Growing up around the world, singer/songwriter Alice Merton was as influenced by other cultures as much as transience itself. Born in Frankfurt and raised in Canada and England, Merton's absorption of different styles and sounds helped craft the worldly progressive pop leanings on her debut, which came out in 2017. As a child, she learned classical piano and singing while in Canada. When Merton was a teenager, her family moved to Germany, where she would pick up the guitar and write her first song. While in Germany, she also studied at the Mannheim conservatory of music. Later, the family would relocate again, this time to England. These frequent international shifts would play a key role in the songwriting process for her first output, 2017's No Roots EP (Mom+Pop Records). The four-track effort included the groove-heavy title track and "Hit the Ground Running," which won Merton the Jugend Kulterell Prize for Acoustic Pop.