Justin Bieber is an insanely courageous artist': Tobias Jesso Jr on how he became the songwriter to the stars

"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."

Goon, released in 2015, established Tobias Jesso Jr. as a celebrated indie singer-songwriter with earnest, 1970s-style ballads reminiscent of Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson. The acclaim produced discomfort: Jesso struggled to feel like a genuine performer, drank heavily before shows, and felt he was playing a version of himself, prompting him to cancel future dates and withdraw from public performing. Over the next decade he focused on songwriting, co-writing hits including Adele's "When We Were Young", contributing to Dua Lipa's Radical Optimism, collaborating widely, and winning the inaugural songwriter of the year Grammy in 2023. He released Shine, an intimate eight-track, sub-30-minute piano-and-voice record intended as an uncompromised expression of himself.

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