{"id":11846,"date":"2020-08-06T10:25:33","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T15:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=11846"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:23:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:23:35","slug":"video-premiere-leith-ross-everyone-ive-never-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2020\/08\/06\/video-premiere-leith-ross-everyone-ive-never-met\/","title":{"rendered":"Artist Interview :: Leith Ross"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

by Graeme Houssin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all other emotions, Leith Ross is feeling curious. Tomorrow, they\u2019ll release their first-ever single \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met\u201d on Winnipeg-based label Birthday Cake ahead of their debut album in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m so excited to see how it hits people\u2019s brains!\u201d Leith says over the phone from their hometown of Manotick, Ontario. \u201cI\u2019m really, really fascinated in what parts are going to hit home, or if they\u2019re going to feel similar things to me, or if it\u2019s going to spark something completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Manotick, a conservative town near Ottawa with a 4,500-or-so population, Leith often felt at odds with themself. Without much in the way of IRL queer role models and a lack of 2SLGBTQ+ representation in the media, Leith found it difficult to understand and express their own identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so taboo that I didn\u2019t really know what was happening, and I didn\u2019t know what it meant, and I didn\u2019t have any words or language for it,\u201d said Leith. \u201cI was very much in this little world and didn\u2019t have any access to anything outside of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in the middle of one of Leith\u2019s \u201cgood YouTube browses in the early days,\u201d the algorithm gifted them a music video starring two women in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was this huge moment for me where I was like, this can be beautiful and happy and gentle and normal,\u201d Leith says. \u201cEver since then, I\u2019ve wanted to be that for another person. I\u2019ve wanted to be the sound that can accompany someone through a huge moment in their life, because it was so helpful for me when I was young.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they\u2019re off to a good start: \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met\u201d is suspiciously resonant during COVID-19. On the track, they lament the little interactions with strangers they\u2019ve missed out on by staying home all day on a screen, ordering books online, shipping groceries to their front door, the works \u2013 an anthem for self-isolated loneliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met,\u201d and the whole of Motherwell<\/em>, was written nearly a year ago, and recorded back in December of 2019 as a project for college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recording an EP was Leith\u2019s final project for their Jazz Voice degree at Toronto\u2019s Humber College. After a fruitful rehearsal with their bandmates just two weeks before the final recording session (during which they were set to record only three tracks), Leith changed plans last minute and elected to record the entire eight-track record live-off-the-floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four hours later, Motherwell<\/em> was complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d even turned in a little assignment thing, detailing the plan for the session, and I had to change it last minute!\u201d Leith recalls. \u201cIt was very spontaneous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Post-recording, they sent the album to a new friend: Joey Landreth, half of JUNO Award-winning outfit The Bros. Landreth, co-owner of Birthday Cake, and \u201cangel on Earth,\u201d as described by Leith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Joey called over FaceTime, offering to sign Leith and release Motherwell<\/em> through the label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As soon as Leith started singing I was moved to tears,\u201d Joey said in Leith\u2019s biography, provided by Birthday Cake. “There is an incredible honesty in their singing and writing that I find so refreshing. To listen to Leith\u2019s music is like being a fly on the wall in their head and heart. You get a vivid picture of who they are and what they\u2019re about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album, Leith says, is a narrative, tracking a \u201cvery, very hard time\u201d in Leith\u2019s life. The songs appear on the record in chronological order, as they were written; \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met\u201d is the opening track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of this story of a bit of a deterioration, and then rediscovering what it is about all this that I want to stick around for,\u201d Leith says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, Leith hopes listeners are left feeling a little less lonely with \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met,\u201d and Motherwell<\/em> at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have had this little analogy in my brain since I was little,\u201d Leith says. \u201cWhenever I listen to a song and I\u2019m going through something, and the song is talking about what I\u2019m going through or something similar, I always feel like I have this little blue line going from my chest, to whoever wrote it, to everyone else who\u2019s also experiencing that thing. It makes me feel very not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat would be the ideal emotion \u2013 making someone feel like they\u2019re understood by someone they don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met\u201d is available for pre-save on all major streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, TIDAL and Deezer. Motherwell is set to release on October 16<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/NL6XxYFWnwU\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Graeme Houssin Above all other emotions, Leith Ross is feeling curious. Tomorrow, they\u2019ll release their first-ever single \u201cEveryone I\u2019ve Never Met\u201d on Winnipeg-based label Birthday Cake ahead of their debut album in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1739],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11846"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11851,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11846\/revisions\/11851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}