Sitting Down With Jerusha, Toronto-Based Singer-Songwriter
There might not be anything more ambitious than dedicating your life to your passion, which Toronto-based singer, songwriter, Jerusha has done. Her debut single “Real Lies” signifies the start of her musical career. I got the opportunity to sit down with her, sipping tea in her living room, where she tells me she wrote her debut single, “Real Lies”, following an intense heartbreak. As we're sitting I notice that music is all around us, from her piano positioned against the wall to various mics scattered around her desk, it’s not hard to see the impact it has on her life.
“I grew up in Brampton, Ontario and moved to Toronto about two years ago to go to the University of Toronto”, she tells me, as we get comfortable. “I wanted to be a lawyer, I was studying political science and philosophy and had my heart set on being a lawyer, but to be honest, music has always been my main passion, since I could speak”.
We talk about how she got discouraged from music in her teen years, “school bombards you with the question of what do you want to do when you’re older, and you have to start to think about university and degrees. I think my environment pushed me towards school, but I was just not satisfied the whole time, I was not happy. But then Covid hit, and I think it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It forced me to spend time by myself and figure out what I like to do, and it really brought me back to music. I was writing more, doing more covers, and posting them on Instagram. Through doing that, posting little clips and stuff, I had some producers reaching out asking why I don’t show more of my music and I just kept saying it was just a hobby.”
Looking around her place you can tell it’s more than just a hobby, it was evident she lived and breathed music. Her debut single ‘Real Lies’ dropped on February 22, she tells me she wrote it at home on her piano.
“It’s about this relationship I was in a while ago, I wrote it about a year after our relationship ended. [Real Lies] was inspired by that story. I was just sad and pouring my heart out on the keyboard, and the whole song is just sorta like why did you have to lie to me? Just be honest, you know? So I poured my heart out and then went to the studio for a regular session with my producers and engineer. We were working on a different song and I asked if they would ever be interested in maybe making a beat for a song I already had.”
“My songs are my babies. I don’t really show people cause I get a little insecure. So I usually write songs from scratch in the studio. There was a piano there and so I played it. After I finished I looked over to see if they liked it and you know their jaws were just like … what the hell was that? That’s fire. That was the moment I realized, like woah, people actually like what I do. I knew people thought I was good at stuff but that day they were just like Jersuha, do you know what you’re capable of? You need to start believing in yourself.”
It’s hard to imagine that there was a version of her that was ever insecure about the music she was making. The girl I was sitting across from radiated confidence, seemed to be someone who always knew what she wanted and went after it. There was a sense of humility to her that hadn’t gone unnoticed by me, a genuine air about her that was hard to find in an oversaturated industry of people just hungry for fame.
From a young age she had always been involved in music, singing competitions, anywhere she could showcase her talent. Her and her brother were apart of a band, and he actually did the guitar solo at the end of “Real Lies”. “It just had so much meaning, and I knew I had to realize it.”
Releasing a debut single is always a whirlwind, but Jerusha knew it was time. “If I don’t showcase it, no one is going to see it. I’m just going to have all these great songs sitting in the vault for how many years?”
She had been preparing for the February release from November, working on visuals, the music video, and making sure everything went smoothly. It’s hard to manage one’s entire brand on your lonesome but Jerusha shared that by “putting [her] stuff out there putting myself out there, has attracted people who want to work with me” and that she is “building a team and it’s easier to get bigger things done when you have a team behind you, a support system.”
Not only did Jerusha release her debut single, but she worked hard on an accompanying music video, directed by Dragan Andic. “The song was about living this fake life and breaking free of it, and stepping into your light. How this guy was lying to me, but also how I was lying to myself by being with this guy. It about having these realizations and when you do, stepping into them and living in truth, not lies. So her [Jerusha’s friend] idea was why don’t you be in an art gallery. I was like, oh my goodness, what about you know, I’m in a box, and then I break out. Cause it’s literally about being trapped.”
The filming took place over a few days, and the process was long. Dragan’s father ended up helping to make the box that she breaks free from, and of course the Canadian weather got in the way of shooting some of their forest scenes. We laughed about how on all of the filming days she woke up sick but had to push through. “The box was already built and set up at the studio. I had to go, I had to do it but felt like shit. We had to do a bunch of performance shots, and the song is about feeling like shit so it worked out because I didn’t need to act, I was already in a bad mood”.
Her debut song is about owning her story, about honesty in her journey. “I’m not going to hide the fact that you did tear me down, like you did do those things. It’s not something to be ashamed of, it happens to all of us.” I asked about where she sees her music going in the future, if heartbreak will be a major theme moving forward.
“Overall, the main theme I want to talk about is spreading love, and to not treat people like that. Talking about how I want to be loved and how I wanted to be treated, how I wish people did treat me in those situations.” I ask about if that’s a tease for what her future EP will be about. We laughed about how she hadn’t really thought about it yet, but she does say that “if it has to be about anything, it would probably be about how I have my independence through heartbreak. I’ve found my grounding, and these stories [her songs] have actually helped me become who I am and I’m ready to take on the world from this perceptive.”
“I’ve built a foundation of loving myself that I now wouldn’t accept a single red flag from anybody — that guy gave me every red flag, you name it, you got it. It’s those terrible moments that brought me to my lowest point and I think have shaped me and it’s symbolic to start off my career with that. This is where I’ve started, and I needed to get the negativity off my chest first.”
I ask about her new single out, “Bravo”. She tells me, “Bravo is a song about the difficult emotions involved in the journey to discovering self-love. For me, I found it through heartbreak, and this song demonstrates how the process of learning to love yourself isn’t always an easy path. Sometimes you have to go through a really toxic situation in order to learn your own self-worth and it’s definitely not an easy thing to go through. I had a lot of pent up anger surrounding the idea of love from things I’ve gone through in life, and this song was a raw expression of me letting out all of those feelings. On to better things!”
Hearing how passionately she talks about her music and her story, I know that this is someone we will all be seeing a lot of in the future. “I don’t think we’re on earth to be miserable: I think we’re here to enjoy and have fun and create and be happy. We have to maximize those happy days and happy moments as much as possible. If something’s not bringing you happiness, it’s got to get cut because life’s too short to not be happy”.
Jerusha’s new single “Bravo” is out on all available streaming platforms. Follow along with her journey on Instagram, TikTok and Youtube.