Learning to Die and Living to Learn with Leith Ross

Interview by Astrid Kutos

Graphic by Rebekah Witt

Singer-songwriter Leith Ross was first propelled into mainstream success on TikTok with their breakout single “We’ll Never Have Sex,” followed by “Orlando,” garnering millions of streams. Their intimate, gut-punching lyricism, paired with delicate, almost ethereal vocals and indie-folk instrumentation struck a chord with many. The 24-year-old Ontario-born artist quickly rose in popularity, gaining praise from critics and fellow musicians, as well as an adoring fanbase. After being signed to Republic Records and touring in North America and the UK, they’re now preparing the release of their highly anticipated first full-length album. I recently had a chance to catch up with Leith (and their lovely cat Socks) over Zoom about their experiences while touring, their songwriting process, and deep dives into their new record, To Learn.

You’re releasing your debut album To Learn in just under two weeks, how are you feeling?

I’m feeling nervous, excited, and a bit crazy. I think I’m going to try to mostly avoid thinking about it until it’s actually happened.

What can people expect from this record?

Well, a lot of the same! I think I’m filling the quota – you know, I try to put on enough of the sad, slow, gay songs. So, it’s like that, but with a little extra something-something, basically. There’s more instruments - Motherwell was a live-of-the-floor sort of situation, so it’s a bit different sonically. We had some more time to pick and choose and build some stuff up and make it pretty cinematic.

Is there a song that you’re particularly proud or excited for people to hear?

I really am proud of the lyrics on the title track, “To Learn.” “Ask First” is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, I think. I also really like “Too Much Time in My House Alone,” the last tune.

Your lyricism has been praised by critics and fans and resonates deeply with many listeners. What does the songwriting process look like for you?

My songwriting process is very short and very intense. I usually write songs in an hour or two, and usually, the whole song comes out in that time. In most scenarios, I don’t even really edit it. It’s a very intense emotional experience; I’m feeling something, and I really have to write about it. It’s also not a situation where melody or guitar or anything comes first, and usually, everything happens all at once. It’s a big “BLAH” and then once it’s over, I just feel like it’s over. Only when I go to record it will I sometimes change the arrangement a little bit or whatever, but usually what happens is that Leith writing the song is just so zeroed in on what the song is about and what they wanna say that I don’t trust future Leith to do it justice in the same way. That’s why I usually don’t really edit them, even if sometimes it’s kind of like “Oh, this lyric could be slightly better maybe,” but what is better? Maybe that’s just what I was feeling at the time. So yeah, it’s very short and very overwhelming.

Your first EP, Motherwell, has a really unconventional backstory, being recorded live in just one afternoon. Was the writing process also different for this record, or was it mostly the recording that changed?

It was mainly the recording, [as] the writing process felt pretty similar. Although something nice is that there is a bit of a similarity to Motherwell in the way that it was recorded, in the sense that, yes, we did a ton of overdubs and just built things up slowly and naturally, but we found out very quickly that I couldn’t really play to a click or I didn’t like the songs if I did. I didn’t like how my performance felt when I was playing to a click. Something that is similar to Motherwell is that most of the tunes, especially the ones without drums and bass, it’s still just one take of me singing it with my guitar. Then we build up the rest of the song around whatever take we choose. In that way, I’m really happy that it feels similar to Motherwell. There’s little mistakes and little moments where it isn’t perfect, but I always like when that happens in songs. You can kind of hear the humanity of it. It’s like if we had more time with Motherwell after the recording session to add a shit ton of stuff.

It’s great that you managed to preserve a part of that, especially since that’s something distinctive for your music now, as well.

Yeah, totally. I think I’ll always want to do it like that, I think I get the most genuine performance when I just play and sing and finish the whole song. I can let myself be emotionally present too, which is harder to do when you’re recording a vocal in little sections.

You’ve spoken before about how writing songs has been a part of your life from a very young age. Did you always know you wanted to release these songs and eventually turn them into a full-time career?

When I was a preteen, yes. When I was around 14 and I was like “I’m gonna sing for a career,” that was kind of a dream. By the end of high school, most of the programs that I applied to were history, philosophy, general arts programs. I didn’t really apply to many music programs. I always knew I would do music in some way, but I definitely didn’t get the feeling that it had to be the only thing for me or the only pathway I could imagine. I have people who were like that, who just felt a calling to it really early, which is amazing. I don’t know - I always knew I would be writing songs forever to process stuff and would always love singing, but I didn’t have quite the same determination to make it my career. I feel really lucky that it happened and that I get to do it. I think until I went to college for music, it wasn’t really the end-all.

Are there any artists who have especially influenced your style and writing?

I mean, so many. I keep giving this answer, but I feel like the people that I’m inspired the most by as of late are my close friends that make music and people that make music that I have the privilege of getting to know personally. There’s just something so inspiring about knowing a person and knowing what the song that they wrote is about, even, if you’re privy to that information in their life. And then seeing what is made out of it – I think removing the mystery of why and how a song is written doesn’t actually make it less magical, it makes it more magical to me. You see a person and facts and events that happened to them, and maybe get to hear their feelings about it, and then this incredible piece of art is created from it. Yeah, my friends have been inspiring me the most recently. I can’t believe I get to know them and also get to listen to their music.

I’d love to dive a bit more deeply into some of the songs on the record. You released “Guts” back in March, one of your most vulnerable songs to date. A line that really stuck out to me was “Then you wrote yourself a letter to my name for all your trouble,” could you expand that line a bit?

Yeah, totally. The song is about a couple of different people, I think there’s three or four scattered in the lyrics of the verses. That first verse is about a very specific scenario that happened to me in college. When the man that did that to me got word that I was telling some people that we went to school with about what he did, he wrote me a letter that was just a lot of bullshit, not taking any accountability really, and more just listing off a bunch of buzzwords thinking that I’d be really impressed. The worst part is that he got one of his friends to send it to me, knowing that I’d open her message but not his. I think something that a lot of people can relate to is that sometimes when someone has harmed you, they will try to apologize for their own sake so they can feel better, not for your sake so you can feel better. Because if we’re being real, for me to feel better, you could just not contact me. He just really wanted to be forgiven, so he could stop feeling bad. He wrote the letter to himself; he just delivered it to me.

Your most recent single, “Music Box,” is far more abstract and fantastical in its lyrics than anything you’ve released before, with a fairytale-like quality to it. What inspired you to take this new direction with the song?

The reason why I was so hesitant to release it and didn’t release it until now is that “Music Box” is the only song I’ve ever released that is not about my own life. In general, I just don’t write songs that aren’t about my own life, I have a really hard time doing it. It really was honestly just kind of a practice in songwriting. I thought it would be fun to tell this kind of fantastical, children’s-book type story in a song and see if I could make it cinematic, maybe use some chords that I wouldn’t usually use in my folk tunes. It was a bit of an experiment. That’s why, originally, I didn’t want to release it, because it just felt so separate from the rest of the things that I’ve released because it’s not about my own personal experience. I think the song is kind of cool, and I eventually stopped taking myself so seriously – it’s a little tune about a pretend fairytale situation. Actually, recording it with my friend Liam Duncan, who engineered and produced the song with me, re-inspired me. He put such a special touch on the song. Now I think it’s a cool song, I like it. There’s not really anything too deeply attached to it for me, apart from having a good time making it with Liam. It’s probably the only song I’ve ever released that I’m not emotionally vulnerable about.

You mentioned the title track, “To Learn,” before, which encapsulates a lot of the album’s themes of going through different changes in life and growing through them. It ends on the line “I’m learning to die, but I’m living to learn.” Could you elaborate on that line a little bit?

Great question! I’m also really glad that you noticed that a lot of that song is kind of descriptive of the other songs on the record because that’s really why I picked it as the title track. I’m very proud of that lyric. I think that even beyond all the very extreme changes that I’ve experienced in the last year and a bit, that line also just kind of describes my general morals for living, even outside of music. Learning to die feels like a good descriptor – if living is all the stuff you do before you die, I’m learning about the best way to do it, so the best way to live. It’s just to learn stuff, as much stuff as you can: to learn about yourself and about other people, about how to love other people, about the world and all of its intricacies, and about how to live, which is then just a little circle that goes around and around. I think it’s a really good way to describe how I was taught to live from a very young age, which I’ve carried into my adulthood.

Another song you mentioned earlier, “Ask First,” features one of my personal favorite lines on the record: “You make up men/who break a bone to fix a heart/paint it nice and call it art.” Could you explain the background to that a little bit?

Yeah… men. That line is about a thing that many men suffer from, I believe, which is not having clear and good access to their own emotions and to emotional responsibility and accountability, and then behaving physically or emotionally violent towards themselves or others, in the name of being a “good person,” ironically. The way that it’s portrayed when those men make art is that that pain and some of that violence and those things that have happened can be so beautiful to them and still be something horrible and ugly to the people that experienced them. They get to see it as a learning opportunity and something that can have a really positive spin. The people that suffered from it, or who that pain was inflicted on, have to live with the ugly side of it forever. I was trying to narrow in on that feeling that someone who hurt me gets to feel freer than I do about a situation that I still have to live with and still have to see the truth of. He doesn’t have to anymore.

“(You) On My Arm” leans once again into a different direction as a happy love song about yearning and intense crushing on people, accompanied by a stop-motion lyric video you filmed yourself. How did you get the idea for that style of video?

Basically, this song is the most cutesy, happy song I’ve ever written. We could’ve gone down the route of having it be similar to the other lyric videos and just having it be text on a screen, but I felt like for this song it would be cute to have a little DIY touch – just me and my iPhone camera in my house, making silly little stop motion stuff I’d make as a kid. Just words, nothing fancy! I always like when I can make something very obvious that I just made it in my house with just a couple of materials, nothing too fancy. I think it fits the kind of naiveté and love-songy nature of the tune.

As an openly queer, non-binary songwriter who incorporates these themes into their songs, you’re someone a lot of people can look up to and see themselves reflected in. How do you feel about this role?

Complicated, I think. I’ve had the experience of deeply looking up to an openly trans or queer person making music and kind of feeling really hopeful about it. But then I also think sometimes that when we focus on individuals, I just always get this feeling that our time would be better spent developing areal tangible in-person community, if we can, with people we know or have a personal relationship with. I think my biggest dream would be that queer people could find each other through listening to music, more than that they would find me. A thing that a lot of queer people with somewhat of a platform can probably relate to is that it’s hard when you just feel like some guy who makes a lot of mistakes, who is still learning so much about everything, to be viewed as anything other than that, any expectation other than “He’s just some guy.” It stresses me out a little bit because it feels a little clashy with my understanding of myself and knowing that I still have so much learning left to do.

You just came off a headlining tour in the UK, soon moving on to the US and Canada – how has it been?

Really hard! Really rewarding, but very, very difficult. Touring is maybe a bit overromanticized. I’m so lucky and privileged to be able to go on tour; it’s not something that’s accessible to everyone, and playing the actual show and meeting people that listen to the music and stuff is amazing and so worth it. But basically, everything else about the touring lifestyle is extremely difficult. I find it super hard, especially just with the way that my brain works. I feel pretty deregulated and not normal when I can’t have a routine every day and wake up in my own space. I’m not super great with changing schedules and stuff like that, I’m a bit more of a homebody. I’m still learning about how to cope with the intensity of the lifestyle when you’re on the road. The shows are incredible, and there are some parts of it that are the most gratifying work that I’ve ever done. It’s complicated – some of the biggest highs and lows of my whole life.

You’ve spoken before about your Scottish heritage, specifically Glasgow – what was it like to play there?

It was amazing. There were, I think, 16 of my family members in the audience, and I got to see them before and afterward. I’ve grown up around two Glaswegians my entire life, so it just feels very homey there since everyone looks like and is similar and speaks similarly to the people that I love. It was a very special show, and I cried a lot, but everyone was very kind and understanding. It was really, really lovely.

Are there any specific goals you’re working toward, or you would like to achieve, like a collab or a particular show?

Not really. I’ve had this crazy experience where all my greatest dreams from when I was 14 years old and I was actually picturing my life as a musician – I mean, at the risk of sounding a bit strange, I’ve sort of accomplished them. I wanted to be on the radio once, and that happened. I wanted to sing to people, and just once experiencing singing one of my songs with an audience of people was strangely the thing that I hyper-fixated on when I was younger, and that happened! I’m so lucky, I feel like I’ve done all the things that I wanted to do. Now I actually have an active practice of not setting any goals and being open to anything. I don’t have a five or ten-year plan. I just want to take things as they come and not get attached to any one specific thing happening. I think for me, it doesn’t work very well and doesn’t inspire me. I can become disappointed in myself when I set a goal and I don’t reach it. So yeah, I’m trying to have the opposite of goals, I’m trying to have… vibes.

What is the core message that you’d like people to take away from this record?

Choosing to continue to try and to learn and to love, even if sometimes it ends poorly, is always a worthy choice in the end. To me, that’s kind of what that last song, “Too Much Time in My House Alone,” represents. The first half is filled with anxieties and criticisms of myself. The second half is like, “Okay, all that stuff is true, everything could go horribly wrong, things might end poorly, but I’m gonna do it anyways. I either leave and live in the world or hide in here forever until I rot.” I think choosing to do things that feel important even though they’re scary is always worth it, even when they don’t go well.

Go check out Leith Ross’ new record, To Learn, out now on all streaming platforms, and pick up tickets for their upcoming shows!

May 20 – Portland, OR – Holocene

May 22 – San Francisco, CA – Rickshaw Stop

May 23 – Los Angeles, CA – Lodge Room

May 27 – Austin, TX – The Parish

May 28 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater

May 29 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall

May 31 – Atlanta, GA – Aisle 5

June 1 – Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle

June 3 – Washington, DC – Union Stage

June 4 – Philadelphia, PA – Brooklyn Bowl 

June 6 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg

June 7 – Boston, MA – The Sinclair

June 9 – Ottawa, ON – Bronson Centre 

June 10 – Toronto, ON – The Danforth Music Hall 

June 13 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall

June 14 – Minneapolis, MN – 7th Street Entry 

June 16 – Winnipeg, MB – West End Cultural Centre 

June 17 – Winnipeg, MB – West End Cultural Centre