In November 2015, while living more than 2,000 miles apart, cousins David and Chad Walsh sparked up a musical collaboration based on demos sent back-and-forth and song ideas shared over the phone. During a writing trip spent holed up in a basement studio in Chad’s hometown of Toronto, the two started experimenting with vintage synthesizers and throwback hip-hop drum loops, radically departing from the stripped-back folk of their earlier output. With drummer Frank Goerz later brought into the fold, the trio dubbed themselves The Man Who. Their first two singles quickly accumulated over 10 million plays on Spotify.
Now all based in Toronto, The Man Who took their name from a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “The world makes way for the man who knows where he’s going.” And as Chad points out, the band’s thoughtful self-assurance has much to do with their unbreakable bond as co-creators. “Even though David and I are cousins, I feel like we’re meant to be brothers—and that connection is the same between us and Frank,” he says. “Our three personalities are so different but in the best way possible, and we all balance each other extremely well. We can spend countless hours in some tiny rehearsal space or bedroom, just running ideas and trying things out and seeing what’s possible with the music, and it’s more fun than anything else in the world.”
