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Solomon Fox’s days typically follow a strict schedule. He wakes up late in the morning, grabs a cup of coffee, and walks around his neighbourhood, after which he dives into making music. There’s no exact timeframe for the period he spends in his studio tinkering with his keyboard or one of his many guitars as he works out the finer details of a new song or perfects an existing one. He simply keeps at it until he has to do something else, grab lunch, take a call, or attend to one of life’s attendant responsibilities. The real magic however typically happens later in the afternoon when he returns to making music. Having taken care of the bulk of the day’s responsibilities and vagaries, he enters into a flow state that mirrors the surreal placidity of his music.
“Today has been different,” he tells me during our conversation, one balmy Wednesday afternoon in late August. Wearing a white shirt and a brown jacket with the Marlboro logo, he radiates the warm, fuzzy energy of his music, which deftly blends Neo-Soul and R&B into an enrapturing whole. It’s still early in the afternoon but the day has been intense. He has just announced a tour spanning eight cities ahead of his debut album Sweettooth, and is preparing for a festival scheduled to be held during the weekend at a farm in Southern Virginia that he and a bunch of friends bought during the pandemic. “It’s called Grouse Fest. It’s kind of like a DIY festival my friends and I put together. There’s going to be a lot of fun other stuff; a scavenger hunt and like mud wrestling and random other fun things. But it's also my first performance with the new material, so this is going to be a good little trial run of the album,” He runs his fingers through his slightly tousled hair, his face flickering between nervous excitement and a contagious calmness.
Solomon’s lore follows the rollercoaster pattern of a Pixar film. Which is to say that his career had mostly unspooled with the idyllic stability of a straight line, until a shift occurred that set him on a different, less predictable but equally more exciting path. Having led a career as a critically acclaimed producer, earning two Grammy nominations and one Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for the Gospel-infused anthem Stand Up for the film Harriet, and working with a dizzying array of prodigious artists including Smino and Emeline, in 2020, during the pandemic, he finally acquiesced to a throbbing desire to take on a career as a singer.
Raised in Durham, California by hippie parents, both of whom are professors, Solomon’s childhood resembled something from a children’s picture book. He spent afternoons running around in the woods, climbing trees, and performing stunts with his brother. Music was also a prominent fixture of his childhood. They didn’t have a television, so to stave off boredom, the boys would compose songs and conjure fascinating worlds that contrasted the small, quiet town they lived in. Despite his natural aptitude for music, Solomon didn’t imagine himself having a career in music. He was fascinated with baseball and entertained dreams of a professional career playing the sport. It wasn’t until high school, when he started to play shows with his band Young Bull that the notion of a career as a professional musician began to take shape in his mind.
Solomon has a wry, awkward sense of humor that is surprisingly potent at eliciting hearty laughter. “The first song I remember writing was a love song for my middle school crush. I remember I called it Ecila because her name was Alice and that was how you spell it backwards.” He pauses to laugh. “It didn’t work out though, she rejected me before she even heard the song,” he tells me when I ask about the first song he wrote. His sanguine disposition however often belies a more fraught internal sense. Dating back to his childhood he had always written his own material and daydreamed about performing his songs to throngs of doting fans. He however made his way into music through music production, a smooth transition from his days playing in his high school band, and settled into that mold.
It’s a story we can all relate to. How many times have we pushed aside lofty dreams, instead settling for the more agreeable version of life we live in? Is it fear or comfort or that lulls us into accepting what life foists on us, especially when we’re at a comfortable place, instead of lurching into the great unknown where dreams and fantasies take on increased possibility? “I always had my own songs but I was kind of nervous to share them,” he says. “It was always the fear of not succeeding or being seen as good enough as a vocalist.” During the lockdown, infected with the revolutionary spirit that seems to have washed over the entire human race, he felt overcome by an implacable desire to put out his own music. His years as a producer, away from the spotlight, had helped him develop as an artist but now he was ready for the next step in his story.
His first mixtape in 2021 officially launched his career as a singer and since then he’s been on a journey that’s equal parts exhilarating and scary. His anxieties notwithstanding, he has been trundling ahead and is showing no signs of slowing down. With his forthcoming album Sweetooth, he expects to turbocharge the momentum he’s been building. Sweetooth, Solomon tells me, is inspired by a previous relationship and explores the murky in-between area between falling hopelessly in love with someone and never wanting to speak to them again. His next single Reconcile drops on October 10. Solomon is palpably stoked about it.
Despite his excitement his career as a singer has come with profound changes. “There’s a lot more pressure to lead them to where you want them to be,” he says, referring as much to his team as his fans. Occasionally he feels performance anxiety, he tells me, recalling a performance in Los Angeles. But it usually fades away when he realizes he’s just where he should be; at home on the stage. “It’s more pressure but it’s also more payoff because you get the experience of seeing people sing words you wrote back to you.”
