Lindsay Ell is a ball of energy, fire and passion with both her music and living her life. She is a dedicated musician who may be a newcomer to the country music scene but has been playing music her entire life.
As she enters the scene, Ell has been capitalizing on social media to get the word out about her music. She has released two singles to country music radio, “Trippin’ On Us” and “Shut Me Up” and she has many more to come.
Pop-Break sat down with Lindsay at FarmBorough to discuss her passion for playing guitar, the first song she ever learned, when we can expect her first album and how she loves connecting with fans through social media.
Did you ever expect to play a music festival in New York City?
What?! Shut the front door. It’s amazing.
So I know a lot of people think that you’re new to country but you’ve been playing music for years.
For years.
Does it bother you that people don’t seem to know that you’ve been in it forever?
No. It’s kind of like the underlying rule. It takes 10 years to become an overnight success. Or sometimes 13 years or 10,000 hours or however you want to measure it, but I’ve been playing music all my life. I started playing guitar when I was six-years-old, or started playing piano when I was six-years-old and picked up the guitar when I was eight and ever since it has just been a part of me. It’s always been what I want to do. I knew I couldn’t really do anything else. This is just what my passion is. It’s like when I wake up in the morning I’m like, ‘Well Mom, I don’t have a Plan B because this is what I’m going to do. Like I’m going to figure it out eventually.’ So it has just been a crazy journey, moving down to Nashville and it has been home now for the past five years, getting to tour the world with The Band Perry and playing shows like crazy in eleven different countries. We just got back from Europe with Mr. Luke Bryan which was incredible.
That’s insane.
It is kind of crazy but it’s really all about the journey of it. As impatient as new artists get, it’s really important sometimes to take a deep breath and take a step back and be grateful for where you’ve come.
Absolutely. Now I know you say that you played piano and you play guitar and I know you play a bunch of other instruments. What’s your favorite instrument to play?
Definitely guitar.
Well, you’re a sick guitarist.
I’m definitely a huge guitar nerd. I play piano, a little bit of fiddle, a little bit of bass but guitar and me, like I sleep with one on my bed every night.
What was your first guitar? What type of guitar was it?
It was a pawn shop black Ibanez and I loved that thing and I took it around the house with me everywhere I went. I learned “Stairway to Heaven” is my first song on guitar.
That’s your first song? And you were eight? I was eight years old. My dad was huge into classic rock so he definitely like had a lot of songs for me to learn and I was like I want to learn everything!
I know you had your first official single back in 2013, huge song, great job, love it.
Thank you.
When are we getting a new full length album?
So we’ve been working on a whole bunch of new music, so excited for everybody to hear. We should have another single out in a couple of months.
That’s exciting.
Definitely before the end of the year I want to release an EP. I just can’t wait to finally get music out. You know I haven’t really released an EP or a CD ever since I started playing so I’m really excited. I feel like it’s finally the right time and we’re getting the right songs together so it’ll be good.
I know you mentioned, obviously you’ve toured with The Band Perry, Luke Bryan, a lot of different artists, who is your dream two artists you could tour with?
I got to share the stage a couple of times with Keith Urban and he is just my idol as far as a guitar player, a songwriter, performer, a person. So to get to tour with Keith would be really cool and my second one would be Mr. Dierks Bentley. I just have such a respect for Dierks and how hard he works and watching him, how he just, he keeps reinventing himself and his career and I’m such a fan of his songs and so yeah if I could tour with Keith and Dierks I would be one happy camper.
That would be one heck of a tour. Okay, so I know you have been playing music forever, there are some people who are just starting to get into you, obviously today I’m sure you won a slew of new fans over.
It was good!
It was a great set. Where do you want people to start with you if you were like you need to listen to this song of mine first, start here, where would it be?
We’ve been working on a lot of new music. I’ve been playing a new song recently called “By the Way.” I should have a version that people can listen to on iTunes in the near future, but I definitely say that’s a good place to start. I have tons of YouTube videos up but if people really want to get a look into me, like I do periscopes once a week where I talk to fans and I sit in my living room and let them ask me questions or request songs so if they really want to get to know me, that’s the best way, honestly.
I know you’re really active on social media. How is social media affecting what you’re doing.
It affects everything. I love social media. I think it has just changed the whole way we do things and it’s a great way that technology is reforming the industry and I think we’re still discovering ways to work with technology and the way that it’s changing everything but there are so many positives and benefits and i think once we figure out the whole streaming/selling songs, whatever is going to make sense eventually, it’s just really cool how so many things are coming together. I mean you can tap into so many different fan bases just from digitally, social media platforms.
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