If you look up what is your name? (WIYN?) on Genius the following unreviewed artist bio pops up: “creates a certain vibe that they themselves can’t understand.”

It’s submitted by a user named SkyHouse and it pretty much aligns with the picture of WIYN? that I’d pieced together through my lengthy perusal of music forums. Given that Jebediah Jungus–the brains behind the one-man operation–was largely anonymous until last year, it’s no surprise that listeners tried to fill in the blanks. Rateyourmusic reviews and Genius annotations suggest that the elusive WIYN? is a prodigious shoegaze mastermind and all-around tortured artist. Needless to say, I was shitting bricks in the lead-up to the interview. How could I, a lowly freelancer, probe the psyche of Toronto’s lo-fi wunderkind? As it turns out, it’s just not that deep. 

I first realized it wasn’t that deep when I caught Jeb’s Loveless Festival performance shortly before our interview. Given that he began performing not even a year ago, I was anticipating a chiller, more laidback set. What I got instead was a performance replete with free Osmow’s shawarma PR, a heated shawarma poutine debate, and even a shawarma trampling. The people cleaning Sneaky Dee’s may have been a little less than pleased, but I was captivated. How had this DIY bedroom artist managed to curate such an elaborate stage persona in a mere nine months? 

For one, it’s not really a persona. Jeb claims to have always been on his bullshit, and I believe it. Still, how could someone with little to no performance experience be so at ease onstage? The long story short: Be willing to fail. The short story long: Be willing to butcher your second ever performance while sick with the flu. Whereas most people cut their teeth on a house show, Jeb was flown out to Seoul for his first performance, playing alongside Asian Glow at Infinity Club. Within days, he was jetsetting to China performing in front of several hundred people for his second show. No band, no performance experience–just a raging fever. “It was fucking horrible. I feel like it wouldn’t have been so bad if I bombed a show with like 40 people, but there was 300+ people there. But I gained 50 to 100 XP just doing that show. All of my first experiences were from that show, and I think that in and of itself is very valuable.”

Whether you’re performing in front of hundreds of people or picking up an instrument for the first time, doing something new almost always feels like a humiliation ritual. Lean into it. Your relationship towards performance–or frankly, any skill–is born through repeated exposure, and yes, repeated fuck ups. It’s a slow burn that requires you to disregard the shoulds, coulds, and woulds of artistic convention. And for Jeb, the key to a good performance is surviving the bad ones. It takes knowing what doesn’t work to know what does. “I approached [early performances] in a very traditional way, where it’s like: ‘This is how it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to sound perfect.’ […] Then I realized that planning [the performances] made me sound worse. It felt like I was parodying myself. I’ve learned that the more chaotic and unplanned the set is, the better I perform. It’s the weirdest paradox ever.”

As it turns out, this anti-strategy doesn’t only influence Jeb’s performance style, but also his production. Alongside the chaos-at-all-costs method, WIYN? is driven by a philosophy of mashing stuff together, saying yes to shit, and trying everything. The prospect of doing something he hasn’t done before–or that people think he wouldn’t do–is Jeb’s primary motivator. It’s what prompted him to get on stage (fever and all) and also to incorporate vocals on his sophomore album. Although he’s worked under his current alias since 2022, he got his start making breakcore music at 19. His sound has steadily evolved since then, shifting from dreamy instrumental tones to a raw, almost post-punk project. Having undergone every sonic transformation imaginable, WIYN? patently resists interpretation`–but this wasn’t always the case. 

I’d venture to guess that most people discovered Jeb through his debut WIYN? album, The Now Now and Never (TNNAN). Its titular track has amassed nearly two million listens on Spotify alone, and its trademark cover has inspired droves of fanart and impassioned online reviews. Sure, anyone would feel like hot shit under those circumstances, but having r/shoegaze devotees wax poetic about your “magnum opus” is also nightmare fuel. One minute you’re uploading Boards of Canada covers to onlinesequencer.net, and the next you’re being called “the spiritual successor to Sweet Trip.” From Jeb’s perspective, TNNAN’s appeal lies in the fact that it was made without an audience in mind. It’s good purely because it didn’t matter whether it was good, but it was never meant to be his peak. It was intended as the first step in a series of small, experimental steps. “I’ve always viewed [TNAAN] as more of a mixtape, like it was just my potential. It was me trying to show people ‘hey, I can make shoegaze, I can make rock music, I can record guitars,’ and the next album is like ‘hey, I can also sing–or at least try to’. It was just about me pushing my own boundaries and doing something I’d never done before.”

It’s hard to push boundaries when you’re expected to pump out TNNAN: The Sequel times infinity. What began as a playful home project risked devolving into a product with a capital P. When product trumps process, it’s easy to believe that you’ll never make anything good again. How can you think otherwise when you’re hellbent on recreating something you made before your frontal lobe even developed? By the time you muster up the strength to make something–or, God forbid, make something new–you’re already plagued by the thought that your best work is behind you. “I’ve always reacted [to criticism] the same way any human would, ‘Are they right?’, you know. But the thing is, initially a person makes art because it’s fun. […] Maybe it helps you get through some tough shit or it’s just a fun hobby. For me it’s both. […] When I was getting so lost in that criticism, I started losing the real reason behind why I made music: it was for myself and it was fun. […]” That’s basically it. Babies don’t pick up their Fisher Price instrument set hoping that their xylophone solo will make Pitchfork’s “Best New Music.” Whether it’s looping samples on Audacity or recycling camcorder footage for a music video, we make art because it’s intuitive.  

With two post-TNNAN albums out and another one in the works, it’s safe to say that Jeb is intuitive as ever. Why? Because he’s trading the “shoulds” for “what ifs.” And at the ripe age of 24, unc is just getting started. In its transformation from a humble bedroom project to a live, multi-genre experience, WIYN? reminds us that you need to risk being misunderstood if you’re going to make anything worthwhile. Better yet, you need to risk being downright disliked. Trying to make something for everyone compromises your ability to make anything for yourself. “I used to think about a song in terms of what people would think of it. Like ‘I feel like people will hate this’ so I’d be hesitant to do it, but that’s gonna keep me in a box. If people hate this direction, I’m gonna double down. I’m going to make songs that people hate, but more importantly, [songs] that I love.”

But what do you do when your passion is dimmed by the weight of expectation? You get serious about being unserious. Eulogize Peter Griffin on stage even if an audience member later condemns your goofiness in a scathing review. Write lyrics without worrying about whether they’re tortured enough to constitute “true lyricism.” And if you lack formal training, it’s all the more reason to fry your vocals on a track. There are fewer rules than you think, but don’t take it from me. “Rules are actually guidelines. They’re not the law. They’re like Play-Doh–you can mash them up, you can destroy them, you can put them together. And that’s my job.”