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KNOXVILLE — Sarah and J Lewis sit in their North Knoxville home. A mini recording studio sits on one side of the room and a playpen sits on the other side. Inside the gate, 18-month-old Sophie plays happily. This is the state of the band Jag Star today. The long-running Knoxville group has just released the album "Static Bliss" and is on the eve of the group's first Knoxville show in two years, and the group's creative core, married couple Sarah and J, are figuring the logistics of parenthood with the music business. In addition to Sophie, the couple have a boy due this summer.

"I always thought I'd have a music career for so long and then stop and then have a family," says Sarah. "I never knew they'd be so intertwined. Now I think, 'Why can't we do it all?'"

Since forming in 1999, Jag Star has carried on a sort of underground Top 40 career. The band makes the sort of chipper pop that used to brighten up Top 40 radio. Yet while the group has toured extensively (including a tour of military bases around the world), provided soundtrack songs to many TV shows, won songwriting awards and has a small international following, Jag Star has never actually made it on to Top 40 radio. The band does get airplay on independent-minded hot adult contemporary stations around the country and has a solid Internet following.

In late 2007, Jag Star lead singer/songwriter Sarah signed a publishing deal with a Nashville company and she and J, guitarist with the group, moved to Music City.

"We found out we were expecting (a child) right after moving there," says Sarah.

She got a double whammy with morning sickness, which prompted writer's block. Sarah was working so hard to write for the new album that she was in the couple's upstairs studio room constantly.

"I was so sick I started relating it to that room and music!" says Sarah.

The couple found magic at a Nashville Mexican Restaurant.

"We would go to it if she needed inspiration," says J, chuckling. "Every time we ate at that restaurant she came home and wrote a song."

"We ate at that restaurant until we finished the album!" says Sarah.

Ironically, while the two were living in studio-laden Nashville they were traveling back to Knoxville to record what became "Static Bliss." The group wanted to continue working with Knoxville-based producer Travis Wyrick at Lakeside Studio.

The album was nearly finished when Sarah gave birth to Sophie, but she wanted one more track on the disc in honor of her daughter.

"She put a lot of pressure on herself for that one," says J.

"And then one day it finally just sort of hit me on the head," says Sarah.

The completed song, "Sophie," which features the couple's daughter making sounds in the background, began appearing on some hot adult contemporary radio stations in Iowa and Minnesota. One DJ told the group he took a call from a listener who had pull off the interstate to cry and call the station.

"It's really cool to think of Sophie cooing on the radio somewhere," says Sarah.

The Lewises returned to Knoxville in 2009, reuniting with longtime drummer Brad Williams. Bass player Drew Gilch (who appears on "Static Bliss") recently left the group and has been replaced with Brian Davis.

With the record companies losing their stranglehold on the music business, the Lewises say they are looking at the business of music differently. Already getting steady royalty checks from songs placed on TV shows and e-mails from listeners in other countries, the Lewises are considering streaming Internet "living room shows" and releasing new singles for download on a regular basis.

Right now, they are still adapting to their non-musical roles.

"We didn't know how much we'd love being Mommy and Daddy," says Sarah.

"Yeah," says J. "It is so much cooler than being in a band."

© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel
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