2023 was a stellar year for Lindsay Ell – and so far 2024 is shaping up in similar fashion.
After making her C2C main stage debut last March, the singer-songwriter – beloved among UK fans for her heartfelt, honest lyrics and incredible guitar skills – also picked up a Canadian Country Music Award and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award as host of Canada's Got Talent, as well as working alongside Maren Morris, Zac Brown Band and HARDY. If that wasn't enough, she's also been performing as part of Shania Twain's band, including on the megastar's UK tour last month.
Whilst she was here, I spoke to Lindsay about her experience of working with Shania, what she loves about UK fans, working on new music and more.
I guess the first thing to say is: welcome back to the UK!
Thank you so much. It feels so amazing to be here. And you know, to be back in a place that has the best fans on the whole face of the planet [laughs].
How has this trip been for you? Any highlights?
Oh, my goodness. I mean, playing Glastonbury was definitely so wild. I'd never been to Glastonbury before and to be at a festival that was just so iconic and so legendary. You know, of course, Shania played the legends spot. And we had 140,000 people at our show, which is just wild. It's hard to even take that many people in when you're on stage in the moment. It's like, ‘there's just so many people here'. And then we had such an incredible tour and we got to finish the tour at BST in Hyde Park. And it was unbelievable. It was probably my favorite show on the whole tour, just that stage is so special and so big. That LED screen is… like the span of that LED screen is so wide and it has a tree in the middle of the stage. And it was just such a good show and a fun show. And then the cherry on top of it all was I got to play my own headlining show in London the day after at the Omeara, which was sold out and all the fans who came were just so so sweet. And a lot of them have been following me since the beginning of my career. And so they knew every word to every song and it's just been an amazing run.
What's it been like being out on the road with Shania? As I know you've been playing with her in her residency and now out on tour as well. Has she given you any advice or anything like that?
Yeah, she's been so sweet and generous with her time and just welcoming me into her world. You know, it's amazing to work with an artist who I've looked up to since the beginning of my career, actually the reason why I started singing in the first place. And so the fact that life has been this beautiful, full circle moment, and I have been able to work with the person who inspired me to sing in the first place is just wild. And probably my most favourite thing that I've learned from her is she's just so empowering to all the people who work for her, like she really wants to lift people up to be the best version of themselves and challenge everybody in such a great way. And I appreciate that so much. And even watching her as a leader, how she just lifts us all up, you know, it always comes from the top down.
You've also mentioned your headline show in London, so I wanted to ask you what your favourite thing is about UK fans…
They listen, they just care about lyrics and guitar solos. And obviously that matters to me a lot. And very rarely I play for audiences who are just so dedicated to the music, you know, they don't just know the songs that were singles, they know the entire album. And they know what each song is about. And they know also songs that I've just posted on YouTube, too, for a few people, and they've seen that, and they've learned those songs too. And so it's just amazing, their dedication, that when they fall in love with artists, they really want to discover every aspect of what that artist does.
You've also recently moved into TV presenting hosting Canada's Got Talent. What is that experience like compared to performing and being onstage as an artist?
It's been so fun. I've so enjoyed my time doing Canada's Got Talent, of course very similar to BGT. It's CGT and the panel of judges are so talented, and I've just learned so much from them. And Shania is actually on this next season, so I'm so excited that I can now bring her into my world as she brought me into one of hers and so it's been really exciting to look to next season. But from doing it the past three years, I've just learned so much from the likes of Howie Mandel and Lilly Singh and the incredible judges that have been on our panel. And while the worlds of TV and music are so different, and yet they fit so well together. And so it's another side of my brain really than playing music, but I love it so much. I find it so fun. It feels kind of like a nice vacation from my music career.
Is there anything from that that you've taken into your music and performances, or vice versa – anything from being on stage you've applied to hosting?
Yeah, I'd say definitely, I've learned things vice versa and have overlapped in either direction. I feel watching all of the contestants perform on CGT – as just like BGT, it's a talent show, so you see a little bit of everything, you see incredible singers and musicians, but you also see acrobats and dancers and magicians. You see all different kinds of talent and how entertaining people can be or how not entertaining people can be. You really get the feeling of a performance in the first 30 seconds. And it's been something that I've really taken back into my music career of how to keep an audience really captured and how to be as potent as you can be. And as clear with your message as you can be. I think sometimes when we get too in the midst of something we're making, sometimes we lose focus on that.
And it's been a really nice reminder working on CGT, at the end of the day, our job is being entertainers. And some of the best acts that I've seen on the TV show are just so entertaining. And it doesn't mean necessarily they're the most talented at this thing or that thing. But if you bring all of yourself as a person, and you're entertaining while doing so, those are often the most successful. So that's been a really nice reminder.
And then the other way around, I mean, I have always been rewarded the most when I'm just most authentically myself. And on TV, sometimes that can also get clouded because you're not answering to yourself, you're not your own boss anymore, you're speaking to a panel of producers and people in big trucks and lots of people wearing headsets, and so sometimes you cannot lose your authenticity, but you just can get brought in so many different directions. And so it's been a really good reminder for my music career to just still be myself and still show up on screen as me and and then just do my job as the host of that show as well. So yeah, I've learned a lot of things in either direction.
You've touched on this element of authenticity and I know this is something you've been doing with the music you've been putting out recently and then with things like documenting your experience of going to therapy on Instagram. Is that approach something that's particularly important to you, both personally and as an artist?
Very much so Laura. I think that authenticity is one of our greatest gifts, and one of our most special gifts. I think it's when we can share ourselves with each other that we feel the most connected with each other. And I think in sharing my story, and then really in hearing other people's stories, it's really inspired me to share mine. And then from sharing the things that I've been through, I've really seen a firsthand experience of how it can help other people and how it can affect them in a good way to inspire them to go to therapy or to reach out to a friend or to get help with something that they're going through. And so it's this chain reaction that happens. And when I really got hip to that, in my own life, I was like, “alright, well, not only is sharing things like my my journey over the past few years, also an accountability thing with myself because the minute you tell it to the internet and millions of people watching, it's like, okay, I'm definitely going to be held more accountable to staying with this”. But mostly it's just hoping that my message can inspire somebody else out there and it can be that good will chain link reaction.
I also wanted to ask you about winning the CCMA Gary Slaight Music Humanitarian Award – tell us more about that…
Yeah, thank you so much for asking about that. I mean, I think awards are wonderful things. And I also think they can come and go pretty quickly. You know, I think that oftentimes, the industry is more concerned with the awards than actually fans. I don't think fans really care about awards, I think they care more about the music that an artist is releasing, and that's how it should be. But I will say this award, this Humanitarian Award feels so different. And when I got involved in the music industry, when I started, like, gosh, 20 years ago, I knew I wanted to ultimately use whatever platform I built for good, and hope that I could have a positive impact and helping people around the world, regardless of the cause, and hopefully many different causes over the course of my career. And when I've seen people accept humanitarian awards, I always am in just such awe of everything they've accomplished in their career. And so I'm like, “it is way too early in my career for me to win something like this”.
And when the CCMA called me to tell me that I am getting this honour this year, I was like, “Whoa, this is so wild”. I feel just very special, I guess, that they'd want to honour me this year. And I was like, “is it too early in my career?” And if anything, they were like, “no, we want to acknowledge you for everything that you've done”. And then I look at that and be like, “Okay, well, this just encourages me to want to do more”. And so I'm so excited about this, it's truly honoured is the word that I keep saying because I feel that wholeheartedly. And in September, when we celebrate this, I feel like I'm just going to be inspired to do more and figure out how I can help more people and how I can have more of an impact for people in need. And anytime I travel around, it's wild, you really get to see the needs around the world and how there are so many places that you can help and you can give back. And so I feel like I'm just going through this season of my life where I'm really, really inspired to start a lot of of new things in that direction.
This is kind of a two-part question – what song do you wish you'd written? And is there a song from your career you're particularly proud of?
Oh my gosh, yeah. A song that I wish I had written. I mean, I always say ‘Can't Make You Love Me' by Bonnie Raitt is one of my favourite songs. The honesty in that song and just the rawness of the lyric is wild to me. I mean, it still makes me cry, watching Bonnie, I was able to watch her play it live a few times. And just that is pure vulnerability to me. When I hear that song it just even gives me chills talking about it. So yeah, if I wish I would have written a song it probably would be that one
And probably a song that I've written that I'm most proud of. I mean, in the light of all this humanitarian stuff, I wrote a song called ‘Make You'. And through that song started my own foundation called The Make You Movement that I've been able to help a lot of different charities around the world. So I'm probably most proud of writing a song like ‘Make You' because it really sort of encapsulates my story as a human being and also has ignited all of these incredible efforts and interactions that I never even thought would be possible and saw coming. And so it's a good indication to me of when you make art that's pure and that has good intention of how it can expand into these like really, really beautiful things.
What's the rest of the year looking like for you?
I have been so busy in the studio. I've been recording in Brooklyn, New York, working on this next record with my producer Doug Schott and we are so so close to releasing a few songs, I just, I'm a perfectionist. So it's like tying up the last little loose ends always takes the longest, it seems, when you're almost at the finish line, those are the last few details that take a long time. But I'm just so excited to release this new music. So hopefully you will hear something new for me in the fall. And I will be playing with Shania throughout the course of this year, as well as my own tour dates, and some headlining dates to come from me next year. So it's gonna be exciting.
Can you give us any hints about the new music?
I think for the first time in a while, or maybe the first time ever in my career, I'm just making music that I think sounds cool. And instead of making music that I think is going to get on a certain radio station or a certain playlist, I'm just making music that feels really good to my soul, and it's weird how that seems so obvious. But when you're thrown into all these directions, and you're trying to make music that's going to be successful, and you're trying to make a whole bunch of rooms of people in suits happy, how that creative, artistic direction can be swayed. And so this music, I feel it has a lot more pop sensibilities. It's like if The 1975 and Maggie Rogers combined, and sort of like if those two things came together.
And have you got any plans to come back to the UK at some point?
Oh, my gosh, I have just enjoyed this past week so much. I feel like I've done a lot of the touristy things in London. So I feel like I have been living like a local this past week. And I have been eating all of these things that I've never had before. And I've been to the UK so many times. I've been watching a lot of football, I've been getting my hands dirty planting things and in an allotment. I've just had a very local time this week and I cannot wait to come back. So I'm already looking at my calendar being like, “Okay, can I get here again before the end of the year?”
Lastly, I've got to ask – how's Hendrix [Lindsay's dog]?
Hendrix is so good. I have been FaceTiming her every day. It's so hard to leave our animals at home when we have to travel. I'm on the road for a month. So I finally get to see her next week and I cannot wait to squeeze that little face. But she's very well cared for. She is getting pampered at the moment and just sleeping on very fluffy, soft beds and getting fed lots of treats. So she's having the time of her life.
Lindsay Ell's latest single, ‘Sweet Spot', is out now.
