Leith Ross
Going into lockdown, Leith Ross was just Leith Ross. A college grad back at home, passing the long quarantine days amusing themselves writing songs and posting them online for friends. But when they came out the other side, it was like emerging from a chrysalis: now they were Leith Ross, beloved singer and internet-famous creator with a whole new career that now needed to take root in the real world. Ross grew up in a small town near Ottawa, Canada. Though they lived in a very conservative town, the Ross family’s homelife was idyllic, “blissful” even, Leith says, smiling as they recall the creative, musical home their parents created for them and their two siblings. Their parents weren’t musical - Leith’s mom is a pharmacist and their dad is a teacher - but music was always playing at home, typical childhood scenes always soundtracked by Norah Jones, Corinne Bailey Rae, Disney compilations, and The Proclaimers. While at college, Leith came out as gay, and then, a couple of years later, as trans. To Learn, as with much of their music, draws on many of the intense emotions, unbreakable connections, and strange new feelings that such a time prompts. “It’s about a period of time where everything changed for me: some really hard stuff happened. And I learned how to get through it, and how to figure out where I fit into the world as an adult.” Their songs are hugely personal and take them to vulnerable places, always rendered in folk-adjacent tones, sometimes with a pop beat or a rock riff, sometimes just their voice and their guitar dancing alone. They may have planned the classic career trajectory - waiting tables, playing dives and sending out demos - but the world had other plans for Leith Ross. “I think it’s amazing that just forcing myself to be vulnerable about things that I feel can actually be materially helpful for other people,” they say, genuinely bamboozled by the whole thing. “That’s like, such a mind blowing thing, even though I know that’s true from being a consumer of music. It’s such a humbling experience to be on the other end of that interaction.” Now, they’re just being themselves, playing their songs and learning everything they can along the way.