by Marisa BrownThough he was born in California, Canadian singer and pianist Patrick Watson was raised outside Montreal, in Hudson, Quebec, singing in the local church choirs as a boy, studying jazz and classical piano performance, composition, and arrangement, and singing and playing keyboards in the ska band Gangster Politics in high school. Watson left the band after graduating and began to explore other types of music, including electronica and ambient. In 2002, after returning from a trip to Vietnam, he decided to start a four-piece chamber pop group, bringing in bassist Mishka Stein, drummer Robbie Kuster (both of whom he had met at university), and former Gangster Politics guitarist Simon Angell. The group (which was technically a solo project with a backing band) released Just Another Ordinary Day independently and began performing around Canada, including at the 2005 Pop Montreal Festival, a show that led to the formation of Secret City Records, the label that issued Patrick Watson's sophomore album, Close to Paradise (which featured the same band), in the fall of 2006, with a release in the U.S. the following year.