Windser on His Self-Titled Debut Album and Discovering His Place
Avenue Songs
Could 16, 2025
Internet Unique
Pictures by Lucas Creighton
Jordan Topf’s path to a solo profession (he performs as Windser) travelled some well-worn trails, however with a decidedly unconventional twist. Raised in Santa Cruz, California, the music surrounding him at a younger age was pretty typical. “My mother was into people music, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and my dad was into the early rock stuff like The Rolling Stones,” Topf shares through Zoom from his Los Angeles studio. “That was influential to me early on, however after I acquired to highschool I began to develop my very own tastes. Bands like The Velvet Underground and The Remedy had a big impact on me and [hearing them] was simply so earth-shattering.”
Topf began enjoying guitar and taking classes when he was seven. His dad would usually play a VHS tape of Woodstock. Seeing Jimi Hendrix play actually impressed Topf to the purpose he was enjoying in his room as much as six hours a day. “I auditioned for jazz band in highschool and ended up being a jazz band reject. The selection didn’t up being who was the very best guitar participant, however was extra political. The man’s mother was a donor to the college or one thing. So I used to be like, ‘Screw this, I’m simply going to begin my very own band,’” Topf explains.
Throughout highschool, Topf and a buddy of his would file and burn CDs of their very own music. And Topf insisted that his position was to be strictly lead guitar. “My buddy stated that my voice was completely different and that I needs to be the singer. So it was determined and I acquired some vocal classes too, as a result of I had no formal coaching in how one can be a singer. After I went to varsity in New York I shaped one other group there referred to as Mainland.”
Mainland caught collectively for a number of years and even toured. “We did an EP with Jim Eno of Spoon producing, which was fairly nice.” The Shiner EP got here out in 2014 and does sound a bit like Spoon. “We went right down to Austin to file with him and it acquired us some buzz,” Topf continues. “We signed a file deal and had been on tour so much. All of us moved again to California, to LA, as a result of it didn’t make any sense to be in New York anymore. And some years later we broke up.”
Throughout the pandemic, Topf moved again to Northern California and endeavored to begin a solo profession. Topf’s Windser alter ego is impressed by the identify of the road he grew up on. The primary Windser EP, The place the Redwoods Meet the Sea, got here out in 2022, but it surely was previous to that when Topf acquired an unlikely dose of stardom. “After I first got here to L.A. one of many first folks I met was Sam Hollander,” he says, referring to the songwriter/producer who has dozens of writing and manufacturing credit on many Billboard hits. “I’m unsigned at that time and he stated he would give me a pair hundred bucks to file my voice singing a few of his melodies so he may pitch hooks to completely different artists. One of many songs was pitched to Ryan Lewis of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis fame. They usually heard my voice on ‘Subsequent Yr,’” Topf recollects.
“Once they heard the tune they had been like, ‘Who’s the singer? He must be on the tune.’ I flew to Seattle the subsequent week to shoot a music video and we additionally completed the tune. The video is hilarious. I’m in some sort of sizzling tub boat and Macklemore is kayaking via the bay proper off Seattle. Macklemore was so good to me. I had like three songs out on the time and he graciously promoted me a bunch. We performed Jimmy Fallon and Dick Clark’s New Yr’s Eve present. We ended up writing a second tune referred to as ‘Maniac.’ It was loopy how all that occurred,” Topf says. “Subsequent Yr” and “Maniac” have virtually 50 million Spotify streams and Windser has a co-sign on them.
Flash ahead a number of years, and Topf is on the cusp of releasing his first album, self-titled as Windser. The album has 11 songs of primarily sunny pop, with a dose of Bleachers on the extra upbeat tunes and greater than a touch of Native Natives’ Hummingbird-era dreamier pop on the extra delicate tunes (try “Skeletons” for proof). However the album begins with a tune primarily based on a heart-rending second. When Topf was seven years outdated, his dad deserted him of their resort room in Costa Rica for almost 24 hours. The tune is titled, appropriately sufficient, “Abandon” and Topf was prepared to bravely dive deep on the inspirations and his emotions across the tune.
“My mother and father had been divorced after I was six years outdated. My dad was a college principal and he spoke Spanish. So he and I’d go on these journeys to locations like Mexico and Costa Rica the place he may communicate the language. So after I was seven on this journey to Costa Rica my dad stated to me, ‘I’ll be proper again,’ however he didn’t come again for a full day,” Topf says. His dad apparently took off on a motorbike with a lady he had simply met. “I used to be actually scared and I bear in mind crawling into the mattress and crying. I didn’t have a cellphone, so I couldn’t name my mother. I felt very afraid and deserted,” Topf continues.
“This tune is a particular story, however there are lots of songs about my dad on this album. We had an advanced relationship. It was very loving, however there have been additionally some challenges clearly. I misplaced my dad after I was 22. There’s not lots of males on the market speaking about their problematic relationships with their fathers. I want there was. I believe my dad struggled with loneliness and there’s this vacancy within you that you just wish to fill with love. He didn’t understand that the love I had for him in that second was sufficient. I used to be only a child when this occurred and I actually didn’t perceive. I felt like the one method I may course of that was to make a tune about it.”
Little doubt, “Abandon” is essentially the most direct tune on the album, however all are fastidiously crafted and lots of are brightly coloured confections. Surrounding himself with a cadre of high notch studio musicians, together with Harrison Whitford (Phoebe Bridgers) and Dan Bailey (Father John Misty), the entire tracks had been recorded with out vocals, which Topf later added in per week lengthy session. Among the finest songs on the album, “Head within the Clouds,” is only a good pop tune. “I could be a little spacey generally. My spaciness is only a coping mechanism, in order that tune is somebody telling me to get off the sofa and get my head out of the clouds,” Topf says. “Harrison’s guitar enjoying on that tune is superb.”
Although Topf says the album just isn’t particularly thematic, he does say that there’s an arc from early childhood challenges and battle to extra of a component of therapeutic and love because the album progresses. One of many album’s softer moments, “Within the Flowers,” happens close to the tip of its journey from despair to hope. “You’ve acquired to have a ballad there on the finish,” Topf concludes. “That one is de facto nearly how therapeutic nature might be.”
