Lindsay Ell - Story I Tell Myself
Elevated (EM): Lindsay, Lindsay, Lindsay. It is so great to see you and speak with you. I just double checked my dates, and I just realized it was it’s been just over six years since I saw you with Mr. Urban performing at the Santa Barbara Bowl.
Lindsay Ell (LE): That is wild. I can’t believe this. In six years, I know isn’t that crazy. Yesterday.
EM: I love the new hair color too. It’s rock and roll. And where are you on this fine Monday morning?
LE: I’m in Toronto. We just finished shooting Canada’s Got Talent this past week.
It’s always just such a intense filming week. You know, we work like 15-16 hour days.
EM: Do you enjoy it?
LE: I do. I love TV. I mean, music will always hold like the closest, nearest dearest place in my heart. But TV is just so fun. You never really know what to expect. And I do like how everything is so condensed, but you kind of finish all the shooting needs in little blocks of time. And so you can, like, really hunker down and get your work done, and then go on and, you know, tour the world.
EM: And what an exciting time for you. Congratulations on signing with universal up in Canada, and also on the new album, which I’m not going to read all of the quotes that I have, because I’ll let you expand upon them. But is a very meaningful album for you in moment in your life? Quite frankly, correct?
LE: Yeah, I’ve been working on this project for the better part of two years, and it feels so incredible to finally get it out into the world and let fans hear these songs that you know have been floating around in my brain and my heart and and have been the reason why the past two years have probably been the most two healing years of my life. I got diagnosed with an eating disorder at the beginning of last year, and it was sort of the major turning point of where I was like, Okay, I have to start really looking at some of these things that I’ve been ignoring for a long, long time and I just think it put me into this, like, upward spiral, you know, of really trying to be honest with myself, and really trying to trying to listen to what felt authentic and what didn’t and and I’m just so grateful for that, because I feel like my life as a songwriter, as an artist, as a recording artist, has really benefited. And I just feel that, you know, fans really care about music when it is real and it doesn’t feel put on or doesn’t feel constructed, and not since I was doing that in the past. But I feel like even sonically in the studio, I would chase things because I was told to, or because I thought that that was what was going to make it successful, right? And now I just want to make music because I love it, because it brings so much joy to my heart, and because I hope that somebody who needs to hear this song will hear it and will find it, even if they’re on the other side of the world, yeah, it can have a positive impact in their life.
EM: And you’re absolutely amazing at it. You’re one of the best and what an exciting time as well in your industry. I mean, it’s just absolutely incredible. That’s why I loved when I saw your your new release. From yourself to Mr. Urban with his new album, to you name it, just across the board. And those from other from other genres, so to speak, also entering in and just really almost elevating each and every one of you that’s been there for years. You know what I mean?
LE: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s a really exciting time for music. I think a lot of artists are feeling called to be more themselves, you know, and be defined a little bit less by genre lines and a little bit more about collaborating with artists that they’re inspired by, or just writing and releasing songs that they are feel really good about. And so I like that the genre lines are being blurred a little bit. I agree and that and that the tenses of every genre are becoming wider. And, you know, you see artists like Noah Kahan come along, and he sort of defies all previous rules, you know. And just like writes really great music that connects really, really well, and it just doesn’t matter what category he was filed into. You know now, he’s just super mainstream, and everybody wants to, wants to go see him play live, and wants to absorb his new songs and and I think that that’s a really, really exciting example of the genre lines don’t matter. It’s just like the music itself.
EM: I love this quote, so I’m going to read it. This is from someone named Lindsay Ell, “I’m more inspired and excited to make music than I ever been before, and for the first time in a long time, I’m no longer standing under a veil of trying to be, what, to be, who I’m not. This project is all about learning how to love myself again. This has been my journey back to myself, back to the music that I’ve wanted to make since the first moved to Nashville.”
LE: You know, this year has been so wildly crazy, and I’m so grateful for it. Yeah, we’ve been, we’ve been touring all over this year ourselves. I’ve been playing guitar for Shania Twain. We spent about a month in Europe in July, and played Glastonbury and Hyde Park. And have been kind of zigzagging all around the world, really. And then I’ve been recording a record and playing my own shows at the same time. And so we’re back in Vegas with Shania in November, and then back in Vegas with her in January, and then just gearing up to play a lot of festivals and really plotting my own headlining tour right now, just making sure that it all lines up with with new music. It’s such an interesting thing, because touring is my favorite thing to do on the face of the planet. Like nothing else brings me joy like getting to play in front of fans.
After a decade of establishing herself as a Platinum-selling songwriter, musician and performer in Nashville, Lindsay Ell has entered her liberated era. With her new EP love myself, the Calgary-born supertalent has confidently embraced her true self and has delivered a collection of songs that bring her fresh pop sensibilities and resilient outlook to the forefront.
Though she’s been writing meaningful lyrics since childhood—and playing guitar since age eight—Ell’s new songs represent a hard-won fearlessness that’s as elegant and wise as it is vulnerable and gritty. love myself is her most autobiographical music to date, an artistic triumph given her courageous disclosure of having experienced sexual violence at age 13 and again at 21, and recently sharing with the public that she’d received an anorexia diagnosis earlier this year, for which she is now being treated.
“Over the past few years I have stepped into a whole new layer of vulnerability,” says Ell. “I’ve dug into topics that I never would’ve written about, had it been any other point in my life. Writing this record has been very much terrifying, yet so liberating. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever created.”
The title track “love myself” explores the experience of navigating body image, written from Ell’s personal perspective. “I swear I’ll figure it out,” she sings with conviction and hope, “but right now the learning hurts like hell.”
“story i tell myself” lovingly interrogates the intrusive thought spirals so many can relate to, and imagines a revolution of the mind in which interior narratives can be rewritten through self-compassion. It’s a clear-eyed reality check, and a testament to Ell’s authenticity as a songwriter.
On “pain tolerance,” Ell reflects on once viewing burnout and the ability to withstand hardship as a badge of honor, swapping out that old mentality for a desire to be inwardly kind. She no longer sees that tolerance as a virtue, but as a point from which to heal, which she achieves through her songwriting, as both a salve and, to fans, a gift.
“what did I do?” explores the sad reality of a friendship reaching its conclusion without closure. “Letting go can be so hard, but so freeing and essential,” she says of the song’s meaning.
On “the hard way,” Ell’s ode to failures and false starts, she looks back in order to move forward, accepting her struggles as part of her journey. “All of the fear and the shame have a place, I’m okay, it was worth it,” she sings. Reflecting on the lyrics, she laughs now: “I’ve had to take the high road and the long road a lot of times.”
Having grown up on country music, Ell’s roots intertwine deep in the genre alongside her other longtime loves: rock, pop, and blues music. She cites Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton among her favorite artists, and as the inspirations behind her enduring pledge to the guitar.
Recently, fans have seen Ell shine as Shania Twain’s lead guitarist during the superstar’s “Come on Over” Las Vegas residency and international tour, something her childhood self, who belted out Shania songs on a plastic dollar store microphone, would be particularly ecstatic over. (Ell credits Twain as the reason she became a singer.) A generational talent, Ell has always felt at home on stage and has brought her electric live performance style to audiences across the US, Canada, Europe, and the UK for both her headlining shows and alongside Keith Urban, OneRepublic, and Maren Morris.