What’s a better way to spend an afternoon than talking guns and music on a pickup truck tailgate… while we reload mags for more range time?
Living the last 20 years in the Nashville suburbs, few days have passed that I’m not reminded that this is the epicenter of country music. A mile’s drive to the grocery store took me past three Grand Ole Opry star homes. My wife nearly earned some infamy when Keith Urban stepped off the curb at the REI store and was paying more attention to his phone than her Chevy Suburban. Some days, it seemed like I couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a country music persona. Don’t get me wrong; it’s pretty cool.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several great people from the country music industry, and it’s heartwarming to find that most share a love of the outdoors, hunting and everything guns. After a recent introduction, I invited an up-and-coming singer-songwriter, CJ Solar, out to the farm to hammer some steel and punch some paper with some of his new toys.
Musical Foundation
Properly socially distanced at either end of my truck tailgate while we loaded magazines, I asked some of the standard journalistic questions about what brought Solar to Music City. The conversation with the then 27-year-old Baton Rouge native revealed that he had attended Belmont University in Nashville to earn a degree to build his music business foundation. From there he signed on with Brad Paisley’s Sea Gayle Music as a song writer, where he’s put his talents and education to work since 2014.
With the fuel of both Southern rock and country music influences pumping through his veins, it’s no surprise that he is a natural at fusing the two worlds. Combine that with Delta blues, compliments of a childhood spent in Cajun country, and you’ve got one badass up-and-comer, with the pure musical talent and vocal chops to back him up.
Already turning heads throughout Nashville, Baton Rouge and beyond, having been named one of the “New Artists You Need To Know” by Rolling Stone Country, Solar says the driving force behind his untimely success isn’t fame nor fortune – it’s just a diehard infatuation with the music he grew up on in his younger days.
Solar’s 2018 release, the five-song Get Away With It, on Sea Gayle Music really got me hooked. The first single, “Airplane,” took off – literally – on country radio and his highest charting single at that time. CJ’s distinctive vocals anchor every tune, which he co-wrote with a long list of fellow song writers.
Get Away With It follows Solar’s critically-acclaimed debut 2016 EP, Hard One to Turn Down. Critics at The Daily Country wrote, “Solar injects a hefty (and welcome) dose of Southern rock into his country, which melds perfectly with his gravelly vocals.” Country Music Rocks was “immediately captivated by all five songs and hoped that [the EP] obtains the recognition it deserves.” The Rowdy found it “exactly what country fans are looking to savor.” And, “The Shotgun Seat” welcomed “Hard One to Turn Down” as “the perfect pairing of country storytelling and rocking rhythms, married by his dynamic vocals” and named him one of their “17 to Watch in 17.”
The EP’s debut single, “Tallboy,” has garnered over two million streams on Spotify and the music video hit #1 on the fan-voted CMT 12 Pack Countdown after spending 13 weeks in the countdown. The follow-up single, “Just Another Day in the Country,” was one of the fastest rising and highest charting debut singles for an independent artist.
As a songwriter, October of 2017 couldn’t have been a better month for Solar. Jerrod Niemann’s new Curb Records album was released and included “The Regulars,” a song co-written by Solar. Jerrod also released the Solar co-written “Blue Bandana” as a single two years ago. Morgan Wallen’s “Up Down” hit featuring Florida Georgia line was released a week later – another Solar co-write. That was followed by releases by two Texas artists at the end of the month – “Damn Good Goodbye” on Mike Ryan’s new album and Kyle Park’s single, “What the Heaven,” which hit #1 on the Texas chart in February. CJ also wrote “Between You & Me” on Justin Moore’s current album.
In May of 2020, Solar released his newest EP, Coming My Way. Songs include “Coming My Way,” “Better Memory,” “Wild Hair,” “Rain,” “She’ll Run,” and my wife’s favorite “Watered Down Whiskey.”
When not out touring the country headlining his own shows and opening for such artists as The Cadillac Three, Old Dominion and others, he continues to write and record.
A road warrior at heart, CJ recently was recently the opening act at the Pepsi Gulf Coast Jam for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour” with 38 Special and Hank Williams, Jr. “I just want to write songs that say something that really means something. I want to ride around in a van, tour the country, and play songs with my buds. Everything I do in music, I want to do it for the love of the music and the sake of the song,” he adds.
Coming summer of 2022
Solar’s title track for The Future’s Neon album, was just released. Another of the album’s tracks, “All I Can Think About Lately,” was just released on Spotify, too.
Ringing Steel
Not content with merely randomly plinking, Solar approached the firing line like a serious competitor. Smoothly drawing his Walther Q5 Match SF 9mm from a speed rig, he transitioned between targets scoring center mass hits with ease. A closer look at Solar’s newest firearm addition showed a Trijicon RMR sight and Surefire light mounted on the Q5’s Pic rail. After a quick warm-up, Solar began working on split times and other timed drills with his PACT timer. Offering up a couple of his magazines, he asked for them to be randomly downloaded so he could work on magazine change drills.
After working on pistol drills, Solar brought out his suppressed AR rigged with a light, IR laser, a red dot sight and a flip-up magnifier. Handling his AR with as much skill and dexterity as his comp pistol, Solar worked on multiple steel targets while on the move.
As the sun raced toward the western horizon, Solar pulled another Walther from his Jeep. A “fun gun,” the Walther PPQ wore a suppressor for some hearing-safe target tagging. I had a few new weapons to put through a shake-down, such as a Ruger PC Charger and Sig MPX K. Solar welcomed the opportunity to run the Ruger and Sig. After dark, we kept on shooting, Solar donning a helmet with NODS to run his IR laser-wearing AR.
As Solar’s glowing Jeep tail lights bobbed across my hay field as he drove toward my gate, I had to smile at the similarities and differences between the two of us. He was all about digital downloads. Myself, I’m a child of the LP era, but our shared love of Skynyrd, 38 Special, the music from my high school days, as well as a love of shooting and guns was refreshing. Stay tuned, literally, for more hits from this rising Country and Southern Rock star, who, like a lot of other country boys, love to pull a trigger every chance they get.
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