Elles Bailey has the world at her feet. Her highly acclaimed latest album “Shining in the Half Light” has received exceptional reviews, while hitting #1 in the UK Official Blues Charts, #2 in the UK Official Americana Charts & #4 in the UK Official Indie Charts. It has also shown an added maturity to her song writing, all the while having to face the challenges of creating and recording during the pandemic. Add into the mix the fact that Elles was expecting her first child and you really can see how much she embraces “the challenge”.
The Americana/Blues singer has already picked up awards for her previous album ‘Road I Call Home’, collecting Album of the Year and Artist of the Year at the UK Blues Awards back in 2020. It will be no surprise to see ‘Shining in the Half Light’ doing very much the same.
With Elles receiving huge plaudits across the UK & Europe not only for her vocal & song writing talents but also for her incredible live performances, The Rockpit felt it was time we introduced Australia to Elles Bailey and so we managed to get some wonderful Zoom time to discuss the album, touring and finding out she has an obvious fear of spiders…
Sean: Hi Elles. How are you doing?
Elles: Hi Sean. Good thanks.
Sean: I’m just coming to the end of the day here and yours is probably just starting.
Elles: Where are you calling from?
Sean: Perth in Western Australia.
Elles: [laughs] I did not know that!
Sean: Don’t be fooled by the English accent! So, while most artists are starting to dust themselves off and begin to work again, you must be ready for a sit down and a cup of tea. The promo for the album has been intense – you seem to have been here, there, and everywhere these last few months!
Elles: I will in fact tell you I have been in bed the last few days because I have been so exhausted and just so unwell, hence the little croak in my voice – but I’m absolutely fine now. Just left with this croak in the voice. Do you know what? I needed that and spent my time binge-watching The Last Kingdom and doing some spread sheets and it felt so good [laughs]. I just didn’t have to worry about anything. I was so weak I couldn’t even lift my son!
Sean: Well, you most certainly needed the break because the start of 2022 has been incredible for you. “Shining in the Half Light” hit Number 1 in the UK Blues Charts and Number 2 in the Americana Charts and the reviews it has received have been superb. We would love you to come down here to visit us here in Australia at some point too.
Elles: I definitely think we can do that, but I think you may need to have a word with the spiders and tell them to leave Elles Bailey alone [laughs]. Tell them, “She’s coming into town and you guys have just got to hide away and then she’ll be fine.”
Sean: I’m happy to be your personal spider protection bodyguard!
Elles: Amazing. I definitely need one of those [laughs].
Sean: They only come out at night. You’ll be fine.
Elles: That’s the trouble. Musicians only come out at night too [laughs].
Sean: Its ok – the snakes eat the spiders, so you’ll be fine. And the sharks eat the snakes – it’s the circle of life [laughs]. We digress. Thank you so much for chatting to us at The Rockpit because we do love to cover everything from Blues to metal and to classic rock and to hear this album you have released has just been wonderful so congratulations from all of us here – it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s an album that has pulled me all over the place, emotionally. One minute my foot is almost stamping a hole in the floor and the next I’m reaching for the tissues because it tugs at the heart strings. It’s an incredible body of work.
Elles: Ah, thank you. Because I’ve listened to it so much. Before I release my albums, I listen to them over and over again. I listen because I’m trying to work out what order the songs should go in, which is so important, and it is because I want to take you on a journey – I want you to be speeding down the motorway, you know, hair blowing in the wind and that kind of stuff and then the next minute I want to break your heart. I forget that people have only heard it for the last three of four weeks and are only just getting to know it for the first time but he’s so nice to hear that it’s doing very much what I wanted it to do.
Sean: It was great to see those intimate record store gigs you did to promote the album. One of our new UK reviewers was at one of them and he said just how good it was.
Elles: I loved doing those. It’s been such a bizarre time for everyone but trying to make any type of plans to release an album was incredibly difficult. We were trying to plan tour dates just as the third wave hit here in the UK. With Omicron, no one know what was going to happen with that. I had lots of different plans lined up: Plan A, Plan B, Plan C and then I just thought a record store tour is the best route to go down. There wouldn’t be a huge amount of people, we could keep it under control, and it ended up being such a beautiful thing to do, even just to strip the songs back and see how they work in their purest of forms, which is how they were born. They start with a guitar and voice and it’s taking all the fancy production off and just saying, “This is the song, this is the story, this is why I wrote it, and this is us now!” I love that because it’s as honest as you can get as a songwriter.
Sean: Something that blew me away that I read in your bio was that you had around forty songs to select from. That’s an incredible amount of material to shave down to ten album tracks.
Elles: I mean, they’re not all good [laughs]…
Sean: Don’t tell them that! [laughs]
Elles: It’s been a while since I had released a studio album. I had to do a written interview about song writing and they had asked about how you feel post-release and I said that I normally feel fine, I’m excited, I have a tour to do, and this and that… and then I started thinking about it and it suddenly dawned on me that fear is what I really think about after the album has come out. I have the fear that I have to do this again, I don’t know what I’m going to say and out of those forty songs that I wrote maybe only one or two of them may even make it on to the next album, but I need to almost have a clean slate when I start doing the next one. When ‘Shining in the Half Light’ came out I felt that fear creeping back in again and I thought, “Oh, what’s next!” [laughs]
Sean: What was next was a record store tour and a Number 1 album, so it wasn’t too bad was it [laughs]
Elles: No! [laughs] The song writer held the fear and the artist thought, “Wow, this is amazing!”
Sean: I must talk about the album opener ‘Cheats & Liars.’ If Hollywood make a third ‘Young Guns’ movie then this could very well become the theme tune, but jokes aside it is quite a serious song. One thing that has seemed to be universal around the world is the lack of support for the arts and for musicians during the pandemic. Governments around the world seemed to hand out emergency funding for many industries but once again the arts suffered. It’s quite poignant that we have had some devastating floods over here on the East coast these past few weeks and the first people to put their hands up to put on fundraising concerts and give their time & talents are the musicians, who over the past two years have received nothing.
Elles: I got goosebumps just hearing that and kind of not in a good way either. Musicians are always the first to do anything we can because we know music transcends everything. It speaks to people in a way no other medium does. Music is such an incredible powerful tool, and we know that, and we know we can do so many good things. It was heartbreaking listening to politicians flippantly saying, “Well, they are going to have to retrain!” And your thinking, “We’re the people helping people get through this.” What would we have done in the lockdown without Netflix, without entertainment, without music, without comedians… these are the people that were doing whatever we could to reach people in a time of isolation and that’s what ‘Shining in the Half Light’ was. It was for people who got in front of a screen and thought, “You know what? I don’t know who I am without the show or the splendour or the lights but I’m going to do my best because right now people need us and quite frankly, we need them. I needed it as much as the audience needed it and that’s what ‘Cheats & Liars’ was all about… that’s what the album was inspired by and yes, it broke my heart watching musicians and any form of artist have to put down years and years of training and think, “I just can’t do this anymore.”
Sean: Music especially has been a therapy for so many people.
Elles: It has, and I found it so incredible, especially in Lockdown Season 1, which for us it was the Hot Edition because we had a heatwave at the time too. It was shocking that in the UK the sun comes out, but it gives people something to talk about. What I loved though was that I saw communities grow and watched fans become friends with other fans across the world because they found they loved the same artist, or the same style of music and I just thought that was a really beautiful thing. I know that so many people have met up with each other post who would never had met up had it not been for the situation that we have been in. In a time where we couldn’t leave our house, barriers were actually being broken down and I found that inspiring at a time which quite frankly was very uninspiring.
Sean: I noticed that ‘Shining in the Half Light’ gave you the opportunity to collaborate with a whole host of song writers. Was that something you decided to do deliberately or was that something that evolved with how things were playing out over there over the last two years?
Elles: Quite a few of the songs were written pre-pandemic. I was due to go to Nashville in May 2020 to record this album and I had a whole host of songs but tracks like ‘Cheats & Liars’ & ‘Shining in the Half Light’ were certainly inspired by the events of the last couple of years and for my view from within isolation. I wrote a lot very early in 2020 so it was nice because I was in the room with people. I do love co-writing. I always come in with ideas – sometimes you write something that you just pluck out of nowhere, other times you come in with an idea and want to explore it. Its great to get someone else’s take on it and also because I’m not a guitarist, and my songs are very guitar driven, I like to write around what the guitar is doing. So, that means I like to be in the room with someone who can play the guitar.
Sean: That helps [laughs]
Elles: [laughs] Yes, with Blues, Root & Country it definitely helps.
Sean: One song that tears me apart is the incredible ‘Halfway House.’ It’s absolutely stunning Elles. I had it on again through headphones before this call and the harmonies behind your vocal are just hauntingly beautiful.
Elles: That is the power music has. I remember the first time I hear the harmonies go on. I was six and a half months pregnant when we did the tracking of the album, and the harmonies were going to be done in February of 2021 and literally days before we were due to go into the studio, I developed a liver condition which you only get when your pregnant. It just meant that I had to be in hospital every week and be monitored just to make sure everything was ok. It meant I couldn’t be in the studio when the singers were doing these amazing vocals but with the joys of technology there was an app called Audio Movers that could plug me right into the desk so I could hear it on my phone, in real time and then with Facetime on my iPad. I remember being in the hospital being able to say, “I like this” or “I don’t like that – try this” and I remember them doing ‘Halfway House’ and just thinking, “This is unreal! This is so much more than I ever imagined” and it will always stay with me. When I heard the girls, I was like this is what I want from this album!
Sean: I played it through my surround system and loved it by then through headphones it took it to another level.
Elles: Could you hear the tape?
Sean: Tape?
Elles: We recorded it to tape.
Sean: I’ll have to have an even closer listen now.
Elles: It’s funny because you can hear it come on. So, you record it to tape and then you dump it digitally so you can actually hear the tape coming on [laughs] its quite amazing. It took me about a hundred listens to realise what it was.
Sean: One thing you mentioned was touring and I saw some dates had already been announced, which must be so exciting for you. I know you embrace being out on tour and performing live and you get to do it all again in May, June & July around the UK.
Elles: I’ve just had confirmation of some exciting news I can tell you – I will be going out on tour with Don McLean on his 50th Anniversary American Pie Tour in September & October.
Sean: Oh Elles, that’s fantastic news. Congratulations.
Elles: I’m so excited to announce this.
Sean: What I love is that fact we have so many of the younger new breed of Blues artists producing some wonderful music and people like Don still have so much they can hand down to you all.
Elles: For me, we all kind of have our own American Pie story and there aren’t that many artists who have something like that. That song and that record but especially that song has just travelled everywhere. I remember being six years old and just singing every single word in my parents bedroom and telling everyone that it was the best song ever written…ever! [laughs] I was six and now I get to go on tour with him.
Sean: I wish I could get back over to the UK for one of those shows. Wonderful stuff. Another little thing your doing is heading out to the Med to jump on JB’s cruise ship. This year Joe Bonamassa has a really great line-up on his Keeping the Blues Alive Cruise but it so refreshing to see so many female artists on the bill. Blues has been quite male dominated over the years so its so great to see so many wonderful women up there, front and centre playing & performing some exceptional music.
Elles: Yeah, its going to be good. I’m really keen on something called ‘Key Change’ which is run by the PRS and they ask festivals to pledge a 50-50 gender balance and I do think it is so important. Things are happening in the Bluesworld but I do feel more needs to be done. Its an issue that always needs to be talked about because the more beautiful, colourful voices we have the better the scene will be I think.
Sean: And of course albums like ‘Shining in the Half Light’ are going to give younger people the impetus to maybe want to start playing an instrument or writing songs.
Elles: Exactly. I look at artists like Bonnie Raitt, Beth Hart and Tedeschi Trucks Band and they are the people that made me want to do this and I hope one day someone will look at me and feel the same. But the only way that can happen is if female artists get a chance to headline festivals and things like that. If a 16-year old Elles had been at the Reading Festival and seen that 95% of the bill were men then she may have thought it was a male dominated industry and “only for men”. You just don’t know. So that why its really important. The more colourful the threads, the more beautiful the tapestry.
Sean: So, with that in mind, where did it all begin for you? Was it a musical home upbringing or was school where it all started for you?
Elles: It was home but also school as well. I went to an amazing school where they massively encouraged music, drama, art – it wasn’t just about the academics and sport. So, I felt I really had a great all-round education, but music and drama has always been my love. My dad was in a rock ‘n’ roll band and my mum sings in church, so we’ve just been surrounded by music my whole life. I was eight years old when I declared that I was going to be a pop star but my idea of being a pop star was limos, Spice Girls, fancy parties, Wembley Stadium, and that is what I wanted to be. I’m very glad I’m not that [laughs]. I feel I’ve taken a very honest route to get to where I am today. It’s been a really incredible journey. The reality may look a little different, but the dream is still the same. I just wanted to make music and I get to do that.
Sean: Instead of limos, Wembley & late-night parties you get interviews on Radio 2, a Number 1 album, intimate record store shows and a cruise in the Mediterranean – not too bad then [laughs]
Elles: [laughs] I get a boat everybody, come on!
Sean: I’m sure you have a ton of interviews lined-up for the rest of the day so I won’t keep you but just a couple of fun ones to finish with, if I may. If I booked you in to a restaurant and you could be joined by 3 guests from the music world, dead or alive, who would you invite?
Elles: John Prine, Mavis Staples, and Bonnie Raitt.
Sean: Great table.
Elles: Oh, and Taylor Swift.
Sean: That’s four but I’ll let it slide just this time [laughs]. What was the last album you listened to?
Elles: That would be Ferris & Sylvester’s latest album ‘Superhuman.’ Cracking band – a duo from London.
Sean: I’ll check it out. I’ve saved my favourite until last: If you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what soon would you choose?
Elles: Oh God! That’s a real tough one. I think one of the greatest songs ever written is John Prine’s ‘Angel From Montgomery.’ I mean ‘American Pie’ is definitely up there too. I’m going to go with the absolute honest route for me rather than the one that made me the most money [laughs] and that’s ‘Angel From Montgomery.’ It’s just stunning.
Sean: Elles, it’s been an absolute pleasure to chat to you and on behalf of us all at The Rockpit we wish you all the best for the album and tour as well as the newly announced Don McLean dates and Joe Bonamassa’s cruise. 2022 is shaping up to be a huge year for you and we wish you every success.
Elles: Been so nice to talk to you Sean. Thank you so much for having me.
Find out more about Elles Bailey HERE
