In a time of uncertainty, a Guelph musician found support within the community. Now, she is ready to share songs about living through the pandemic and other times of change.
CJ Cooper will be releasing a new album on May 14 called, 'are we there yet?' The album covers a variety of topics, from love, hurt, togetherness and growth.
“It’s stuff that I hope people can just listen and be grateful that it wasn’t forever, and then I hope that they listen to the happy songs and they can be just in the moment and can feel, ‘Oh, life isn’t bad,’” Cooper said about the album, which contains influences from a few genres, including rock, pop, country and synth.
Having gone through a series of changes these past few years, Cooper is grateful to be releasing this album.
“I think It’s been a really good anchor over the last few years for my purpose and feeling connected to music when sometimes it’s been hard to find joy in the things that you love,” said Cooper.
Releasing her debut album Look Ahead at age 18, Cooper said she went to Seneca College to study songwriting and performing. Through the program she developed some of the songs for her current album, working with many people of different genres and musical backgrounds.
"It was kind of the first time I got to write with other people from different genres, different musical backgrounds, and at the time, I had no plan for a second album. In my mind, I was just writing songs for school," said Cooper.
Graduating from the program, Cooper said a series of changes happened. Her father was diagnosed with cancer ... and then there was the pandemic.
“It was one thing after another coming out of college, it was really hard," she said, adding her father beat cancer.
Between March and June 2020, Cooper began performing livestreams on the local Facebook group Guelph This & That. During those months, Cooper performed more than 30 shows and made deeper connections with those who tuned in.
"After doing those livestreams I felt very backed up, like I had a lot of people in my corner, and I felt like it was a good time to start opening myself up and start sharing those songs I had written while at school."
One of those songs she shared is called Out of the Shadow, which is on her new album. Cooper said she performed the song on a live stream in May 2020 and got a good response. She decided to make a music video for the song and reached out to the Facebook group to ask for footage.
“I went through a hundred videos and just cut them all down, and I went out with my family and took some stuff, and ended up clumping it all together on my laptop. It was a homemade video of like, 20 and 30 families," she said.
After putting it together, Cooper said creating the music video for Out of the Shadow was probably the best project she's ever done.
“It was emotional, during that time when it was a scary and hard thing we were all going through, and to get these videos of people getting the best out of these scary situations, and the fact that they were willing to share that with me, I took that very seriously.
“To put all that into one little movie was such a unique experience.”
The experience also helped her to grow closer with her community.
“I felt just a different kind of connection than having a crowd of people,” said Cooper. “It made me feel closer to them, and now coming out of the pandemic a bit more, and getting to meet some of those people in real life has been an insane thing.
“I’ve been playing professionally in Guelph since I was 13 and I’ve always loved playing here more than any other place,” she continues. “We’re all very open and just supportive of each other, but doing this video, I actually got to feel each and every other individual person."
With a couple of music videos set to be released this summer and a vinyl album coming, Cooper is also going to take some time to enjoy her album.
“After that, I’m going to take a break,” said Cooper. “I have a lot of songs written for a new project, but I’m not going to give myself any timelines for that.”
To learn more about CJ Cooper and her new album, visit cjcoopermusic.com.