T.J. Cornwall: the John Mayer of Pittsburgh

Musician T.J. Cornwall is something of a case study for someone who wants to follow his passion in life.

He’s a mellow, indie-rocker who’s been compared to John Mayer, Gavin Degraw and Matt Nathanson and is releasing his album independently.

It’s quite a jump for someone who started out in architectural engineering at Penn State University.

“It took me a while to realize that I wanted music to be my entire life,” Cornwall said.

The Pittsburgh native earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Penn State before he realized that he wanted to spend his days singing and songwriting.

“I don’t want to have a corporate job,” Cornwall said in an e-mail. “I don’t want to be like everybody else, so I’m doing something about it, and I love my life right now.”

Despite growing up around music, Cornwall didn’t really hit his stride until later in life. As a child, he’d feign illness to skip out on piano lessons and proclaims that as a junior high school student, he was less than listenable.

“I was absolutely horrible,” he said. “I feel so bad for any of my friends that had to listen to me back then, but I practiced every day and was so passionate about the music I created even though it probably wasn’t very good.”

All that practice eventually led to songs streaming out on the Internet during high school and Cornwall being approached by Garrett Bogden, a fellow Penn State student interested in starting a band.

Together, they started the band Cloverleaf out of Pittsburgh and Penn State.

Though Cornwall decided to go solo, Bogden continues to drum in his background band, and they have maintained their initial chemistry.

With John Mayer as his biggest influence, Cornwall tries to push himself to continue developing a sound and to branch out into different genres.

“He alone makes me work harder in music,” Cornwall said.

A lot of the music he listened to as a kid in the ’90s — like Nirvana, Counting Crows, Pearl Jam and Ben Folds Five — affect his music today. Feeling that music is timeless, Cornwall aspires to have the same sort of effect with his own work.

Cornwall describes this album as pop-rock because of the catchy choruses in his songs. He dabbles with several instruments, including the sounds of acoustic guitar and piano, which he plays himself.

However, he doesn’t like to confine himself to being summed up in just one sound. Rather, he is open to exploring new styles.

“I go through different phases,” he said. “I think if a musician keeps on making the same song over and over again, he/she is setting up limitations.”

Keeping that freshness means that Cornwall has also grown in lyric writing.

Generally, the people around him are his inspiration for writing things.

However, he doesn’t just write about love interests — he writes about friends, enemies and even intriguing strangers.

“I tell my friends not to piss me off, because I won’t hesitate to write a song about them,” Cornwall said.

In the future, he would like to move into writing about his thoughts and opinions on life, which he has already started to do.

In the song “War and Peace,” Cornwall discusses his feelings on slavery, which he was inspired to write after hearing lectures in class on the issue.

Those feelings also propelled him to donate a portion of his profits to Kiva, an organization that provides aid for entrepreneurs in developing countries who are using loans from donators.

“It’s a phenomenal idea, and I feel like I have a connection with them, because they are doing the same thing as I am, but I’m just lucky,” Cornwall said. “That’s why I want to give back as much as possible.”

You can hear his music for yourself if you go to the release party for his CD, Stepping Stones, which he will release independently on Sept. 9 at the Smiling Moose — upstairs (all ages).

The show starts at 7 p.m., and doors open at 6:30 p.m. with a $10 cover charge that will also get you a CD.

Cornwall jumped headlong into his dream, and he hopes that he can encourage his fans to do the same.

“Do what you want to do,” he said. “I’m just like you. I had a dream and I went for it.”