Date Signed: December 2022
Label: Warner Records
Type of Music: Pop
Management: Interlude Studios (JP Morray, Jacob Krupp, Shannon Galvin, Sanjana Satish)
Booking: CAA (Julie Greenberg, Matt Galle, Kate Arenson, Kasey McKee)
Legal: Jeff Becker, SMB Trials
Publicity: Ceri Roberts, Warner Records
Web: Stephanie Iwan, Warner Records
A&R: Nate Albert & Brad Beausir, Warner Records
Pop star on the rise CIL has just released the Tears Dry on Their Own EP, her debut for Warner Records, six tracks that journal her journey of personal growth to this point. It’s a soulful, accomplished and startlingly raw body of work for an artist that has been singing, she said, longer than she’s been talking.
“It was my safe space,” CIL said. “It was the thing that never let me down. Around eighth grade when I was probably 13, I wrote my first song ever. I was just addicted after that. I wanted to do it more and more, so I kept writing and I was reading a lot. Around 16, I had been going through a lot of hectic family life stuff, and I was lashing out. I dropped out of high school, I moved to California, and it was one of those things where it found me and it told me to start my career, rather than me just making that conscious choice to start.”
CIL considers herself a soulful rock star, inspired by giants such as Stevie Nicks and Etta James. It was that blend of genres, combined so seamlessly by this artist, that brought her to the attention of major label Warner.
“I was talking here and there with labels,” CIL says. “I didn’t really have a plan, but I met with Aaron Bay-Schuck [Warner Records CEO] and he brought me into his office and we clicked so well. He was like, ‘I can’t really let you leave this office until you let me sign you.’ It was very natural. I was picky – I didn’t want to sign to anybody unless I knew absolutely for sure that these were the people I wanted to create a family with.”
CIL and Bay-Schuck bonded over a photo of Elton John on the wall of his office, showing the Brit legend at Dodger Stadium. That, they both maintained, is the dream and it’s what CIL is striving for. To that end, her new EP is her debut for the label.
“I recorded a lot of those songs the year prior to when they came out,” she said. “They were in the works for a while, and I was opening up the storybook and saying, here is me. Here is what I love to do, and here’s what I’ve been through so far.”
The EP was originally going to be called The Feminine Diagnosis, but the themes grew to be about the human condition as a whole.
“I found so much power in this idea that I am a woman, and I’m owning being a woman,” CIL said. “It’s about the state of being, what it means to feel, and in this place where feeling is possible you find that life is a little bit sweeter. You find that tears dry on their own because eventually you will be ok, you will get back up again.” Well said.
