Goon, the 2015 debut album by Canada-born LA musician Tobias Jesso Jr, was one of the revelations of the 2010s. An album of heartfelt, earnest ballads in the vein of 70s singer-songwriters such as Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, it instantly established Jesso as a rising indie star and was one of the year’s most acclaimed records. The problem was that Jesso didn’t care much for the attention: he struggled to feel like a genuine performer, leading him to drink heavily before shows, and felt he was playing a version of himself in interviews. “I was forced to do all these things I wasn’t really confident in,” he says. “I was just like … I don’t know what I’m doing, anywhere.” So, toward the end of his breakout year, he cancelled all future shows and, in essence, put his career on ice.
In the decade that followed, he kept himself behind the scenes, in the process becoming one of the world’s most successful and in-demand pop songwriters – thanks, in no small part, to his focus on simple, emotions-first songwriting. He co-wrote Adele’s hit When We Were Young and a handful of tracks on Dua Lipa’s 2024 album Radical Optimism; has collaborated with Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, FKA twigs and Haim; and in 2023 won the first ever Grammy for songwriter of the year.
