I honestly think it was like a month I I we did this a month after I had Arthur and I was in some kind of weird post baby like post-birth trance exactly yeah yeah the whole thing was a trans and pregnancy too it's clearly put me in I know it put me in some kind of good writing space [Music] when you came out and and you to me were like a modern folk singer like to me you
were armed with an acoustic guitar and these incredible songs yeah and and you've just become this kind of ethereal modern techno Muse I always thought I was gonna end up being like a techno music because that's the music I grew up with right you know my earliest memories was like listening to orbital um and you know I I was I was really inspired by them um like when I when I
first started like I don't know um yeah like making music in my my late teens I guess so yeah I thought that was how I went the direction I was always going to go in and you know the first people I contacted on like back in the day on MySpace were like electronic producers like burial was the first person I reached out wow crazy in the early days it was just me and guitar and
the idea of then getting rid of the guitar and it just being me was like the scariest thing it was always I I you know I didn't I never I never thought that like I'd be singing without my guitar the first time I put it down uh and just and it was just me and it felt so strange um I need to pick it back up again I've become lazy with guitar what kind of
relationship do you have with music on a day-to-day basis though because you have you know real grown-up mature life stuff going on now you know you have responsibilities and you have to inspire people in different ways than just through the art and so you know how do you do the art thing and how does it factor in I I mean I obviously listen to music every day it's just part of my
everyday life like so many people I'm sure that come on the show now I live it I breathe it and um I always have since I was really young and I just thought I just assumed everybody was into music the same way I was at the moment combination of my son and like I don't know dealing with anxiety stuff at the moment I do listen to a lot of classical
what's your attitude when it comes to like sinks and things like that not being sample because obviously Ali's probably the most sampled modern singer and modern hip-hop and Arabic history along with Sanford you and Sam for like ridiculous but when it comes to like movies and TV shows and and you know when people want to use your songs what's your default position on there oh
God I love it I love that yeah um I mean I've always I when my love for music came from listening to you know film soundtracks and um I'd remember moments from a film mostly because of the music the music would take me back to the moment rather than the other way around and yeah so so yeah God that's always kind of been my my dream the idea of my music being part
of that crucial moment in a in a TV show or film yeah God that's the dream so I always say yes yes which is why I have done quite a lot of little film and TV things and and you know eventually I'd love to compose something for a film maybe I'd actually just uh let me go right in with it I have made like a classical album in the past couple of
years um with a few friends uh we just have to finish it um but yeah so I'm kind of like moving towards that I think now so it's you in a quartet or a small selection of players or how it's just a cut it's just myself and a couple of um people I've played with do you miss La at all do you like it I do like La um I don't come here enough um I instantly feel healthier I do sleep
better when I'm here maybe it's the sun um some helps my I don't know what is it called circadian rhythm I never knew how to say that yeah but yeah I do like being here it always feels like stuff's always happening and people are always here and I instantly I I instantly have to socialize when I'm here which which doesn't really happen much in London for whatever reason
um but like yeah everyone's friendly here like someone was saying last night you know it's not it's not a it's not a fake place like that many people call it a fake place a lot in the UK and it's actually just maybe people are just nice here you know Calvin said this this is a great advice if you want to live in LA and you don't you're not from La then you should be then don't
move to LA unless you're invited which I think is really good advice you're a regular collaborator of who's now I love that he puts you in the 140 to 145 happy techno Vibe he already took you there I know actually we have we also had another song that never like saw the light I thought it was great he wasn't so keen on it um he was like oh your bit was your bit
was good I just didn't like the other bit the way he described it to me was that he almost had to convince you to do this type of performance a little bit because you can do so much and you you're in somewhere else and he was like I need you to kind of come and be on this because you're the only person who can actually the notes in that song are
giving me anxiety the thought of singing them right now um not that I'm gonna have to sing them right now but uh yeah it yeah I mean it takes me back to I used to sing in that kind of register and I used to sing with that kind of like tone I guess I didn't think I had anymore and then he got me in the studio and a bit of muscle memory and um just like singing over and over I
don't think and like I don't know and people might not share this opinion but I don't think he's ever done anything but I don't think he's ever made anything that isn't good that's just my opinion like love regenerator or that all his side stuff and the last record you know some people were like oh we wish he went back to his old style but um I genuinely have loved
every single thing he's ever done yeah so I had no doubt in my mind that that uh when he messages me with a song it's not just some random thing that he stumbled across it he thought oh maybe Ellie could do this you know he was very sure in his head and that's why he's like as a producer he's he's one of the most like confident in the best possible
way so on April the 7th we have a new album which um obviously I you know I listened to and congratulations is a brilliant Tim Up Tempo pop that's it yeah yeah like it's confident it's got a real confidence to it and I know that you've been like all artists on a journey through lots of different feelings and tones and tempos and Vibes to try and find a space but this one
just is kind of running out the door I think it was probably a direct reaction to you know lockdown and I got back together with a few writers I worked with over the years and we'd all come from different places and we were all just like I mean nobody's in the mood to write a ballad or you know to talk about our feelings and how how much things had sucked over
the past couple of years um I think we were all Keen to just like shake that off and sing about being free again and having this kind of it was quite nice because it it was you know brightest blue was quite a heavy album for me heavy to perform heavy to write and so God the idea that I could just go in and sing and become this kind of character and have a different Persona
and sing about love and and sexuality and um just being I don't know on some other planet um that really appealed to me and it appealed to everyone in the studio in the room and it just happened naturally the two things that really I think about when I think about 2020 and 2021 are number one I'm so grateful that I'm still here yeah and I never want to
forget that there are millions of people who were taken from us yeah through that time I just don't ever want to forget that because I think it's really important that we remember that like your life is precious right and that was a glaring reminder but number two that it just doesn't feel like it was in this lifetime to me it was kind of like everything just stopped and then when we
started up again I was like oh everything's just kind of started like I mean what was that it was a very strange time and I spoke to a lot of artists during that time and I think it it affected everybody in very different ways but all with with similar levels of shock and severity but I think the Arts didn't really understand because you need life to translate I mean it always
was a need for me music was my was my ultimate escape from you know stuff that was happening at home and um you know I was I was a I was an anxious kid I still am like very anxious um but but yeah um I'd like I was up at night thinking like meteorite was gonna hit like I don't know I read something in the news I always read the news I mean when I was a
kid I didn't know it was anxiety I I again I assumed like everyone was was scared and anxious about things and and then the second I I started I have played clarinet for a long time right in an orchestra and and then I and then I taught myself guitar and and then I started singing and then the second I I learned to sing and play at the same time you know it was it was uh it was
just like I got locked into a place of safety in my in my voice and in my songs and um and then I had that pretty much you know all the way through my teens and then my 20s um and then and then when it stopped you know it really my anxiety like came straight back and suddenly found myself you know like scared of everything again and I'm like even like
like I said like the the act of just like just singing is is so um it's so good for you and then we come back to like you know come back to the to the World As We Knew It And we get to decide how much do I want to go back going forward like how much do I want to take with me I was going really fast in 2019 yeah a thousand miles an hour right there weren't enough planes on the
tarmac for me to run and chase adventures and things and it was great and now I'm like a little scared of that like it's getting back to that now and I'm like wow there's a lot of stuff going on what did you not want to bring with you I mean I had no choice but to go forward because I had a child and that changes everything it did for me anyway it was like I mean that happening
in lockdown like it was a lot you know it was a lot and um I I assumed you know when I when I had Arthur that I could just you know go back to normal crack on with my like I don't know 10K runs yeah yeah um and then get in the studio and everything would just be great um but no it was it was not that at all I realized that I didn't factor in how
much I wanted to spend time with him how much I wanted to just be around it all the time people think it's like a new job it's not it becomes the only only job you want to do yeah exactly yeah so so that you know that became my my new life and it is my new life and it's he is the biggest thing in my world and um it's it has changed everything for me um um I don't think I've changed as a
writer yeah I certainly haven't like found that space yet where I want to write about motherhood it's coming I can feel it coming it's such an intimate thing I remember seeing some footage of you I can't remember what it was it might have been a Lollapalooza somewhere you can headline that once oh that's mad to think about and you came out this was
a little bit earlier in the day but not the daytime it was evening you came out and uh it was just a yeah I mean it was like good like following that you and your band on your day man unbelievable that's a big one I love playing festivals it's my favorite thing to do you're really good at it I haven't done them for I've got some this this summer but like not a huge amount next year
next year is going to be the year we were talking a little bit about you know going deeper and I was saying how I think you know you're riding at your highest level and somehow you're finding these these these ways to to tell these stories and you talked about the role of Art in your life and the safety that you find in it and yet success brings with it lots of
different lefts and rights of that Central experience and they're not safe they're scary and out of control and people talking and writing and taking pictures and you're a recognizable human being that whole year was it went so fast I you know one minute I was like at telling the people at Uni I was selling drama uni wanted to I thought you know I didn't think music was going to happen
for me so I thought maybe I'll act a bit maybe I'll be a Drama teacher I don't know all these all these different things and I even thought maybe I'll just stay here and work in the theater I worked and I had a couple of jobs there and I thought I could just carry on with these and I'm making like an all right amount of money I mean not much money
but like yeah at the time for a student like I was doing well and um and then I told them I was gonna I said you know I've got these songs um and um I've got a bit of interest in them so I might move to London and see what happens and they were understanding they're like come back if it doesn't work out and so I moved to London uh you know absolutely no money uh took my
guitar and um and it just so happened that just as I got to a point where I was like you know I'm going to move back to Canterbury and just carry on with these jobs I Then I then signed the record deal and it just it like exploded that's the only way I can describe it it just it was just chaos um I was suddenly I was performing on Jules Holland you know something I'd
watch forever and I I was playing it so cool in my head and that's that's why sorry not in my head in my head my head was I was just like alarms were going off but out on the outside I was like yeah I can play live on Joe's Holland yeah it's easy easy yeah but actually you know my brain was just like taking all these notes down I mean like you know at some point you're gonna have to
not pay for this but like you're gonna have to like acknowledge this madness yeah process and that came out as like when I you know started having these panic attacks and and so because I just wasn't processing anything I was just letting it all happen it could be a lot as well to be fair to you like I remember when when it really dawned on
us at Radio one that that you were going to be this oddest for now and like oh okay we need new voices we need new music we need it it's like it keeps us moving forward and um I look back on those times now I'm so glad that that younger artists growing up seem to have a better grasp on how to manage their own narrative at least they seem to it's different now it's like you
you have more control but you're also like what the hell is going on like I don't know you know there's so many different ways of now um putting your music out there and and giving yourself like do I give too much do I give too little what do I do yeah it's like am I giving away too much or or like you know am I am I not giving enough and so it's it's that thing now
where like yeah you can you can you can put everything out there or you can like still keep it locked in and maybe that's better for your sanity but you just know that people are just like desperate for like information desperate for you know they want to know you they want to know every single thing that goes into a song they now want to know a song before it
even comes out it gets played on the radio you can talk directly to us about that whereas that was exactly the same back in the 2008 nines and teens but there were people that like forcing you you to tell people or like chasing you for that information yes literally in the street yes I mean that's their job I I again it was like a naivety thing I I it was all new to me and part of it I
guess I started to realize quite quickly was that I had to do interviews and I had to tell people about myself and you know in a kind of innocent way I was like well this is my family background I come from like I don't know people like to say like the modest background thing um you know I don't come from anything um and uh and I was really honest about
that because I felt like it just showed people where my music was coming from and that was just my story and then suddenly The Narrative was just like my my background and that I come from like a poor family and um and you know stuff to do with my family and so it became all kind of focused on that and then and then you know people people were enjoying songs
like in the music I was putting out clearly because I was like selling records but it just felt like it just the wires go across why I got cross and it stopped being about my music and more about and that's what happens you know that's the the tricky thing is that you end up becoming somebody that people are interested in far beyond the music that you do that's
how they get you right that's how Society gets you is they they keep saying it's about the music it's about the music but they find a way they make it something much bigger it's like you agreed to go and take part in a Royal event because of the music yeah because you were asked to sing that's right and then it ain't about the music Ellie it's about the Royal event I know that oh my
gosh yeah that was crazy I'll always remember that because just the hype around that whole thing was was mad whose wedding was it at the time Prince William's wedding it was the big one yeah it was the big one yeah I couldn't remember to Catherine yeah um so um it was yeah at the time you know it was it was a big thing um you know it was like Jay-Z was gonna
be the Gaga was going to be there and and I was just like that's like you know in the background knowing that it should be me and like my uh my little band and um that was that was mad but yeah that's history as well it's no longer a festival or a moment that you can trace back to when your life changed that it is history but you know they loved they
loved the album it's funny isn't it you know because someone who suffered from from anxiety as well the stuff I make the biggest deal out of is the stuff that everyone thinks is the smallest like what just like you know like I have a conversation with someone and think that they got the wrong end of of my what I was trying to say and my wife would be like I was there it was fine
but I'll be like three days into it still obsessing over there in my life and it's just I've got to shake it off at some point but yet you can stand in a cathedral Royal Wedding of the future king and queen of England totally fine totally fine I am fine that is my like safe place when I say I promise you like I don't know what it is I just when I'm on
stage I can I can sing for hours but you know put me in a room with people or like last night at a party yeah I don't know what to do did you go to VF for any fear yes I did I mean that is a room to be anxious in it is a high level people are people of people are friendly like it's not like um uh you know I I generally I don't think people recognize me especially with brown hair
um but people are friendly you know they come and introduce themselves met some like you know famous people so was it fun last night it was it was fun I'm like trying out some new things and um I am thinking about doing a bit of acting um so it was nice to just meet creatives you know I met some like script writers has met some directors and some
producers and just like you said like La isn't just like actors and you know it's not just like the glamor it's like all the people who are working on things for years like scripts and screenplays and they're just like you know one of the films like I heard that um they're All Quiet on the Western Front they were working on it for like 10 years or something and this woman was just like
funding it from Scotland I know that she was like paying for it all herself and you know these people who like work so so hard so it's not it's not glamorous like I was I was meeting the people you know behind the scenes who um were just like living it I never know what to expect from you especially after the last couple of albums I'm like okay you
can swerve across across the freeway of life good but you definitely sound like you and your friends had fun like you say getting back into pop music I honestly think it was like a month I I we did this a month after I had Arthur and I was in some kind of weird post baby like post-bath trance exactly yeah yeah the whole thing was a trans a pregnancy too it's clearly put me in I
don't put me in some kind of good writing space you know who am I singing about like who's this who's the Savior I don't know like I was just imagining I had this kind of picture like this vision of like somebody walking into a dance floor and just this kind of overly sickly romantic notion of somebody saving someone from the depths of everybody else Fades into the shadows
and your lip just dancing in the middle of the dance floor beneath the mirror ball I'm happy if I make a song that doesn't sound like anything else and um and you know errorless I like I like I like making music that could be from any time I wonder kind of how how high you really set the bar for yourself there when it comes to listening back to something
the idea of of being inspired versus kind of being overly attached to a sound a feeling or a mood of the moment because it's moving all the time around you and you have great taste so I know you listen to music all the time I do yeah I mean I I am I am like a tick tocker I'm allowed to say that you are because you're good at it people like you on it no what the the videos that
you know my label make and um management may just you know don't often get the same like attention as me just like coming home you know late night dancing in my kitchen off because it's not authentic people want to know you're in charge yeah but then it gets addictive and then you're like oh you know you can just keep pushing it like how far do I go with how how much people
know about me like how much of a dork I am you know um like how I feel like the mysterious thing is just like gone you can't no one can do that anymore it's nice to know where I perform these new songs it just feels so good to perform them it doesn't feel like I'm like I'm using myself up so much I don't feel like it doesn't feel as exhausting I think people listen to your music
especially the heavier moments when you have to go through that process and they think like man you know Ali's wearing it I'm sure you are but I like that you showed that other side of you you seem just in a good place yeah I am like I I feel like music is good I feel good about that I don't I don't you know like sit around and wait things to happen to
me but there are moments that just were meant you know meant to be I don't it's not like I'm like constantly like seeking uh like you know I'm not constantly seeing any collaborations but when they happen they happen the anxiety is is is the hardest thing for me and it is a it is something I have to deal with on a daily basis but like I said when I come out of it
it's just the best feeling in the world the fact that we're still able to connect and talk about music and life is not lost on me you know I'm very grateful the fact that we're both still here and we're all still here we are grateful all musicians anyone who's ever come across you and been lucky enough to be interviewed by you we're so grateful for you so thank you [Music]