Spotlight: Eva B. Ross
Story By Shayan Saalabi | Photos By Hana Haley
If you go to Eva B. Ross’ artist page on Spotify and start shuffling, you’ll discover something remarkable—the faltering of an otherwise-foolproof algorithm. Fleetwood Mac gives way to Phoebe Bridgers. Kacey Musgraves to The Velvet Underground. From 2019 to 1969 and all the way back. Spotify can’t figure her out and, well, neither can I. She’s almost traceless, beyond eras, and she loves it. “I think there’s so much push and pull between the old and the new in my music because my own listening is all over the map,” Ross says as she lists what she’s been singing along to lately on the road trips to and from her home in Los Angeles.
Ross’s parents are from Chicago, where they met while performing in theater companies in the city before settling in Los Angeles to start producing reality television in the late-90s. “It was a little Midwest-meets-Hollywood,” Ross says of her childhood, “growing up in a family of performers, everyone always has something to say, and they’re always going to say it… With a lot of hand gestures, too.”
Besides its bizarrity, having parents involved in an industry as tumultuous as reality television has served as a form of comfort to Ross during these formative years as a singer-songwriter. When they say that they “get it,” they’re speaking to her not only as loving parents but as battle-tested creatives who’ve heard more nos than yeses. “They understand the hustle that’s required of a freelance artist. It’s nice to call up my mom and have her tell me, you know, you’ve got this gift and you’re just going to have to hit the pavement for the next ten years.”
More than instilling this by-any-means attitude, Ross’s parents pushed her to get an education: “They both went to college and that really helped them not only become educated people but form a community with other artists that they’ve been collaborating with throughout their lives. They constantly remind me of how long life is. They’re in their sixties, but they still create art and they still perform. So, I think it's important to understand that, as an artist, I can have longevity and that I continue to collaborate with the community of creatives that I met while at the University of California at Los Angeles.”
It was at UCLA that Ross balanced performing in Spring Sings (she won in 2017) and tightly-packed apartments on Thursday nights with studying history. “What compelled me to study history is the same thing that compels me to write songs—storytelling,” she says, “maybe that’s corny, but that’s alright. I love a good story, a narrative that I can escape into, and the more I know, the more vivid that escape becomes.” Her favorite historical escapes? The development of nations, how something structured could suddenly spring from nothing, almost overnight, like that last dreamy lyric you didn’t know you needed.
Almost two years removed from UCLA, Ross still finds herself adjusting from just being an over-eager college kid with hopes of becoming a professional musician to, well, actually becoming one. “When I was in school, I played music for the pure fun of it. I wasn’t too concerned with the scope or reception of anything I did,” she says, “when I left, I had to become more critical with myself about pushing myself to be better. I realized that there's a lot more that needs to go into really finessing a live show and making an audience feel comfortable and knowing how to command a band and writing songs that are really, really good, not just fun to play.”
This self-criticism can be more harmful than helpful, though. Too much of it and you can find yourself staring at blank pages and blinking cursors, too afraid to do anything. Ross, like any artist, has struggled with shutting out these doubts. “I’d go out in L.A. and see these songwriters my age doing exactly what I wanted to do. And there were so many times where I would go home and be like, okay, I either have to get a lot better or I have to quit.”
She didn’t quit. She scrapped for shows, playing her way through L.A. staples like Lot 1, Hotel Cafe, and the Moroccan Lounge, while also releasing her first string of singles in the process. The singles, much like Ross herself, are thoughtful and tender but always stirring with an unshakable optimism. They’re equal-parts Nashville and Los Angeles, what’s already past and what’s up around the bend—they’re the start of her own history.
Heading into the summer, Ross isn’t resting on the reputation she’s built around Los Angeles. She’s laced up her cream-colored Converse and raced up the coast for shows in San Francisco and out across the Midwest for shows in Chicago. For this latest stretch on the road, Ross couldn’t bring along her band, pushing her out on her own. “I really didn’t anticipate how difficult traveling alone is,” she says, “like, if I’m playing three shows and then I have a free day in between them, I’ve had to figure out how to exist on my own, how to be okay with downtime. With being still.”
As she returns home to L.A., Ross is readying to release a five-track EP, Playlist for the Apocalypse. The project plays up on that optimism of her earlier releases—it’s perfect for those six o’clock drives down to the ocean to catch the sunset, to maybe dip your toes in the water. “I set out to make something warm, fun and young with my friends that wasn’t trying to please anybody,” Ross says, “and I think, in the end, it sounds just like me… Thank God.”