Sarah Solovay: My Journey - From Opening For John Mayer To Yale To My New Release, ‘Rough Draft’ - Artist Waves

With: Sarah Solovay

My Early Years in Music:

When I was younger, I had a whirlwind career. I started performing when I was 13, and within a few years I’d played basically every small music venue in NYC (all of which I wouldn’t have been legally allowed in as an audience member). I’d also gotten to open for two of my idols, John Mayer and Train. Some of my songs made it into film and TV soundtracks, including the 90210 soundtrack (still pinch myself — one of my favorite shows when I was younger). I’d also been reviewed by The New York Times (after watching my parents read it every morning) and been considered for nominations in two different Grammy categories. Basically, in a nutshell, a lot of really insane stuff happened to me when I was younger that I still sometimes find hard to believe.

Choosing Yale Over a Record Deal:

It was a really tough call, but instead of accepting one of the record deals or going on tour or anything like that, I decided to press pause on my music career and instead go to college. I figured this was the right call for two reasons; one was that I knew if I didn’t go at age 18, I probably never would, while I had the rest of my life to make music. The other was that I could tell I had more growing and learning to do before I was ready to throw myself into music fully. Four, almost five years later, I feel really good about that call. I’ve had so many life experiences in the last few years, and I think my songwriting has really changed as a result. I’m proud of this new body of work, and think it captures an honest, accurate portrait of who I am right now.

Music For Me Now:

When I was younger, I wrote almost completely out of imagination. I loved books and stories and movies, and would get absorbed in anything with a good romantic plot. In my songwriting, I got to imagine what having those experiences would be like, and so the songs I wrote were often fantasy relationships — very honest emotionally, but not actually about real experiences. Then, I went off and lived my life and fell in love and had my heart broken and felt all the things I had always wanted to feel. Now, when I write and perform, the songs are based completely on real experiences. My hope is that people will be able to connect more fully with the new songs for that reason.

The Emotion of Releasing “Rough Draft”:

After this whole journey, I think the main emotions I feel about releasing “Rough Draft” are relief and calm. It’s been five years of growing and learning and life experiences and heartbreak, and so so much writing and recording and preparing for this moment. It feels really great to finally have put this song out into the world, and to be gearing up to put out more. There’s also a lot of gratitude, to the people in my life who helped me find my way back to music and to everyone supporting my new song right now. So, yeah, just a lot of good feelings and excitement about what’s to come!

~Sarah Solovay