the path, as I&amp;#039;m carving it out, is actually going to lead somewhere. When I get there I&amp;#039;m relieved and also empty, so I start over again. That&amp;#039;s the best way I can describe it. Performing, on the other hand, is pure fun. It&amp;#039;s the time when you get to celebrate your music and share it with others. It&amp;#039;s exhausting like nothing else and when the show is over I sleep like a baby. You just pour yourself out into the open and it feels amazing. ELLE: What can fans expect from your new songs and upcoming album? TG: Well, I went into this process aiming to make a dance record. I wrote almost all of the songs on my Lowry organ so these songs are keyboard based. Also, I&amp;#039;ve incorporated a lot of the electronic drums sounds I&amp;#039;d been using from an Alesis HR-16 with live drums. So you can expect a true pop record. This is really where my heart is\u2014or at least where it is right now. We are living in a post-modern world and I am a post-modern girl! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a7631/tristen-on-traveling-like-a-pro-31473/?click=smart&kw=ist&src=smart&mag=ELM&link=-SMT-ELM>