A FEW YEARS AGO, TOBIAS JESSO Jr. was living in L.A., trying to make it as a guitarist and songwriter, when, as he recalls, “everything went to shit”. The Canadian’s visa expired, and his relationship with his live-in girlfriend started crumbling. Then, in the span of a week, Jesso was hit by a car while riding his bike, slicing open his hand, and he found out his mother had cancer.
Jesso moved back to Vancouver to live with his parents, picking up a job at a friend’s moving company. As his mum recovered, he started tinkering with his sister’s piano – an instrument he’d never played before – and wrote songs to work through his breakup. On a whim, he sent the tracks to Chet “JR” White of the now-defunct…