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It’s a marvel that Adam Klobi is a nascent at anything, particularly songwriting. Exhibiting depth, a trust in the listener and lyrically honesty that wraps itself in timeless chord driven ballads, it's hard to imagine music being a recent pivot for the artist. It seems as though Klobi has been making music yesterday, today and forever. "DISENGAGE," off his latest EP, YESTERDAY, TODAY, showcases the artist's depth, the song oozing Radiohead one moment, The Cure the next, while the entire project screams veterancy from top to bottom. We lucked out and got to intercept Adam whilst in LA on a writing trip, and it was such a pleasure diving into this project, life and what's upcoming:

OnesToWatch: Adam, welcome! Tell us about this new EP. For instance, how old are these songs? What's the oldest song on the EP? Fairly new. 

Adam Klobi: I think the oldest song is from June of 2025. 


In this business, that's very fresh. 

I think everything that I've ever done is very fresh, considering my start and how long I've been doing music for. In the last year I've made 100 songs, every session I've gotten into, the song comes out 80% done. Which I found out fairly recently is not the case for everybody. I actually beat myself up about the first time I didn't get a song from a session. And everybody in the room was like, you need to chill because this happens every day. I didn't realize that. You don't go into a session, write a song, leave with a finished demo. But it’s been a speed run in a way of figuring out who I am and what I am as quickly as possible. I got off to a great start for sure, had a great boost from the third song I put out, but that also made me realize I need to re-pivot to what I love. I was making music to make music rather than making music for the genres that I grew up with and the genres that I love and am all in for, you know? 

I love that. What was the moment of realization where you realized you weren’t doing what you wanted to be doing? 

I put out these songs that are still very real to me and the subject matter is very on point with who I am, but genre wise, it was an acoustic guitar and me.
And that's how I was writing. I figured because I have this instrument that I'm fairly new at, playing cowboy chords and whatnot, I have to write folk pop songs, and that I have to be fairly simplistic with my music and genre choice. As soon as I started working with producers that encouraged me to throw drums in there, it dawned on me that that was an option. And that's very much what this EP is... it's almost like you go to Sephora and you have a little sample taste tester of all the colognes. You found the different aisles, you found the tasters, it’s all cohesive, but it's each individually its own thing.

That's a great process explanation. What about thematics, feelings? Does the speed run of finding yourself also make up the thematic content? 

It definitely does. And I'm still not fully there. It doesn't stop. I don't think it will. I think thematically, it was trying to find a place in balance of where I came from and my sonic roots. Like I loved pop punk growing up and was addicted to Blink-182 when I was a kid.
So, there's a few pop punk-y, throw it at the wall kind of moments on the album. Then, there’s also yearning Coldplay vibes, like early Parachutes and a Rush of Blood to the Head moments where you're just letting the music do the work and it’s a feeling more than anything else, you’re just living in it. It came together almost accidentally. I Frankenstein-ed a bunch of these songs together that felt unison in terms of era. I went into the studio and ripped them apart and put them back together again to make them feel like one. I stripped them down to build them back up. 

Well, that sounds very true to a songwriter. So do you feel like you're becoming a true songwriter now? 


Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'll ever have the feeling of being a songwriter, because I think this feeling of imposter syndrome will never go away. Peers and writers and producers tell me I have a knack for this, but I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. I’m just doing it. I very much feel like I'm in a room with big names and when are they going to realize that I don't belong here? 

The whole music industry has imposter syndrome that'll never go away. You don't think you could spark that feeling in other people? 

Maybe. You know, maybe once I get a better grip of the guitar. I'm still working with the basic metrics of a guitar. 

You’ve got the passion. What do you hope your audience gets out of this, given you've explained it to be a little different than your prior music? 

I hope it’s taken as an opportunity to connect with who I am, to get to know me and where I come from. There's some tracks on the project that are very inward. The three that have come out as singles have been very lovey…

You still love, though, don't you? 

Yes, of course. I love and I yearn, but the remaining ones are pretty inward. The opening track looks directly at my body and my skin. I had a super, super tough time in high school with self-image. I had really bad acne. I couldn't even look at myself in the face. Still to this day, I'm 24 and I'll walk by a mirror and blur my eyes because I don't want to see. So that whole track is just trying to tell myself, bro, suck it up. No one else cares. You care so much. No one's looking at you. They’re looking at themselves. It's an alt rock opening track that opens the album perfectly from the first song. It's a big adulthood moment when you realize people really just don't care. Everyone's too busy looking at themselves to care about what you think they're looking at. 

Exactly.
If everything goes right for you, where do you hope this project takes you? Are you trying to straight line to a big album release at some point? 

I'd love an album release. Number one mission was just to get a full project on Spotify and Apple Music, so that someone can come to my profile and know that's how I digest music. I find a project rather than a single and I rinse it top to bottom. That's very much how I made this project, like song one transitions into song two. It’s almost narrative. It feels like a look into a year of growing. 

Is this a chapter a preamble to something longer? 

Maybe.
I think it's going to live on its own for the moment. It's like a step. It's like, hey, here's something that I can do, but I think what's coming is going to be a lot more rock leaning. Still, like my favorite thing about music is lyrics. Lyricism is the greatest thing. So heavy on lyricism, but to be able to open it up to a massive orchestra or a crazy lead guitar, something that's a little more messy and less in line with pop. Which I think, to just finish off, we've been in such a folk space for the last few years. The natural progression of being in this vulnerable, folky stripped back thing is that people are yearning for a rock band. There's a really nice rise of a sexy rock thing coming through. That's definitely where I'm going to be leaning. 

I'm with you. There's room for that. I like that you're indicating that this is a bit more of a live sound for you. Did you sort of have the intention of making this a bit bigger? 


100%. Actually the reason I was putting this project out in the first place was to tour it. I had some complications with all of that.
We are trying to make sure it happens this year, which is great, but definitely the whole intent of this was wanting to make sure from the forefront, that touring is the most important thing. Like me, meeting my fans at the ground level and sharing that experience is the only way to grow a solid, consistent fan base. It's how I fell in love with music.
It's that connection. 

It’s an interpersonal career for sure. Beautiful.
Do you have a dream lineup? Is there someone you'd love to open for? 

Can I resurrect the Beatles? 

Of course. 

It's too easy of an answer. Someone asked me recently, what's my musical hot take? And I said, the Beatles are the most underrated band of all time, currently. In the current state of the world… think about it. A lot of people don't realize the Beatles popularized most genres of rock. They branched out when others wouldn’t. No one dared to do the Helter Skelter thing, and then Paul got into that culture and made it mainstream. And some of those production choices they were doing with the tape is ridiculous. They went to Africa and India and learned about different cultures, went to ground level, and said, how can we learn this and use it in our own style? No one realizes how much innovation came from The Beatles. 

There's no doubt. 

Circling back to your question about the dream lineup though, realistically, someone like the 1975 who has a very performance-based band with a showmanship element. Someone who puts on a really good show. If I can go back in time and say Coldplay after their second album, that would be an answer. 

Since you gave a hot take of who’s underrated, do you have an overrated hot take?

It might get me in trouble… The Rolling Stones are not even close to as good as the Beatles were. 

See, I'm a Rolling Stones guy, so we might have to table this. 

I just think in terms of when you're comparing them to the Beatles, how can you? They have seven projects that sound very similar. 

100%. 

They're amazing. I'm not saying they're not, but compared next to the Beatles directly, I don't think they have the same cultural impact. 

Totally fair, we could maybe argue on culture… I think they effectively built the modern touring music business from branding, from having a logo proper to really establishing commercial pop radio, the formatting, etc. So they had a different kind of impact, maybe more industry impact, and they literally nailed merchandising.
They nailed all the things that the Beatles did, after the fact. Maybe that's not pure musical art… 

But from a business standpoint, they're unreal. 

And to me, they're art. They’re art kids who went and were going to do lower class music and just become a bar band that's world famous. Whereas the Beatles are the opposite, right? They were real proletarian kids. And they blew up. And they went art. 


You’ve convinced me. 

Anyways, getting back to you. What is inspiring you currently outside of music? What's something that's been giving you a little bit of creative juice? 

It's a good question. I'm, unapologetically, only really give a shit about music. So, it's very hard for me. When you asked me that question, my mind went blank. Really good art direction and cinematography in a show can help me be more visual in terms of lyricism. I don’t really listen to music for inspiration, I've listened to enough music in my 20 years of life to never have to listen to music again. Everything else I'm absorbing is just me trying to replicate now. So, if I just take everything I've absorbed, it'll be the most realistic to me. But reading books and watching film and TV, I think those really contribute to storytelling. Listening to too much music almost dilutes what you create. 

Oh, it totally can. I know some people that deliberately don't listen to music while they're making music for that reason. Just because I am a sucker for art, do you have a show that you want to shout out? 

It's a painful watch, but Normal People is just so good. I do it to myself because I want to see the placement of their bodies in certain scenes and the light and color direction; it’s all so intentional that it makes you realize how much work goes into a certain show. Whereas, I can have fun watching shows, but if it's like Netflix lighting – no shade to Netflix, but you know what I mean – I can't get into it as much. 

It's funny you called that out because I literally watched a YouTube video on Netflix lighting. 

It's like you see everything or you see nothing. Everything's blurred out in the background. The field of view is very much only the person speaking, just so that they don't have to worry about the set design. And production design is probably my favorite thing about this industry. The highlights of working with creatives so far has been production design. For this EP, I had this vision of it looking like a 90s/2000s bedroom. Everything's just a mess – the way a kid's head would be. I pulled up to the shoot after setting up the Pinterest boards and the mood boards and trying to convey what I wanted, and the production designer snapped. She did the most perfect job. I was smiling ear to ear because she found so many things from my childhood. 

Who is it? 


Her name's Chevy. She's great. She's from Toronto. She found the first iMac, we brought some of my skateboards, so they're set up, they're my broken boards from when I was a kid. Athere’s CD racks filled up and all these posters which she intentionally designed with the song titles from the EP. It's just really, really intentional and great. That made me very, very excited for future projects. 

Amazing. I want to end on your words. Anything you want to say, promo, shout out, advice, counsel. 

I just want to express how thankful I am for the people that are very clearly sticking through when I disappear sometimes, and come to shows and support. They're very excited for what I have to show and very excited sometimes more than I am about the old stuff. “Old stuff” in quotes, because it came out only last year. But, yeah, I just want to be thankful for them because they are really pushing me through at times when things feel harder than I thought they would. I'll get countless DMs of support, and people telling me that my music got them through a bad day. I feel that for my favorite artists, so it’s weird for me to be that sort of artist for someone. It's a surreal feeling. There's multiple people that have tattoos of my songs on them. 
That's definitely weird. But it's also so rock star. I wouldn't change that for the world and I'm just super, super stoked to keep doing it for them. 

I'm going to add one more question because you prompted it. What is a lyric or a visual tattoo that if a fan showed you, they’d get front row seats. 

Probably something off these next Ep… it’s out now! I’d love it if someone got something off of “Grow,” which is my favorite song. That song is really, really, really special to me. 


Thank you so much, Adam.