Q&A: ella jane "bored&blind"

Q&ASpotlightMusic

Mar 4

CHARMING AND UPBEAT, ELLA JANE BRINGS A POWERFUL SENSE OF RAW EMOTION TO HER MUSIC. Her new track “bored&blind” will capture you effortlessly, and keep you dancing throughout the whole song. Though only 19 years old, ella jane has quickly gained millions of streams on her music while creating a solid foundation for herself. The track marks serves as ella’s debut on the FADER Label, where she joins artists Clairo, Lewis Del Mar and Charlie Burg. Making the best of quarantine, ella jane has kept busy making music and even created the music video for “bored&blind” in her dorm room. The young artist has quickly established herself as one of the rising DIY pop artists coming out of quarantine, and is a name to be known.

ella first caught the eyes and ears of many with her debut single “The City” in 2020, and soon after was named one of the Hottest Independent Artists In The World by Music Business Worldwide. Thanks to Tik Tok and the catchy nature of follow up track "nothing else I could do", ella’s second single peaked at #18 on the Spotify US Viral 50. Originally written when ella was 16 without any production to it, “bored&blind” serves as a strong addition to ella’s growing discography.

Get ready to bop to around to “bored&blind” and learn more about ella’s journey, her influences and more below.

LUNA: How has the new year & quarantine as a whole been treating you?

ELLA JANE: Pretty well, as far as things go! I’m currently on campus, so as weird as it is to be in college right now - especially as a freshman - it’s been a relief to exist in this little bubble with mandated mask-wearing rules and frequent testing. I had a great winter break though, and got to stay in Brooklyn for a week to record “bored&blind”. It was an amazing experience and I feel super lucky :)

LUNA: How have you seen quarantine & the past year impact your creative process?

ELLA JANE: Quarantine has both helped and hindered my creative process in a lot of different ways. I think having so much time, specifically in the first couple months when my senior year of high school went online, was super valuable despite its challenges. Of course nothing was really happen so there were less new experiences to write about, but that lack of inspiration in my own life pushed me to think outside of the box in ways I hadn’t before. I also used the time to get really into production. There are soooo many resources on the internet and all over youtube - I would spend hours making demos out of samples I recorded in my room, or trying to re-create some of my favorite songs by other artists. The more I fell in love with production, the more I realized it started to change my songwriting process. Now, I write a lot more with production in mind than I used to when it was just me and a piano or guitar or whatever. It’s definitely allowed me to have some fun experimenting with different genres.

LUNA: Musical or not, who/what do you gravitate towards in terms of influences?

ELLA JANE: My greatest influences tend to be people who are really multi-faceted and like to create things in a bunch of different realms. I was always that kid with a million different hobbies so it’s always been amazing to see people I love and look up to actually succeeding in several areas. I find it so interesting when I can see that element of their personality impact the art/music they make. Tyler the Creator definitely comes to mind when I think of artists like that. His love of film and fashion and photography, etc., is something that I really resonate with, and it’s super inspiring to see those interests reflected in so many ways. Matty Healy from The 1975, Frank Ocean, Harry Styles and Billie Eilish definitely come to mind too.

LUNA: How do those influences impact your songwriting?

ELLA JANE: I actually feel like these artists have more of an impact on what I want to do WITH my music than the creation of the music itself. But there’s definitely some overlap there - their incredible visual senses correlate to their beautiful, imagery-rich lyrics for sure. Which I eatttt up in terms of biggest songwriting influences, though, great lyrics and strong melodies matter the most to me: Phoebe Bridgers, Taylor Swift, and Lorde check off those boxes every time in my book, and do it in ways that are so uniquely their own.

LUNA: Congrats on your latest release “bored&blind!” Can you share a bit about the making of the track?

ELLA JANE: AHHH thank you so much !!!! I am so beyond excited for everyone to hear it. There were a ton of different iterations of it before the final version that I’m putting out - it’s been a three year process from writing to releasing. I wrote it when i was 16 without production in mind, but as I taught myself more I struggled with getting the sound right. I knew I didn’t want it to be acoustic, but it took a lot of different tries to find the right sound. the “bored&blind” that you guys will hear is produced by Mike Irish, who nailed the vision down from the very first demo. It was so different from what both I and other producers had done with it in the past, but somehow was the truest to the song itself. i had lost so much faith in the song and started to doubt if it was good or not, but getting that email from him with the very first draft immediately got me so excited to dive back in.

Recording it was also such an amazing process. I got to go down to Mike’s studio in Brooklyn called Shifted, which is a beautiful space, and it was my first in-person session since November of 2019 when I was finishing up my first single “The City”. over the past year I’ve had to do everything via Zoom session, which had been a bit disheartening, but being back in the studio reminded me just how much I love the recording and collaboration process. It definitely also helped that we have very similar tastes in sounds - we accidentally stumbled into an hour long conversation about low timbre guitar sounds.

LUNA: You’re definitely making the best of your creativity & we love the video for “bored&blind” you shot in your dorm! Why is it important for you to tap into the visual side of your work?

ELLA JANE: I’ve always really loved art, and as I got older and developed more of my own taste in film, I got more into exploring my visual identity. I used to spend hours editing little videos of my friends that would end up going nowhere, but I did it all the time purely because I enjoyed it. So it’s really fun for me to create a visual counterpart to my music, and do it in a way I’m used to and have full autonomy over. I think it’s also going to be a really interesting time capsule of this part of my life - I had to work with what I had when resources were limited.

LUNA: Sonically, what are some elements you’d like to explore moving forward?

ELLA JANE: I listen to a pretty eclectic range of music, at least in terms of genre, so it’s been difficult trying to take what I listen to and narrow down a sound of my own. Obviously I want that to happen naturally, so I’m not forcing anything, but I’m curious to see what my music sounds like as a whole once the discography has grown. That being said, I think it’s so boring to only put out music that sounds the same (and as a songwriter, boring to make it). Sonically, I’m so inspired by Jack Antonoff and Rostam and the artists they work with, so in the future I would love to make a fully pop album a la Melodrama / 1989 (Lorde and Taylor Swift, w/ Jack Antonoff); or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, something more gritty and instrumental (Think HAIM or Vampire Weekend or Clairo - Rostam’s work).

LUNA: What can you tell us about upcoming music in comparison with “bored&blind”?

ELLA JANE: I have a few more singles in the works that I am equally nervous and excited to release - they’re a lot more on the indie-folk/ acoustic side than “bored&blind” is, so I’m really interested to see the reception from people who have previously liked my poppier stuff. Still, these songs have been apart of me for so many years, and I can’t wait for them to finally be out in the world.

LUNA: A fun one - share the last picture in your camera roll.

ELLA JANE: This LOL. I Facetime my parents as often as possible, but it’s only for them like 10% of the time - the other 90% is just me making them flip the camera around to show me the dog. I miss my phoebe girl oh so much <3

LUNA: Now that “bored&blind” is out, what’s next for ya?

ELLA JANE: There may or may not be a music video in the works ;)))

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“I want to set the mood for younger emerging artists in Toronto, to be like, ‘Hey, you could, like, fucking work with literally anyone who has a kind soul.’ I do want to uplift the artist community. I do think collaboration is important, because if you wanna be in the community, you're gonna have to collaborate one way or another." - Cruz ⭐️ 🎞Allowing themself to take a more vulnerable & meaningful approach with their work, photographer Cruz is combining her creative talent with her passion for mental health advocacy. Read more about this incredible artist & how quarantine shifted her work + about the work they are doing for the community in our feature on the site now 💞