Interested in music from a young age, the San Francisco-born Leff took piano and viola lessons as a child before picking up the guitar around age 11. During high school, he played in several bands and studied jazz before discovering electronic music production. However, it was while attending NYU as a music tech major in 2014 that a bad break-up found Leff on his own and digging deep into his writing and recording process. Out of this period came the song "The Other," co-written with songwriter/instrumentalist Michael Matosic. Released under Leff's stage name Lauv (inspired by the Latvian "lauve" or lion), the song went viral after gaining blog attention and peaked at number three on blog aggregator Hype Machine. In 2015, he returned with his debut EP, Lost in the Light, which featured "The Other." More tracks followed, including 2015's "Reforget" and 2016's "Question," featuring Travis Mills. In 2017, Lauv headed his own Late Nights, Deep Talks tour and premiered the official video for "The Other," along with a series of remixes. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi