Sideshow Podcast: Tobias Jesso Jr. vs. the World

In 2012, a mostly-unknown musician in Los Angeles named Tobias Jesso Jr. got dumped. Shortly after, he was hit by a car while riding his bike. He survived, the bike didn’t. The next day, while contemplating life’s cruel ways, he found out his mom had been diagnosed with cancer. He put his instruments in a storage unit and bought a plane ticket home to Vancouver to be with her. While there, he started writing songs at the piano. Practically the minute he put them out into the world, they got praised by the big music blogs, Adele, and Jimmy Fallon:

Tobias Jesso Jr.‘s story is made even more unlikely when you factor in that he was a musical novice.  “My sister had a piano at my parents’ house,” he says. “When I got the impulse to write a song, I just sat at the piano and note-by-note figured it out.” This was a man who had never played more than “Chopsticks.” Nevertheless, the songwriter immediately felt comfortable on piano. “It was a lot easier, because it was sort of a more linear type of understanding,” he says. “Bottom to top. Guitar never made much sense.”

His first attempt proved he was a natural: 

After getting positive feedback from friends, Tobias sent “Just A Dream” and a few other rough demos to Chris “JR” White of the now-defunct San Francisco indie rock band Girls. White immediately offered to work on an album. In the interim, the demos circulated online, drawing comparisons to John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and a host of other 70s singer-songwriters Tobias never really listened to — he’s more of an Adele fan, which made that tweet all the sweeter. 

Tobias and White finished the album last year. Goon is out this month, and Tobias is touring Canada and the US to support it. It’s a victory lap he’s looking forward to, but there’s a chance his crippling performance anxiety will get in the way. “My singing voice goes away when I get nervous,” he says. “And I get nervous before I sing.”