Spotlight: Leith Ross is Happily Here, Proudly Queer, and Playing in Your Ears

Q&AMusic

Jul 12

☆ BY Sophie Severs ☆

ONCE IN A WHILE, A MUSICIAN EMERGES OUT OF THE BLUE — giving a voice to those who have never been able find art they could truly resonate with. Today, the artist in question is one Leith Ross, Gen Z’s newly appointed poet laureate. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s discography is starkly candid, vulnerable, and deeply introspective, skillfully articulating the feelings others were never quite able to succinctly voice for themselves.

Many have come across Ross’ work via their TikTok page, where they have been uploading clips of their songs since early 2021. Or someone might know them from the fervor that echoed across the internet from the long-awaited release of their song “We’ll Never Have Sex.” In many of their videos, Ross coyly peeks over the body of their guitar, nonchalantly baring the essence of their soul’s deepest longings through their music.

Marked by tender finger-picking and the warmth of their vocals, Ross’ discography offers listeners a safe haven to feel the full extent of their emotions without facing outside judgment. Ross expertly dabbles in the melancholy that comes with everyday life, making even the most humdrum moments of the day — like briefly seeing a stranger on the street — seem like a beautiful novelty.

But before Ross was bringing many a tear to their listeners’ eyes, they were a 12-year-old at home, writing songs about butterflies, rainbows and the ever-so-mundane task of doing homework.

From a young age, Ross was told they were destined for the stage. Countless home recordings of the musician singing and dancing as a young child are evidence of their early inclination toward the spotlight. As fate would have it, they followed their passion to Humber College in Toronto, pursuing a degree in jazz voice.

“In college, I ended up recording eight of my songs for my final project,” they recall. “That ended up being Motherwell, the record. That was the point where the songs went from being just me in my bedroom to the more tangible thing that was going to go out into the world.”

As a master wordsmith, Ross’ songs specialize in nuance, leaving ample room for the abstract within their lyricism. Interpretation runs wild — listeners are free to take whatever meaning they wish from it. Music is not a cut-and-dry thing; the feelings we derive from listening cannot be simplified into a formula and quantified — that only serves to hammer the love and authenticity out of it.

“Anytime you try to institutionalize art or put it into a more classical educational learning program, it starts to quantify things that shouldn't be quantifiable,” Ross notes. “When you're out in the world listening to music and something affects you or touches you, there isn't language for why or how. It doesn't always feel good to analyze exactly why you felt it or how you felt it, but then you get into school and they're putting words and marks to it. You're up there baring your soul and they're like, ‘7 out of 10.'”

The same type of over-calculated approach occurs on TikTok as well. The platform is a double-edged sword. “There’s a very strange dynamic between everybody who is on the platform,” Ross explains. “It can be very parasocial — in a bad way — where nobody is treating anybody else like they're a human being behind their online presence.”

Granted, use of the platform has resulted in various positive outcomes for many musicians, including Ross themselves. “It's beautiful that there's an opportunity for people who wouldn't necessarily be handed those resources to get a little bit of a platform to get their music out there,” they say.

Through their work and the work of many who firmly stand with them, Ross is striving to make the industry increasingly accessible. Ross’ songs shed light on the authentic queer experience, helping those within the LGBTQIA+ community piece through their own emotions and those outside of it to understand how limitless the beauty of queerness is.

Their long-awaited single, “We’ll Never Have Sex,” released March 25, sheds light on a type of love that many people never knew existed until they first heard the track. Users flooded the comment section of the initial TikTok that premiered the song, gushing about how the track had made them feel truly understood and heard. The song is infused with various queries that Ross has pondered: asexuality, their experience as a trans, non-binary human, body dysphoria, and the way sexual trauma affects the way they view sex and relationships.

“I was sitting in my backyard thinking about my relationship with sex and all the things that affect and make me wary of it,” Ross shares. “I started writing about my dream scenario for being romantically involved with somebody at this point in my life. The concept of it is whether or not we will eventually have sex, we're going to act like we won't, and that has to be okay with you forever. I'm not saying it's a hard no, but you've got to act like we'll never have sex.”

Writing songs like “We’ll Never Have Sex” has always been a helpful life-processing tactic for Ross. Reveling in introspection, their songs largely pull from their own experiences; they laugh as they exclaim, “It’s almost as if my brain — without me being conscious of it — was trash compacting all the things that are happening to me. And one day I sit down, and it comes out of my mouth.”

Despite all the challenges and however rough life may get, Ross is unafraid to own each magnificent part of their identity. Though, for queer, trans humans such as Ross, finding ways to enter the music industry have not always been easy. Gatekeepers have been insistent on keeping those who do not fit in within the industry’s cookie cutter standards out of the limelight.

Ross came out as gay during their first year of college. “It was definitely much harder to come out as trans a couple years later,” they explain. “That one specifically has been a constant, difficult journey of realizing that I'm going to have to come out a million times a month for the rest of my life, especially entering music spaces. It's a bit exhausting, but you have to do it. I have to be true to myself and correct people when I can.”

Luckily, Ross has a supportive community of artists around them to stick by their side through the ups and downs of life. Their relationships with friends such as Rae Chen, Kai Warrior, Fontine, and countless others have been “life changing — even outside of music,” they assert. “The thing that really makes me feel like I'm doing what I should do in life and living a fulfilling life is having a community, a chosen family, and taking care of them — making it strong, building it better, and learning how to love people best. All of that stuff.”

Ross continues, explaining that life is a million times more fruitful because of the connections they have made. “It is the stuff of life to be able to take care of people and love each other,” they say. “For that to be intersecting with music, and to be able to access those communities anytime that I do something music related, is the marriage of those two very important things in my life: having and holding a community, and music. I definitely will never go back.”

Ross will never tire of connecting with people and creating sacred spaces through music. Those who are itching to get a little more Leith Ross into their lives will not have to wait long, as Ross has an album in the works and plenty of other surprises in store. But until then, you can catch the musician gigging in Canada and the U.S. this summer and fall, and you can experience the depth of Ross’ artistry by streaming them anywhere you get your music.

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We couldn’t be more stoked to have Suriel Hess as our new headliner for our upcoming LA show 🤩 🫶 Not gonna lie, us & Notorious Noise kinda went OFF with this line up & you’re not gonna wanna miss it - ticket link in bio 🎫