Breakout country singer Josh Ross has successfully found his way from Burlington, ON, to Nashville, TN, where his budding career continues to take shape.
But his progression from the quaint Canadian city to the epicentre of the country music industry has been far from linear.
Ahead of a sold out show at Toronto’s HISTORY venue, Ross joined Now Toronto to discuss the trajectory of his music career and the release of his EP Complicated, which drops today.
Ross, like many artists, recalls his early exposure to music. At home he would often overhear his parents belt the lyrics to Guns N’ Roses and Bruce Springsteen songs while he ran around perfecting his air guitar, a playful habit that soon morphed into a palpable desire to pen lyrics.
“I knew I was a songwriter before I was an artist,” Ross revealed. For him, building a sense of musical direction came second to simply putting pen to paper.
But it wasn’t until Ross sustained a football injury while studying at Western University that his focus locked on music.
Moving away from sport afforded Ross new found time to reflect, so he traded cleats for a notebook in search of his sound. Nonetheless, the lessons he learned about self-determination and collaboration while playing football are not lost on him.
“In the industry of music there’s a large team and a lot of people involved, and those skills I learned [in sport] got to carry over,” he said.
“It was a blessing in disguise, at the time I didn’t fully understand what was going on or what I was going to do, but it all panned out,” he said with a smile.
Today, having found his groove, literally and lyrically, Ross remains sonically inspired by childhood favourites Steve Earle and Alan Jackson, and also pulls from his love of 90s rock, a genre he was raised on.
Ross independently released his debut single “First Taste Of Gone,” in 2022. The track garnered significant traction throughout North America and soon landed him on Spotify’s top country playlists like Hot Country, New Boots, Next From Nashville, and Breakout Country.
His recent release, “Ain’t Doin’ Jack” has nearly 24 million streams on Spotify to date, and his song “Trouble” reached number one at Canadian Country Radio with over 112 million global streams and went certified platinum. Ross is also set to open for Luke Bryan on his “Mind of a Country Boy” tour this summer.
His new EP Complicated, features four pre-released songs and four new singles encapsulating the last few years of Ross’ life and is peppered with personal anecdotes.
“I wanted to build a body of work that I thought showcased a bunch of different things dynamically and sonically, and also lyrically,” Ross said.
Complicated promises a curated compilation of traditional sounding country and songs that are more up tempo.
“There’s not necessarily one sort of thing I’m going to do,” Ross said, “for me it’s just whatever feels right,” he concluded.
