Nashville, TN — October 14th, 2022: Author, songwriter, and performer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld is sharing a new original Christmas song, “It’s Love,” today on Vere Music ahead of the upcoming holiday season. Building on the roots-rock and gospel sounds of his recent EP Remember Tomorrow, released this past summer on Vere, “It’s Love” is a rich and textured guitar anthem for the holiday season and its inherent opportunity for community. 

“The hope in writing ‘It’s Love’ was to shine a spotlight on what I believe to be the true meaning of Christmas, sharing the gift of love with one another,” Sonefeld explains. “My friend Martin Chalk, co-writer of one of the most popular contemporary Christian Christmas songs of the past 20yrs, ‘Adore’ (Chris Tomlin), collaborated with me on the writing to take this song to a higher level of clarity and quality. So thankful to get to work with him, and I’m excited to have another Christmas song out there for the listeners!”

“It’s Love” caps off a year of impressive accomplishments for Sonefeld, including the release of his first book, the memoir Swimming With the Blowfish, and his first solo EP since 2015, Remember Tomorrow. This past September, the singer-songwriter was invited to appear on the Today show in New York to discuss the memoir and his personal story of addiction and recovery for National Recovery Month. This month, he continues a national tour reading excerpts from the book and performing songs from the new EP in addition to previous solo favorites and songs he contributed to Hootie and the Blowfish, the iconic 90s rock band of which he has been the longtime drummer. 

As a member of Hootie and the Blowfish, Sonefeld was a primary songwriter on debut single “Hold My Hand,” which broke the previously-unknown band into the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 and previewed a debut album, Cracked Rear View, which would eventually be certified 21x platinum and become one of the top ten best-selling debuts — and top twenty best-selling albums overall in the United States — upon its July 1994 release on Atlantic Records. 

From 1989 through their reunion in 2019, Sonefeld contributed to numerous hits with Hootie and the Blowfish, who became notable for breaking through the disaffected noise of the grunge era with a sunnier and more earnest perspective. While praising the “powerful hooks” and warm familiarity of Cracked Rear View, prolific liner-note writer and Allmusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine singled out “Hold My Hand” for “epitomiz[ing] the band’s good time vibes.” Beginning with his 2008 solo debut Snowman Melting, Sonefeld has worked tirelessly to take those vibes and his pedigree for anthemic hit making to an even more mature and personal place. 

At the time, Sonefeld explains, he “was writing a lot about the pain and difficulty of love. Now I have a better picture and want to celebrate love and write about the joys of victorious love and healthy relationships. None of which I could have written about it without my journey through recovery from addiction.”

Sonefeld’s journey to healing, as it’s been so richly throughout Swimming with the Blowfish and Remember Tomorrow, lends a beautiful depth and richness to “It’s Love,” a song that holds tight to a feeling of love and togetherness. It’s a peaceful and inviting feeling, and one Sonefeld has thoroughly earned.