Red Suits and Big Moods: How Ellie Bleach is Powering Through the Musical Zeitgeist
- slingshotmagazine
- Oct 17, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 10, 2019
by Susanna Joseph
For our inaugural issue, Slingshot sat down with the Southend singer, tipped to become one of 2019’s hottest new acts, in a conversation reaching from Jackie Kennedy to the New Renaissance to Facebook mums. Find out how all three could become effective tools in this rising star’s creative arsenal.
Ellie Bleach doesn’t fidget. Even on a cold night like tonight, while the heater beside us keeps flicking on and off, and people at the tables around are pulling at their sleeves and fiddling in their pockets for warmth. She sits still, and when she moves it’s with purpose.
Bleach is in high demand of late, travelling across the UK to support bands like Juniore and Infinite Bisous, appearing in the line-up at the latest issue launch of Femme Collective zine, headlining the first shows with her freshly-formed band. For an artist staring down the barrel of a promising future, taking some time to be calm must be important.
On stage, Bleach crackles with energy. As her voice drawls witticisms over the 70s lo-fi nostalgia generated by her band, the four of them laugh together, relishing every solo, pulling silly faces to mark their pleasure or disgust with their performance.
“We’ve been playing as a four piece since July,” she tells me, smiling slightly. “They make shows fun. I can’t believe, looking back, I used to go to shows on my own. If I’d stayed like that, it would’ve got so boring.” A few months is not a long time, but all four members of the Ellie Bleach band are accomplished musicians with years of experience to their names, and together they seem intrinsic.
Born in Southend-On-Sea, Bleach has spent the last three years in Norwich studying English Literature at the UEA. It’s during this period that she began to attend open mic nights, relying on her voice, a guitar and an amp, gradually adding other elements like a drummer and guitarist, incorporating synths and so forth until she found the sound her moniker produces today.
“I was working out my strengths, and [decided] the voice and the lyrics have to be at the forefront.” When she talks, it’s not very remiss of the young musician’s stage presence, where her swagger is often amplified by a bright red suit and tie. But you can hear some of the care that makes her lyrics such a delight. There’s a craftsmanship to her syntax, soft and precise, like apple-picking in an orchard.
Storytelling is something that has always come quite easy. “I’m not a brilliant guitarist, not a brilliant keyboardist. Songwriting is definitely the bit that feels just natural. If I struggled with that I’d be a bit like ‘why am I doing this?’” she chuckles. Her eclectic music taste, to which she credits her moderately unproductive second year of university for getting “really good”, coupled with her literary knowledge means her pool of inspiration is deep enough to drown in. “I feel like once you go down the road of wanting to write from a character’s perspective, it’s quite hard to go back. There are infinite lives that are more interesting than mine.”
A new song, Jackie Kennedy, written in this vein, could be the next single released at a headline show this spring. It’s a fast dance number, she explains, quite unlike anything Bleach has released previously, but exploring a new direction is a cause for excitement, not worry. “I'm so impatient! I really want new songs to be done.”
The success of her summer 2018 track Leave Me Alone has been galvanizing for the 21-year-old artist. The song is acerbic, melodic and dry. It’s the perfect revenge song for a time-waster; rhythmic and chastising, you can imagine the boy it’s written about cringing while his friends bop their heads around him. “I'm proud of Leave Me Alone. I listen to that and I'm like, yeah, that's my style.”
It’s unclear whether this energy will last. Bleach seems unresisting to adaptions in her music. Duvet Day, a 2017 release, gained unprecedented popularity after being featured on a Spotify Fresh Finds playlist, but this hasn’t stopped Bleach from looking back and questioning the song. “I hate it, it's lame. The recording is basic-ass lyrics and guitar. It’s got quite a lot of plays [on Spotify] because of that playlist, but I do wish one of my good songs could have gone on there. It's because I didn't know what I was doing then!” she exclaims with mock-annoyance.
It’s not the end of the world to change your mind, after all. And if the change comes from growth, well, even better.
It’s not as if this day and age is bereft of opportunities to creatively explore. “Everyone’s a renaissance man,” she says, tapering off slightly as she digests this thought. “I I really like that. That’s the plus side to the gig economy.”
For an emerging artist, the music landscape currently can be a little bleak. Money is not easy to come by, and the industry can easily instill cynicism. But Bleach never really saw an option of just… Not bothering. "If you are a fan of an art form, I can never understand how someone isn’t compelled to make that for themselves.”
Global domination isn’t really on the agenda, just to labour for love. “I'd love to be the kind of artist that has a small but dedicated following, like I just put an album out once every three years and it'll be well received, maybe I’d tour it, then get back to writing the next one.”
Sadly, artists do not always get to craft everyone else’s perception of them. Sometimes the public or a label will fling an identity over like a robe, regardless of whether it fits. For Bleach, who was born without the lower part of her right arm, this is more of a consideration than it is for most. “I don't know any other artists with a limb deficiency. We talked about it when we were bringing out LMA, that people would be interested. I would be. But I forget that is the first thing people notice just because it's never been a thing for me.”
Her parents made sure that she never felt restricted, encouraging her in piano lessons and learning to play guitar. It’s difficult to imagine what it’s like having something that is just a part of your reality become an issue to be navigated. “It’s strange to be an object of intrigue. The worst question is in the vein of, ‘where do you get your confidence?’ because it's kind of implying that I shouldn't be confident.”
Disabled musicians are extremely thin on the ground, but I hope she doesn’t have to deal with too much bullshit as traction is gained by playing the music that she loves. “I'm fine talking about it if people want to. As long as Facebook mums don't call me inspirational. That's my worst fear.”
CHECK OUT pictures from our exclusive photoshoot with Ellie.
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