Some of us spend years in college trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives. Del Mar's Sven-Erik Seaholm needed only a couple of weeks.

Actually, the two weeks he spent attending Grossmont College only reinforced what he already knew. He was a musician.

"I was always walking around singing little songs, making them up in my head," Seaholm said of his East County upbringing by phone earlier this week. "I just decided when I was about 8 years old that that's what I wanted to do."

When he was 11, his parents signed him up for piano lessons. But rather than the typical approach of learning the classical masters, Seaholm's teacher taught him to play the pop songs of the early 1970s that he was hearing on the radio.

"That's all I was really interested in anyway," said Seaholm, who plays Sunday afternoon with Michael Tiernan at the Belly Up Tavern, where both North County musicians will be celebrating their latest albums. "I used to go to sleep every night with my head next to a little AM radio listening to pop music."

While many local music fans know of Seaholm as the lead singer and principal songwriter for the Wild Truth, and others know him as the producer of CDs by prominent local acts such as the late Buddy Blue, Via Satellite and Tiernan, his new album is a solo release called "Sotto Voce."

"The basic premise of this record is that all day long, I work on other people's songs, and all night long I go out and rock with the Wild Truth," Seaholm said. "My wife, Gail, said, 'It would be nice if you played some of your softer songs.'

"I'm singing dramatically quieter than I would with the Wild Truth."

But if a solo album is a departure from his last few years fronting a reconstituted Wild Truth, it's consistent with his professional history.

After dropping out of Grossmont College, Seaholm spent a few years teaching himself how to be a professional songwriter. Within a few years, he began performing around town as a solo act, accompanying his singing on keyboards or guitar.

"I played in some of the worst places -- talk about dive bars!" Seaholm said, laughing as he remembered his early days as a professional musician. "I played in one place that was actually condemned the next week."

Seaholm said the transition from solo act to band member and back to part-time solo act (the Wild Truth remains active, although Seaholm is also playing solo shows) has come about in fits and starts.

"The Wild Truth came about kind of from the ashes from my first band, E-Ticket. After E-Ticket disbanded, I moved to L.A. for a few years, '87 to '88, to really try to see what I could make happen. What I realized living in a music town like L.A. was that it was probably the most unmusical place I've ever lived. Some of my former bandmates said, 'Come on down, we'll get something going.' "

Seaholm says he took their advice, moving back to San Diego in 1988, and formed the Wild Truth with some of the other former members of E-Ticket.

"The Wild Truth went for about five years, then I did a solo record in '97."

For Seaholm, 1997 was also a watershed year in that it was when he took the plunge and began full-time work as a CD producer for other musicians -- a career that is now a decade old.

He and some of his fellow Wild Truth bandmates re-formed the band in 2004 and released "This Golden Era" last year.

His goals for the upcoming year are pretty simple: "The goal is to play my music in as many different situations as I can so I can reach as many ears as I can. Beyond that, I'd like to go more into the education side of things and help people write better songs and make better recordings."

As for being a 45-year-old playing rock 'n' roll, he says friends still ask him if he wants to be a rock star someday.

"I play music all the time and go to great shows and hang with my friends, so I'm already a rock star, I guess."

Sven-Erik Seaholm with Michael Tiernan

When: 3 p.m. April 15

Where: Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach

Admission: $8-$10

Info: (858) 481-8140

Web: svensongs.com