Q&A: Leith Ross Considers the Role of Individuality in Humanity
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY GIGI KANG ☆
Photo by Adam Kelly
“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN ASKING QUESTIONS — but I’m learning to ask better ones that get me closer to what matters,” indie-folk artist Leith Ross shares. Their new album I Can See The Future, released on Sept. 19, attempts to find answers to contemplations like who we are, what we contribute to the world, how we might make it better, and how we matter to each other.
The album makes big ideas manageable by focusing on the individual. A track that stands out is “Point of View” in which Ross sings, “Are all my love songs all about me?” It describes how the way we love others is, ultimately, rooted in ourselves. It is only through our individual actions, no matter how small, that we can make a difference.
“I feel like we are often tricked into thinking that to make the world better, to change the world, or to participate in radical actions, we need to be doing something big,” Ross explains. “Radical actions can be so small—they’re still important. It can be a part of every little thing that you do and say.”
Another notable track is “Stay” on which Ross sings, “I cannot be human alone.” The song is a beautiful exhibition of connectedness, showing how no matter what we do or where we go, all of us are linked.
The accompanying video for “Stay” is a simple capture of Ross and their friends enjoying each other’s company at home. There is no exaggeration or extravagance—it is calm and comfortable. Isn’t that what love is at its core? A safety that doesn’t need you to be anything except what you are.
I Can See The Future is full of empathy. It is unselfish as Ross offers observations on how the smallest actions can make big impacts. It is appreciative of love in all its forms. It is a radical act of love itself because it dares to be curious. Through I Can See The Future, Ross encourages listeners to consider what their own curiosity, and their unique individuality, provides to the world around them.
Read our full conversation with Ross below.
Photo by Adam Kelly
LUNA: The opening track is “Grieving” and the very first lyric on the album is “I never will stop grieving.” It sets the stage already that this feeling of endings won’t exactly be resolved as a result of this album. Why was starting with “Grieving” the right choice for you?
ROSS: The reason I wrote “Grieving” was to carry the promise forward in my life to not take things for granted, to live in the moment, and to try to understand myself and people that I love because I only have so much time to do so. I was hoping, for people listening to the record in order, that it would give them an avenue to feel all the things they were going to feel for the rest of the record with an awareness that the things they’re feeling are temporary in some way, and to appreciate them to their full extent by having that reminder.
LUNA: That was reinforced by the “Grieving” music video which brings a lot of joy to the emotion. We don’t always grieve death. Sometimes we’re grieving the inevitable end of our beloved relationships and routines. That almost hurts more than death because they make it all worth it.
ROSS: Totally. I feel like that’s maybe the lesser picked-up concept in that song. It’s so easy to apply it to losing a person and to death, and that’s definitely one of the reasons I wrote it. I was thinking about grieving my grandfather. But also, the first couple of lines—“I never will stop grieving / Who we are when we are young”—those are parts of my personality and things that have left me. Like you said, not through death, but through circumstance, the experience of getting older, and life changing around you. There are many things we lose before we even understand that we’re losing them.
LUNA: Another big theme on the album is thinking about the world after us and the people of the future. I was thinking about how people who once felt what we feel now have come and gone, but they left their mark. As a musician, you’re able to leave your mark through your music. Does that bring you any comfort or relief? Do you think about your legacy in that way?
ROSS: I’m not positive that I have thought about it in the way I’m thinking about it right now, until you asked that question. I wrote the song “(I Can See) The Future” while picturing a person hundreds of years in the future when the world we’re fighting for has become a reality. I picture them living their life and I have become very attached to this hypothetical person. But I haven’t ever really pictured any people listening to my music after I’m dead, which is crazy and I guess will happen. That brings me a lot of awe.
I think so much about the fact that you learn about times in history and it feels like the people in history couldn’t possibly be the exact same person that you are because they lived a long time ago and their lives had such different circumstances. At some point, you realize that they all experienced the same feelings. It just blows your mind. I would love it if my humanity can be related to somebody else’s humanity even if I’m not around to explain it. That does make me feel good.
LUNA: You’ve described the album as the result of a lot of questioning. You said, “Maybe, to a certain extent, the asking of the question is the answer to it.” Following the recording of this album, what do you notice about the ways you approach questioning now?
ROSS: I’m always continuing to hone the skill of questioning my life, myself, and the things around me. I feel like a big part of it is growing up. It’s that classic experience of the more you learn, the less you realize you know. I feel like I’m always experiencing that, where I’ve learned something new, and for a second, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit more of a grasp on the world—and then the new thing I learned unveils like 25 additional new things that I have yet to learn.
Maybe it’s less about the record and more about having spent more of my adulthood, especially now with my prefrontal cortex after a few years ago (laughs). Just sort of evolving in the way that I am able to process the world. I’ve always been asking questions, but I’m learning to ask better ones that get me closer to what matters. Every time I ask a new question, I feel like it’s a bit less of a shot in the dark, and maybe I’m figuring out where to aim.
Photo by Shay Loewen
LUNA: I think asking questions is underrated. When we deliberate them in our own minds, we can drive ourselves mad if we allow the spiral. But I think curiosity is the first step towards growth. To me, if somebody has the willingness to ask questions, then empathy is inevitable.
ROSS: I hope other people feel the same way. I want it, more than anything, to encourage people to ask the same questions that I did when I was writing the album because, like you said, it can only help us, it can’t hinder us.
LUNA: Throughout the album, there is a consideration of others and how individuality plays into humanity as a whole. You say, “My water is your water.” What effect has the writing of this album had on how you view the relationship we all have between the self and the greater world?
ROSS: I think it has made it clearer to me, or uncovered some layers that I wasn’t consciously aware of before. Like everyone, I’ve always craved having a big community and feeling like I’m a part of something that’s more than myself. Obviously, in moments of clarity, I can feel that about just being a human being. I become hyperaware of the fact that there are so many people living in the world and that I am a part of it—that’s beautiful. But to feel it in your everyday life, you need more direct access to it. I guess I realized what that has to mean in my life.
I was thinking about it so much and wanting to experience it and to be able to be it for other people—to have the opportunity to be a really good community member. The lyric “My water is your water” is this understanding that we win or we lose together. There can be no eternal divide. Humanity is never winning if only a portion of us are. I was always complaining and felt like it was something I was lacking in my life.
Writing this record helped me understand that I should do something about it. It’s one thing to sit in your house and be like, “I wish I was part of a meaningful community.” It’s another thing to be like, “Well, I’m going to have to take a risk, put myself out there, and create this community for myself.” Unfortunately, in the society we live in, it doesn’t come naturally. The world has divided us. We don’t have structures that bring us together in that way. I suppose it was discovering how to be a part of it.
Photo by Adam Kelly
LUNA: Would you say you found that in your music community?
ROSS: I love my music community so much, but that is maybe one of the things that’s easier to find. It naturally happened since I started being a musician professionally. But it’s more like adding elements to that community, and then seeking other community outside of it. You have this music community, it’s quite supportive, and people have really great bonds. But sometimes it stops short of being that radical community I’m talking about on the record. We are really good friends, but we’re not bringing each other dinner. We’re not gathering as a group necessarily if someone’s going through a hard time. It’s not because we’re not all wonderful friends, but it’s not really built into the structure of our world.
It has been a challenge of trying to insert those more radical policies into the friend groups that I already have, then venturing outside of it to neighbors, people I don’t know, people I’ll never see again, and expanding it to people who aren’t necessarily my friends. I’m trying to be a good neighbor to them, even if we will only know each other for a moment.
LUNA: It might seem “smaller scale” but it’s actually the waves that are necessary to carry the whole ocean. The music community might seem “bigger scale” and it’s through which you’re able to inspire other people to incorporate those smaller actions in their lives.
ROSS: I feel like we are often tricked into thinking that to make the world better, to change the world, or to participate in radical actions, we need to be doing something big. Radical actions can be so small—they’re still important. It can be a part of every little thing that you do and say. I used to feel like I had to do something bigger. Now, I have this moment before even just a regular sentence to a friend where I’m reaffirming my beliefs, my belief system, and the way that I want to be in the world through every word that I say. It has been the most comforting thing in the world. It primes me for a moment where I could do a big action, to feel confident in it, and to know where I stand, and know what my place in all of this is.
LUNA: Since this album is so much about questioning, what is one question you would pose to your listeners to consider while they listen to this album?
ROSS: What place do I want to take up in this world and what does that mean? I think about “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver that says, “Your place in the family of things.” That wording has always stuck with me. That’s what I would want people to think about. We all want to be a part of the family of things. What is the part that you want to contribute? And then letting that mean something wonderful about you, letting it inspire a feeling of deep grace for yourself and for what you’ve been. Also, hope for what you can be and what the world can be. It’s this questioning of what place you want to take up in the world and what that means about you.
