CJ Solar

CJ Solar landed his dream job right out of college. While completing his degree in songwriting from Belmont in 2014, he was offered a songwriting deal with Sea Gayle Music, where he happened to be interning at the time.

Since then, he’s had several holds from major artists and Jerrod Niemann released “Blue Bandana” (which Solar wrote with Ben Goldsmith and Andrew Scott Wills) as a single in 2015.

Solar has also wrapped up sessions for an EP arriving in April through Sea Gayle. The first single, “Tall Boy,” debuted on Spotify in March.

In the meantime, Solar is playing a hometown show on Friday night (March 25) in Baton Rouge, La., opening for The Cadillac Three, a band that treads similar country-rock territory. His upcoming shows in Nashville include a Tin Pan South appearance on April 7 at The Listening Room and an EP release party on April 21 at The Basement East.

Dropping by MusicRow offices, the good-natured 23-year-old chatted about his lucky break, the terrible band he had with his brothers, and the college assignment he didn’t want to do.

MusicRow: Tell me about the vibe in the studio while you were recording the new music.

Solar: I’ve always played electric guitar in my bands, and whenever I’m on tour, usually I’m the main guitar player, especially lately because I’m doing three-piece. But I wasn’t sure if I should play, but Brent Anderson, who co-produced it with me, said, “You’ve definitely got to play.” It was really cool to play a lot of the electric parts, and I played all the solos, and a bulk of the rhythm stuff. It was really cool to get to do that on my first EP.

Don’t take that for granted. It doesn’t always happen that way.

Yeah, fortunately Sea Gayle was cool with it, and I think it gave it a different sound. We cut the five songs from 10 to 5-ish, and I played the solos when everybody left. That was about it. We did it all in one day, and did the vocals about a month later, over the course of two days. Everything happened organically with it, and it came out pretty fast.

You sound relaxed on the record.

Yeah, it was a no-pressure kind of thing, which made it a lot easier on me playing. It was definitely a lot of fun and I am really proud of how it came out. I’m really glad that I did play on it because it sounds a little different. I mean, there are so many great players in town, and so many guys that I do love on electric, but I think it makes it sound more like me, having me on it.

At what point did you become interested in playing guitar?

I was about 8 and I found my dad had a guitar in his closet. He had it kind of hanging around and I started playing on it. Pretty soon after that, I started taking some lessons. My little brothers were like, “Oh, we want to play music too.” So, both of them started playing drums and one started playing bass. We made a little band and started practicing together, and we’d learn songs and take turns singing. We were obviously pretty terrible but it was a lot of fun.

Our practice was learning songs and we played mostly Southern rock, Creedence, stuff like that. As I got into high school, we started playing more country music. My brothers still don’t like country music. They don’t play music at all anymore, and I decided to come here and try to make country music for a living.

You came here to go to Belmont, right?

Yeah, I started at Belmont in 2010 and graduated in 2014. I signed with Sea Gayle around the same time, after interning there, which was really…I don’t want to say “lucky,” but… (laughs)

How did you get discovered by Sea Gayle?

What’s crazy is that Freeman Wizer, who is a plugger over there, is my neighbor. I literally had never talked to him about music stuff at all, and said, “Hey, I need another internship. Do you know somewhere I can intern?” He said, “I used to be at Universal and I could get you in over there, or you could come to Sea Gayle.” And I was like, “I would LOVE to be at Sea Gayle.” I had read Brad Paisley’s book [Diary of a Player] a couple years ago, so I knew a little bit about Sea Gayle. I was really excited to get in and learn over there.

Shortly after getting in over there, Mike Owens, who also song-plugs, said, “Well, if you’ve got any music, we’ll listen to it.” I was like, that’s cool. This doesn’t happen at my other internships. (laughs) I just had a recording session right before I started interning so I had five songs, and two others, so I brought seven demoed songs. About a week after showing them to Mike, he was like, “So, we kind of want to sign you.” I was like, “Oh gosh, this is crazy!”

I had to finish interning and graduate. I guess I signed before I graduated but I didn’t start writing full-time until May, and that was almost two years ago. It’s just been really great getting to write. I still feel like I have a similar sound to what I’ve always wanted to have, but the songs aren’t bad anymore. (laughs) Or at least I’m proud of these songs, so it’s really cool to be able to write songs for two years.

I think some people in Nashville might be skeptical of getting a college degree in songwriting. How did that pay out for you?

Well, I would say it paid out pretty good because it helped me get the internship, and I definitely feel like I learned. Obviously there are a lot of people that didn’t go to college at all, especially for songwriting, and still write songs professionally, but I definitely enjoyed it and made a lot of good connections and had a lot of great teachers, like Drew Ramsey and James Elliott.

At that time, [some of the teachers] were like, “Learn how to make tracks because everybody wants to sign a track guy.” I was like (quietly), “I’m not gonna do that.” Actually, I tried and I was just not good at making beats. That’s not my thing. My music doesn’t really want beats on it. (laughs) One of the other things at Belmont that they were talking about is that you want to have a professional, pitchable product. And with my tracks not being any good, I was like, “OK, I’m going to have to save up and have a session.” (laughs)

How did the landscape in Baton Rouge affect the way you play music?

Especially in Baton Rouge, when I was playing out, in high school, country music wasn’t what people wanted to hear. It was really weird. I knew people liked country music, but I was not getting requests for country music normally, which was odd. It’s a lot more now than it was, and I think the whole country is that way. It’s a whole lot more of a “country music country” now, but Baton Rouge wasn’t super big on it. I would sprinkle the songs in there, but I think it made me play a little more classic rock. I definitely love that stuff and it definitely influenced my sound a whole lot. I think Baton Rouge had a lot to do with that.

What do you think people will hear in your music when they see you on tour now?

I hope people will listen to the songs a little bit and can relate to them, and like them, and rock out a little bit. I mean, my show is an electric three-piece, so we’re rocking out pretty hard, just to fill out the sound. My guitar is cranked. I just hope people come and have fun and party a little bit.