We had the opportunity to chat with the lovely Ellie Goulding days before her tour stop here in Vancouver, and chatted about touring, songwriting, and the follow-up to her debut album Lights. Check out her playlist contribution here and enjoy the interview!
asapmusicblog.ca: Just wanted to say, great performance on Jimmy Kimmel last night!
Ellie Goulding: Oh, thanks so much!
a: So Jimmy Kimmel was your first live TV performance on a US network, and you’re currently on your first North American tour. How has the experience been for you so far?
EG: It’s been great – it’s been kind of a rollercoaster of everything. There’s been moments where it’s been really tiring, and there’s been moments where it’s been absolutely insanely brilliant. I feel like it’s been a standard tour where you have a few dramas, like I had to cancel a show and I was kind of devastated – I got ill and run down, and I was very very busy. It’s been crazy. I’m happy to still be alive. (laughs)
a: Have you been feeling better?
EG: I’ve had a really horrible chesty chesty cough for about two weeks, and then I was very ill – a flu thing. But I think it was a combination of being very busy, and tired – airplanes and air conditioning. My body just doesn’t really know what’s going on. But I’m good now, I’m in my bathroom, chilled out.
a: There’s a lot of demos and earlier versions of your songs from your debut album “Lights” floating around online. Besides your cover ‘Your Song’ and even ‘Home’ on the re-release, these kind of show a more stripped down, and even the folk part of your music. Is that something you’re getting a lot of feedback on?
EG: I think they’re not on the folk side, but actually just my voice. The style of my first album in the UK, Lights, it was very processed and very worked with. I was really happy for my voice to be manipulated, really happy to have echo to it, a little bit of reverb – I was happy for it to be completely messed around with, because that’s how I felt at the time, I wanted it to be an electronic album. However, now I realize that my voice is such a strong tool to me, more than anything that I have, and nothing that shows my real deeper emotions more than when I sing. I think that for the next record, I want my voice to be more of a feature than it has been and I think I’ve taken it for granted, because when I released “Your Song”, it was the most incredible reaction I’ve ever had to anything. People were not even knowing that it was me at first, I think there was an interest, it’s a real great experiment into my strengths and my weaknesses. I’m really happy about that.
a: Speaking of emotions, a big part of music when I listen to it is the lyrical content. The lyrics you write read really well as poetry, as a songwriter, what is your process like for writing songs?
EG: It really varies. It can be anything like from going into a studio and starting up a beat, or a guitar – it really depends on my mood. Sometimes I write and write on my computer, it really takes a moment or like a phase to get words out, it takes a lot to get something worthwhile down. I’m wary whenever I start writing, if I feel like I’m forcing myself, nothing good really comes out – and if I really wait and take my time, it makes such a difference to my songs, I think.
a: There’s an honesty and fearlessness to you that kind of stands out, not only with your music, but also you as a person. Do you have a particular approach in dealing with your critics?
EG: I think that it’s really important to have people, to divide people with your music – it’s more interesting. Like I’ve had people say “I think Ellie could try not working with this person, or not doing this, not doing electronic music”. I’ve never changed due to anybody else, and I think the fact that I’ve stuck by so strongly my album and the way I made it and the final product – that’s the reason why I’ve had such a successful year, because I’ve stayed true to myself, and I’ve stayed honest. I think that’s the way you really win people over, by being completely honest and by not pretending to be something you’re not, basically.
a: Although Lights was just recently released in North America, obviously it was released in the UK about a year or so ago. What’s the status of your sophomore record?
EG: I’m thinking about it. In my head I’ve got a timeline, where there’s certain things I have to get done, some things I have to conquer before I get started on the album. I’ve been thinking about it a lot – I’m not probably going to start until I get back from tour.
a: If there was a single message that you would want your music to convey, what would that be?
EG: I think it would be… hope. I want people to feel like my music is hopeful, and I feel that a lot of my songs are relatable. I think that hope is a word that means a lot to me, and you’ll always have hope for everything. I was never going to be a singer, and I didn’t think that things would ever go this well. I think that [hope] is an important word for me.
