Aaron Cottrell steps out, finds his footing in Aaron, Plain & Tall

The bulk of the songs populating the new Aaron, Plain & Tall album, Everyone Can See You, were written eight years ago. At the time, Aaron Cottrell, the band’s singer, songwriter and guitarist, found himself on the precipice of turning 30, while simultaneously wrangling with the early rise of Donald Trump, which left him both dumbstruck and frustrated.

These frustrations boil over most explicitly on the song “Devil’s in the Details,” written in the aftermath of a conversation with a former coworker and MAGA devotee, with Cottrell shouting, “Shut up!” and then repeating the refrain until the words become a psychedelic blur accompanied by thrashing 12-string electric guitar.

“He kept comparing [the presidential election] to Ohio State-Michigan,” Cottrell said of the 2016 contest between collegiate rivals, which found Ohio State narrowly escaping with a win amid a controversial ending. “And he was like, ‘Michigan needs to stop bitching, same with all the Hillary [Clinton] supporters.’ And I was like, ‘That’s all this is to you, isn’t it? It’s just a game and your team won and there are no consequences to what’s happening. … You’re just sticking it to the libs.’”

Talking in early November, the day after Trump returned to electoral power, the scab that had started to grow over some of these songs had been newly ripped off, making them freshly resonant in a way the musician never wanted or expected. “It already happened once and I guess I should have been more prepared,” he said, “but nope.”

Elsewhere, Everyone Can See You presents a picture of someone stumbling their way through their 20s while gradually developing a better understanding of the person they aim to be. “I don’t need a focus group to tell me what I am,” Cottrell sings on “Sweet Bae,” a song on which he unpacks “the shit [he] stepped in along the way” to adulthood.

“It’s definitely a requiem for my 20s,” said Cottrell, 37, who will celebrate the album release in concert at Rumba Cafe tonight (Friday, Nov. 8). “When I wrote a lot of these songs, I was 29 going on 30, and it was very much a decade in review, figuring out what was important to me, what I really believe in, and what I want to do with my time here.”

Cottrell said he spent a large part of his 20s adrift and unfocused – a reality that surfaces in repeated references to digging a hole or being otherwise trapped, which the musician attributed to everything from a sense of creative atrophy that had set in to then-unaddressed feelings of anxiety and depression. But as he approached 30 and homed in on those things he wanted to dedicate his energy toward, a sense of clarity began to arrive. Along with this, Cottrell said his goals for a life in music began to shift, as well as his definitions of success.

“My idea of being successful as a musician was so narrow, and it was like, ‘I need to be on tour and playing these bigger venues.’ And basing success on that limited spectrum is really toxic to yourself as an artist, because if you have that need to create, you just have to do it,” said Cottrell, who now views musicians such as Joe Camerlengo as ones to emulate. “That guy puts out some of the most consistently great stuff I hear, and he’s local. … And I respect that he has always stayed true to himself and kept doing things the way he wanted to do them.”

While a majority of the tracks find the musician lingering on his 20s, “Colorado” looks even further back, exploring the crisis of faith Cottrell navigated in his preteen years from a now-comfortable distance. (“It doesn’t hurt to talk about anymore,” he sings. “It’s been 16 years.”) The song is also among the most direct on the record, the musician stripping away his use of metaphor and speaking with a clarity that can be righteously jarring, particularly on lines such as “God isn’t real.”

“I write a lot in metaphor and talking about orcas and being stranded at sea … but sometimes I like to break from that and speak plainly,” Cottrell. “Being a preteen and having those thoughts of doubt, especially having grown up with parents who were ministers, it was … devastating and kind of scary. … Losing your religion at an early age can be a traumatic experience. But ultimately, for me and how I feel now, it was liberating.”

Cottrell, long part of the rock duo Cliffs, experienced a similarly freeing sensation in setting off on his own with Aaron, Plain & Tall, which he said has afforded him space to better figure out who he is as a musician, even though he’s supported by a bevy of talented players. “I’m not a dictator or anything, and the other guys in the band are incredible musicians,” said Cottrell, who is joined in the band by guitarist Jeff Meyers, bassist Chris Cope and drummer Blake Bachman. “But, yeah, stepping out on my own was definitely a big thing for me as a songwriter. … And a lot of this record is me trying to find my voice and figuring out what I want to say, both lyrically and musically.”