Former Naperville man out with first country music CD

Growing up first in Maine and then in rural Canada, Jason Rogers experienced a bit of a culture shock when he moved with his parents to Naperville around age 20.

Used to living with friends and relatives who often couldn't even afford some of the basics, let alone luxuries, Rogers now found himself among the McMansions.

"You had to drive two hours to go to a McDonald's or a movie theater," he said of his early years. In Naperville, "there's little ice cream shops everywhere."

It was all somewhat jarring.

"I found Naperville to be kind of a fairy land," he said.

Rogers, now 32, is living in yet another world now: Nashville, where he hopes to build a country music career. His first album, simply titled "Jason Rogers," was released this spring. And he keeps busy with singing gigs.

Rogers has maintained, his Web biography says, that country perspective on life, focusing on simple pleasures and "what life should really be about."

Rogers believes in family - he married in 2004 and had a daughter last year. He believes in classic love songs that he says focus on the true meaning of love.

"I try to make that clear because I think it's a lost art," he says. Too many songs, he says, "have confused it with sex."

But most of all, it seems, Rogers believes in laughter, as he punctuates nearly every sentence with his affable, high-pitched laugh.

It's a personality that has served him well, giving him a chance meeting at a record store on his honeymoon in Hawaii with a man who put him in touch with his current album producer.

It's an album, Rogers says, that he went out of his way to reward the buyer with, making sure the CD had 12 songs instead of 10 and contained printed lyrics.

"They just paid you $20 or whatever and they deserve to get something on the inside," he laughs.

While the former Naperville resident hasn't hit it big yet, he's making a living, playing gigs, he says, seven days a week.

"They say in Nashville either it's a career or don't do it," Rogers noted. "If you're just going to try a year or two, it's not going to work out."

So far, that advice has proven to be true, he said.

"We're eatin', as far as I know, pretty good," he laughs.

Even better than that, he'll be featured in Country Weekly magazine June 8 and a European magazine the same month.

To his friends back in the suburbs, he has this to say:

"Call local Chicago radio stations because they'll be getting a CD over the next few weeks," he said.

As always, he ends it with a laugh.

• For more information on Rogers, visit cowboyjason.com.

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