Bio
“There’s artistry and there’s craft, and artistry is the thing inside you that you can’t change—but craft is something you can work on.”
Scott Helman has already lived a thousand lives in the music industry—and yet, with his newly independent status, it feels like he’s just getting started on an exciting new era of his career.
Over the last decade and change, Helman’s experienced success on every level, and he’s reached new peaks over the last year with the viral success of singles “Mr. Record Label” and “Something About Julien.” Accompanied by eye-catching visuals that have racked up extremely enviable social media metrics, Helman’s recent hot streak has newly energized his already passionate fanbase and brought new listeners into his increasingly big tent—and with more new music on the way, he’s primed to continue ascending in the years to come.
Helman’s story as a professional musician began 15 years ago, when a few viral YouTube uploads led to his signing a development deal with one of Canada’s biggest major labels. “I was super free and open,” Helman recalls regarding this early period of his adolescent artistry. “I never really wrote pop songs until I started working with a label, which changes the way that you make music.” As he continued to venture further into the machine, Helman was also sure to keep in mind the core tenets of creativity that brought him such quick success.
His 2014 debut release, Augusta, garnered him a platinum record with “Bungalow” as well as nominations for Juno and MuchMusic Video Awards. “I’m so grateful for that record,” Helman says, “because it showcased my artistic voice as I was taking some swings with the poetry of my lyrics. Within the confines of the label system, I was still able to make the music that I was excited about.”
Tours with Shawn Mendes, Vance Joy and Walk Off the Earth followed, as well as the release of a similarly successful follow-up record which earned multiple gold and platinum certifications for “PDA,” “Ripple Effect,” and “Kinda Complicated.” But as time stretched on, Helman increasingly felt limited by his role in the eternally shuffling deck of cards that is the Canadian music industry.
“I was a flagship artist on a major label, but their goal was still to break me,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘What more can I do?’” After moving to Los Angeles with his wife, Helman found himself at a crossroads after being dropped by the label that signed him as a teen. “I felt so lost as an artist,” he admits. “I had no team. I saw the writing on the wall, and then I got dropped. That was the beginning of a new chapter for me. I had to build everything from the ground up, which was really hard.”
Undeterred by these industry setbacks, Helman got to work. Since embracing his status as an independent artist, he’s released an acoustic version of Augusta in 2024 for the record’s 10th anniversary and has been putting the finishing touches on a new album that’ll be set for release sometime in 2027.
Alongside his burgeoning side hustle as a tattoo artist—a creative pursuit that’s doubled as a way to stay in touch with his fanbase—Helman has also become a jack-of-all-creative-trades when it comes to crafting unforgettable visual content to accompany his new musical work.
“I bought a camera to figure out how to properly express myself while having fun with it,” he explains. “I wanted to make stuff that’s cool and relatable, but also while having an aesthetic identity.”
After teaching himself the ropes, Helman eventually struck viral pay dirt with a TikTok that featured last year’s slinky single “Something About Julian,” which showcased his latest sonic turn from the effervescent folk-pop he once made his name on.
“I got the mix back and thought it sounded really cool,” Helman says regarding how he crafted the tune’s no-nonsense visual accompaniment. “I went to a bar, leaned my phone against a pint glass, and filmed my face while writing about the song in the caption. By the time I woke up the next morning, it had gone viral.”
With a fire lit underneath him, Helman dug deep into his treasure trove of demos and unearthed what would become “Mr. Record Label,” a spiky and propulsive single that was directly inspired by his previous trials and tribulations in the music industry.
“I was with one of my best friends and he was pumping me up. ‘Dude, them dropping you is the best thing that’s ever going to happen,’” he recalls. “I was getting fired up, so I wrote this comfort song to myself to be like, ‘You don’t need them.’”
The original demo of “Mr. Record Label” was acoustic, but Helman made some quick adjustments to fit his current sound: “I thought, ‘This is an alternative song. We need to distort the bass and record new drums, and it’ll be sick.’”
The visual component—a lyric video that features Helman in a variety of settings, a microphone dangling in the foreground that he’s seemingly getting ready to approach—also came together quickly.
“I could see the video in my mind,” he explains. “When you’re making so much content, you start thinking in content—it’s almost like a language. Once I got the idea, I went out, filmed the video that I was imagining, and posted it the next day.”
In Helman’s words, both “Something About Julien” and “Mr. Record Label” were “Hail Marys of a sort” that ended up resonating with his ever-growing audience—and as he continues to put the polishing touches on his new album, Helman is also looking to capitalize on the growing momentum and current viral hot streak.
“I want to keep experimenting and writing more, which feels so exciting to me,” he says. “We’re just having fun, which is what’s so exciting about being independent. I’m in this weird, magical place where anything could happen. There’s no barrier stopping me from releasing whatever I want.”
And it’s that indefatigable spirit that continues to drive Helman’s creative energy, guaranteeing that 2027 will be his strongest year yet as a bold, captivating artist in pop’s landscape.
