Ella Clayton
With a summer of gigs on the way, folk-pop musician Ella Clayton tells us about getting her start as a busker on the streets of Berlin, the ups and downs of being an independent artist and the work she’s been doing with other musicians.
When did you become interested in pursuing a career as a musician?
I’ve played music with my family since I was tiny - my dad plays guitar, my mum’s a singer, neither of them professionally, just for the love of it - so it’s always been an integral part of who I am. Then I went to uni in Brighton, studying English Lit, and I hadn’t really considered the possibility of being a professional musician until then. I think it was the prospect of not trying that made me think “I need to give this a go!”. After second year, I took a year out and moved to Berlin, where I busked every day and sort of began introducing myself as a musician, playing folk bars. When I moved back to the UK I started performing and writing with purpose, and then in 2019 I met my producer, and it’s sort of just gone from there.
Having studied English Lit, did you consider writing or teaching?
That or marketing. I think music was a dream I didn’t allow myself to properly get behind at school. I didn’t study music because I think I was a bit shy! I’ve always loved writing, I’ve always written, and studying English Literature definitely introduced me to lots of great writers and poets I’ve drawn inspiration from since.
Do you feel that’s helped you as a songwriter?
For sure - although I wouldn’t be able to compare it to having not done that. Sometimes I’m like “Why didn’t I go to BIMM or somewhere?”, but this is the way things went and it has informed a lot of my writing, so I’m down with it. I am obsessed with lyrics and trying to find the truth of a feeling. It happens in different ways for different songs, but it’s usually that there’s an idea or a phrase or even like a chord progression that comes, and then it’s a matter of distilling over time, allowing the song to reveal itself. A song I finished recently had been with me for over a year, and then suddenly it was just like “Oh, it’s about this!” - it’s sort of out of my hands, I just have to wait for it to happen.
You released your debut album Murmurations last year - how long was that in the works?
I wrote half the songs before I graduated and had started playing them live in open mics and smaller gigs. When I met my producer, we recorded demos and new songs kept flowing out of me - that was in 2019 and the album came out in 2022, so it was quite a long process, but obviously there was a pandemic in between! It was independent with basically no budget so it happened quite slowly, but I’m so lucky to have met talented and generous people who helped me bring it to life. Lester Salmins produced, engineered and played bass, Fabio De Oliveira was on drums and Alex Crawford on guitar. We had about 15 songs from demos, so I narrowed it down to 12, and I started releasing it in chapters, like mini EPs. The full album came out in September - I always wanted it to be an album as it’s difficult to separate the songs for me, there’s a real progression in my mind. We did an album launch at The Waiting Room in Stoke Newington, with a full band for the first time, and it was one of the best nights of my life!
Have you always known what kind of musician you wanted to be, the kind of songs you wanted to write?
Initially I drew a lot of influence from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Joni Mitchell, Laura Marling - these people are like pillars in my musical education and I wanted to make music that I loved listening to. Having said that, I like space to try different things, I definitely don’t like the idea of being boxed in. My album, although it is a folk album, has branches into all kinds of sounds. I’m working on my next project now with Leo Wyatt (AKA Kinder) producing and I’m finding it’s sounding more grungy on some tracks, there’s more electric guitar stuff - it’s shifting, but I think it still very much sounds like me. I’m open to so many different influences - soul, grunge, country.
Is this new project going to become an album?
Well I have about 22 unreleased songs, and I have applied for funding - as an independent artist it is a lot to do on your own, and the first album was only possible because of other people, other artists’ generosity with their time and talent. I think it’s an EP at the moment as I just want to get some of these songs out in the world. We’ve been recording demos of the newer songs and I’ve been collaborating with different producers to see how best we can evolve the sound.
Do you collaborate with many other artists on their work?
Quite a bit! I see all my songs as collaborations because even though I write the songs, the musicians I collaborate with write their own parts and bring it alive in a way I could never - my cellist, G-lo writes her parts on my newer songs which I love. I’ve collaborated with a musician called Damian Montagu on a project that we’re both really excited to release - he writes piano parts and I come up with the top lines and lyrics. I also make more upbeat dancy music with a guy called Eli Basta (or Honey Jew) which we’re debuting this summer at a festival called Earworm.
Do you have any live performances coming up soon?
I’m playing at Latitude, on George Ezra’s stage, in July! I’m in Bath supporting Luke De Sciscio on the 8th of June, then Winchester on the 9th, then Paris Sofar Sounds on the 18th, and then Brighton on the 20th. There’ll be some others popping up here and there - I’ll be doing another headline show in September!
Words: Scott Bates