Q&A: j solomon is Ready to ‘KILL THE ROCKSTAR’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY FAITH LUEVANOS ☆
MARKING THE END OF AN ERA, INDIE ARTIST J SOLOMON CLOSES – the final door on his indie rockstar persona through his latest EP, KILL THE ROCKSTAR. The EP is described as somewhat autobiographical, an honest retelling of the moments leading up to his new musical direction.
Accompanied by a short film comprised of six music videos, j solomon takes listeners on a sonic journey inspired by bands such as Car Seat Headrest and The Strokes. After holding onto these songs for quite some time and even through a coast-to-coast move, j solomon returned to the project to perfect and articulate the end of this chapter, a remarkable grand finale.
j solomon will be premiering his short film at release shows in New York City at The Stone Circle Theatre June 27 and in Los Angeles at The Goldfish July 17. Read our full discussion on KILL THE ROCKSTAR below.
LUNA: From the very first song on the album, listeners can hear the subtle sonic references to bands like Car Seat Headrest and The Strokes. Were there any specific songs by those artists that you felt the most drawn to while making the EP?
J SOLOMON: My favorite Car Seat Headrest song is called “Hollywood.” Honestly, track one, “LYING AROUND,” was inspired by me growing up playing FIFA with my brothers, and the soundtrack from that video game every year was always so sick. There were bands like Catfish and the Bottlemen, The Griswolds, and MGMT, like early 2000s indie rock, power anthems. With “LYING AROUND,” I was just trying to make one of those types of songs.
LUNA: What does the title, KILL THE ROCKSTAR, mean to you?
J SOLOMON: It’s kind of autobiographical. I've been portraying myself in my art as this indie rock star for three or four years now, and it just felt time to end that chapter and move on to something different. So I decided to close out with a bang, and symbolically kill off that character. The EP is somewhat of a loose concept album pretty much.
LUNA: Do you plan to experiment more with new genres after this EP closes that indie rockstar door?
J SOLOMON: I feel like this EP is kind of the last hurrah of this particular sound. I have a number of different directions that I'm going to go in after. I'm figuring out what feels right. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm really, really excited about the songs that are going to come out after this.
LUNA: What did the creative process look like for this EP?
J SOLOMON: It was painstaking and grueling. It took way too long. I lived in New York City for a number of years, and I moved to Los Angeles close to two years ago, and I brought half of the songs in the EP over with me. They were already recorded, mixed, mastered, and finished, and I got to LA, and for a number of reasons had a whole existential episode, and that resulted in the culmination of this KILL THE ROCKSTAR project idea. I was like, “Well, I have some of these songs, but they're not right. I have to fully redo them.” So I went back to the drawing board, and these songs that were finished, I went back to square one and pretty much fully redid them. It was weird. Some of the stuff was recorded on the East Coast with this producer, Eric Kase Romero, and some of the stuff in LA with the producer, Garrett Hall. Some of the songs are a mix of the two of them, kind of like a hodgepodge mess. But all that being said, it all makes sense together now.
LUNA: Do you feel like each song on the EP marks a different point or chapter within the story you’re telling?
J SOLOMON: I think it does. I think part of that was honestly a really lucky coincidence. The other counterpart to this project is we did a short film, so six music videos, and that has a real storyline, telling the story of killing the rock star. The songs that were already written before that idea came into play and the order that we put them in does loosely tie into that same theme. I think that's partially luck that it shook out that way. But yeah, the songs on the track list loosely do follow that same story.
LUNA: Speaking of this upcoming short film which is out July 22, were there any specific artists or rockstars that came to mind when portraying this character?
J SOLOMON: I guess when I say “kill the rock star,” I'm talking about this indie rock thing where the pillars of that are Alex Turner and Julian Casablancas, these guys who are front men, but not compared to when you think of a stadium rock star, front man person, Freddie Mercury type. I'm thinking of these much more grungy, indie, weird, in the shed, making strange sounds on a synthesizer kind of guys.
LUNA: What song on the EP would you claim as your favorite and why?
J SOLOMON: I feel like what I always pick is whatever’s the most recent. “FISHBOWL,” track number five, was the last addition to the EP. Honestly, I'd recorded it with Garrett, I hated it, and we scrapped it, and for a year, Garrett kept being like, “Dude, do something with the song. Or I'm gonna just release it without your permission.” It took so much convincing, but we went back to it and I made some lyric changes. The production of it was always sick as hell. All to Garrett's credit, but I went in and made the changes that I needed to fall in love with it again. I've come full circle on that song.
LUNA: The final track on the EP, “SPARK,” marks the crucial moment of breaking down that rockstar character. It builds to such a high-energy point, so I wanted to ask what it felt like to end the EP with that song.
J SOLOMON: Super cathartic. I love “SPARK.” I love that type of song. That's my favorite thing about music in general, is just the intensity and then the release. Some of my favorite songs do that. What comes to mind right now is the song “Not” by Big Thief. Stuff that feels huge. “SPARK” just feels like it's the ultimate release with an untimely end.
LUNA: Compared to your previous EP, Sleeping in the Garden, what would you say are some of the key contrasting elements to these bodies of work?
J SOLOMON: Sleeping in the Garden was a real mix of things. I grew up playing folk music and kind of worked my way into becoming an indie rock musician and Sleeping in the Garden really showcased both sides of that. With KILL THE ROCKSTAR, It was really intentional that I wanted to go only in one direction, and I wanted to make a really cohesive body of work. I also wanted there to be a perception of, like if two friends are sitting in the car and listening to music, if one of them could say, “Oh, that sounds like a j solomon song.” and there'd be a blueprint that comes to mind because I've done a lot of confusing things musically. I have a lot of songs that are very, very different from one another. So, with KILL THE ROCKSTAR, I really just wanted to do one thing and do it well.
LUNA: What message, if you have one, do you hope to convey to listeners with this EP?
J SOLOMON: I don't know if there's an exact “bigger than the music” thing going on. I think what I wanted to do with this project is just make a really good piece of art and just be like, “Here you go. Enjoy.” I like art for art's sake sometimes, and this is one of those times.
LUNA: Besides the release of this project and the short film, is there anything else coming up soon for you that you can share with Luna?
J SOLOMON: There's going to be two release shows. They're film premiere/release shows in LA and New York. It's going to be June 27 at Stone Circle Theatre in New York and July 17 at The Goldfish in LA and I've never done performances like that. So I'm really, really excited for those.
