Josh Ross
#
103
Ranking
BIRTHDATE
BIRTHPLACE
Waterdown
,
ON
,
Canada
32
6
'
0
"
Josh Ross (born May 27, 1996) is a Waterdown, Ontario-born Canadian country singer-songwriter who went from earning a football scholarship to Western University to grinding Nashville's songwriter circles after injuries ended his CFL dreams, building a grassroots following that culminated in a JUNO Award, a sold-out Canadian headline tour, and a historic 2025 number-one on U.S. Country Airplay with "Single Again," making him only the third Canadian male artist ever to top an American country radio chart.
Current Tour & Setlist
Ross's 2026 U.S. touring schedule includes a slot at the Gulf Coast Jam in Panama City Beach, Florida in late May, the Hoofbeat Country Fest in Cadott, Wisconsin in late June, the Minnesota Country Club festival in Saint Paul on July 10, and GLC Live at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids, Michigan on July 25, with additional dates across the U.S. and Canada running through November 20 with stops in cities including Kansas City, New Jersey, and St. Louis. Fans can expect a setlist anchored by "Single Again," "Trouble," "Ain't Doin' Jack," "Hate How You Look," and highlights from "Later Tonight," with Ross known for high-energy sets that blend his radio hits with deeper cuts and occasional rock-influenced covers.
Early Life
Born May 27, 1996, in Waterdown, Ontario, and raised in nearby Burlington, Josh Ross grew up in a household where his father blasted rock and roll and his mother loved U2 and Bruce Springsteen, but it was a family friend who introduced five-year-old Ross to Steve Earle's music and quietly planted the seeds of a country music obsession that his high school friends found genuinely baffling. Sports consumed most of his childhood, playing hockey, soccer, motocross, and football at Nelson High School before earning an athletic scholarship to play football at Western University in London, Ontario, where a series of injuries and two surgeries ended his dream of playing in the Canadian Football League and redirected him toward the guitar he had quietly loved all along.
Career Highlights
After his football career ended, Ross began writing songs in his university dorm room, formed a band called Silver Lining with fellow former player Will Finch in 2016, and earned enough attention at Canada's Boots and Hearts festival to convince him to begin making regular trips to Nashville before relocating there permanently around 2019. He released a series of independent singles before signing with Universal Music Canada and Mercury Nashville, releasing his debut EP "Complicated" in March 2024, which earned him the JUNO Award for Country Album of the Year in 2025 and included "Trouble," a Double Platinum hit in Canada and RIAA Gold in the U.S. that topped the Billboard Canadian Country chart. He followed it with his debut full-length album "Later Tonight" in September 2025, and in July 2025 "Single Again" reached number one on the U.S. Mediabase Country chart, making him only the third Canadian male artist in history, after Hank Snow and Paul Brandt, to top a U.S. country radio chart, while a headline Canadian tour in early 2026 sold out most of its 12 dates including back-to-back nights at Massey Hall and HISTORY in Toronto.
Family & Personal Life
Ross keeps his personal life intensely private, and no confirmed relationship or family details beyond his Waterdown, Ontario upbringing and his Burlington high school background have been made public. He sparked a brief Canadian controversy in June 2025 when a video of him calling the United States "the best country in the world" during a festival performance in Indiana went viral amid the ongoing U.S.-Canada trade tensions, prompting an apology on social media; he quickly made amends by performing at Heritage Canada's Canada Day concert in Ottawa a few weeks later, showing the Canadian loyalty that has remained central to his identity throughout his Nashville career.
