{"id":12841,"date":"2025-01-03T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=12841"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T00:38:26","slug":"interview-with-leith-ross-at-the-winnipeg-folk-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2025\/01\/03\/interview-with-leith-ross-at-the-winnipeg-folk-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Leith Ross at the Winnipeg Folk Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"photo<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interview by Bradi Breckman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, July 14, I had the pleasure of interviewing local singer\/songwriter Leith Ross at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Ross had been busy all weekend with performances and workshops at the festival, and I was glad to finally find a moment to pick the indie-folk singer\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Bradi Breckman (BB): Since we\u2019re at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this weekend, it seems relevant to mention that you are a local artist. However, you were originally from Ontario, correct?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leith Ross (LR): Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: What made you decide to move to Winnipeg? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: I was lucky enough to get the help of Birthday Cake, which is a Winnipeg label\/company, to release my first EP. They brought me out to play the Harvest Moon Festival, and I fell in love with the city. It is also way more affordable, to be honest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: What do you think is unique about Winnipeg\u2019s music scene, or more specifically, our Folk music scene? What makes us different from other places that you\u2019ve been?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: My favourite part about the music scene here is that there isn\u2019t as much of a sense of overwhelming industry. The other place where I worked as a professional musician was Toronto. I do love Toronto, but there was a lot of big industry there. There felt like there was a lot of pressure to be getting the interest of people high up in the industry or getting people from labels to come to the shows. Whereas in Winnipeg, probably because it\u2019s in the middle of nowhere (in a good way), there\u2019s less of that feeling. I know a lot of people in Winnipeg that do music because they love it, and that\u2019s my favourite way that music is made, for the sake of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: How has your experience been performing at the Winnipeg Folk Festival this year? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: It\u2019s been good! I love Folk Fest; it has such a welcoming atmosphere. I\u2019ve made a lot of new friends and heard a lot of great sets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Great to hear. Going into more about you as an artist, how does it feel to be a young, queer artist in the industry, and how do you think your identity feeds into your music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Well, being queer for me is more than just an identity. I think of it as a politic and a way of life. And so, I would like to think that that is a part of everything I do, inherently. I never try to make anything queer on purpose, my dream is that I will make queer things because I am queer, and that is how I navigate the world. Being a young queer artist in the industry, it is important to find a community and create a space for it to thrive because it won\u2019t always be given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Talking more about your music and writing, what generally inspires you? Where do your songs come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Mostly my own life. I am a very journalistic writer, so I write about things that happen to me, at least for the most part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Are any of your songs particularly close to your heart? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Yeah, some are more tender than others. Some are written about more difficult or confusing personal experiences, and those ones always feel a bit sore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: One specific song of yours, \u201cWe\u2019ll Never Have Sex,\u201d blew up on TikTok in 2021. What effect do you think social media has had on your career? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: It basically gave me my career, for which I\u2019m very grateful. Social media is always an interesting and confusing concept for me. I’m grateful to it, and I think that it has made the music industry more democratic. But it\u2019s hard because I think that social media is bad for my mental health and for everyone\u2019s mental health, so I have a tumultuous relationship with it. But I am very grateful, and I definitely owe my career to the people on social media who resonate with my stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Was \u201cWe\u2019ll Never Have Sex\u201d going viral the moment you felt as though you\u2019d really made it as an artist, or was there another specific moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: I would say that that moment for me was very early on, before anything blew up on social media, when a stranger messaged me on the internet and told me that one of the songs I\u2019d released resonated with them and helped them get through the loss of their grandfather, about the song \u201cTommy.\u201d That was the moment because when I was growing up, that\u2019s what music did for me, and I found it miraculous that I could do that for somebody else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: That\u2019s wonderful. I want to ask you about something you said in an interview with Dazed Club. You are quoted saying that \u201cfolk is an inherently political genre\u201d and that \u201cyou want to make indie music political again.\u201d Do any of your songs have a particularly strong political message or any messages that you feel are important right now? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Good question! I feel like I\u2019m currently learning how to do that through lyrics in recorded songs in a way that feels genuine and good and not unhelpful, which is really hard to do. I\u2019m getting there, even though it is a steep learning curve. But also, more than that, I want it to be in the music, I want it to be part of the culture of folk. I think that is what we have lost a bit of. There is no longer a sense that the general folk and indie community is inherently political. You can kind of participate without believing in things like human rights. I think that it is to our detriment that we lack that sense of solidarity and sense of understanding of the world that we live in and how music interacts with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Interesting, thank you. You talk a lot about community and politics within the music world. Do you believe that music can bring people together? Specifically, folk music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Yes, definitely! Even historically, all you have to look at is the way that folk music has been integral to so many revolutions and so much building of important communities. It has also been so helpful in many communities in getting through oppression and horridness. It is linked in a way that can\u2019t be undone: music, life, community, and politics. They will always be intertwined. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Well said. You have two albums out now, <\/strong>Motherwell<\/em><\/strong> and <\/strong>To Learn<\/em><\/strong>, how did your sound change between your albums, and how have you evolved as a musician in the last few years? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: I\u2019m not fully sure. The sound mostly changed because the first record was live off the floor, and for the second record, I had my first opportunity with Joey Landreth, a local musician, to shape it more purposefully and add more production and arrangement. It was more of an evolution of the resources I had at hand rather than the writing because a lot of the songs were written in the same couple of years. But also, it\u2019s hard to tell because I can\u2019t see myself from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Can we be expecting a third album anytime soon?<\/strong>
<\/strong>LR: Absolutely, I\u2019m recording it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Can we get any hints about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Hmmm, I don\u2019t know! It\u2019s a little bit of a different sound, which isn\u2019t that my sound is changing because I\u2019ve always wanted to record music that sounds like my next record; I just didn\u2019t have the resources. It\u2019s a bit different, but I think that its core is the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BB: Finally, last question: do you have any words for aspiring artists or people wanting to follow in your footsteps as indie musicians? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LR: Much of the same. Find your people, invest in that community, and it will invest in you in return. And make sure that it is good and doing good in the world, not harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s clear that we can expect more from Leith Ross soon, and I for one am very excited to see what their future career holds. Hopefully they will return to the Folk Fest stage next summer, and grace us with their sweet sounds again. Until then, their EPs will have to do! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview by Bradi Breckman On Sunday, July 14, I had the pleasure of interviewing local singer\/songwriter Leith Ross at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Ross had been busy all weekend with performances and workshops at the festival, and I was glad to finally find a moment to pick the indie-folk singer\u2019s brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1739],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12841","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=12841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12842,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12841\/revisions\/12842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}