Andre Solaine has written for more singers than he can name in one sitting, and until this year none of the records had his name on the front.

He talks about songwriting like a service job: read the artist, find the phrase they would actually say, get out of the way. Keeping a song for himself broke that habit and, he admits, terrified him.

“I gave away my best song three times before I understood that giving it away was the easy part.”

The debut single is a mid-tempo ballad about a marriage that ends politely. He wrote it for a client who passed on it twice, then sang the demo himself and could not hand it over again.

He is realistic about the transition. Writers who step out front usually get one album to prove it, and he has budgeted his own money accordingly.