Criminal – Lindsay Ell Interview and CMW 2018 Spotlight
With a #1 single, big tours, and as much talent on the guitar as anyone in the genre, Lindsay Ell is taking country music by storm.
The Calgary native has been working hard at her craft since her teenage years, and after eight years in Nashville, a ton of hard work, and independent productions things are paying off big time. Last year she released The Project, her label debut (Broken Bow/ Stoney Creek), she spent almost a year on the Brad Paisley’s Weekend Warrior Tour, and in this spring, she hit the top.
On April 9, 2018, Lindsay Ell reached #1 on the Canadian country music charts with her single, Criminal. It was the first time since Terri Clark’s 2008 single, In My Next Life, that a Canadian woman took the spot, making it a major milestone for more than one reason. We caught up with Lindsay in Toronto during Canadian Music Week to chat and asked her about finding out that she had made history.
She told us that things were a little crazy when she learned about her first #1. On April 8 Lindsay was on stage at Country Thunder Arizona, and her voice gave out. After months of playing, travelling, playing some more, not sleeping enough, and feeling like she had to be a superhero, her body gave out. She told us that she played through the rest of her hour-long set, relying on her guitar skills and band to make it work, and then was back on a plane again. At that point, Lindsay felt exhausted both mentally and physically, and she was disappointed that she hadn’t been able to give the festival fans the show and experience that she wanted to give. And then, it happened. A text came in with the news that Criminal would be #1 in Canada on Monday, and she cried.
The combination of her exhaustion and disappointment with her joy and excitement was overwhelming, and we can’t blame her for that. We asked who got the news first and she told us that her parents were the first call she made to share the news and celebrate. She also made a point of telling us how supportive her family has always been of her career, recalling her first trip to Toronto for Canadian Music Week, with her dad as her chaperone.
On Thursday night, thanks to Canadian Music Week and SiriusXM, Lindsay Ell took the stage at The Phoenix Concert Theatre on a bill with Keifer Sutherland and Blackie Jackett Jr.
An enthusiastic Toronto crowd watched, sang, danced, and marvelled at the CCMA award nominee as she played eight songs and added in a guitar battle.
Lindsay was on fire from the jump. She opened with Wildfire, and as the set rolled on with Castle and Waiting On You, the energy in the room, and on stage from Ell and the band only grew.
It was on the fourth song of the set though that we got treated to something special…
On May 25, 2018, Lindsay Ell will release The Continuum Project, a full cover of John Mayer’s 2006 album, Continuum. The album was born from a homework project given to her by her producer Kristian Bush (Sugarland). He challenged her to recreate her favourite album, front to back, playing all of the instruments herself. So she did it. She told us that she spent long days in the studio, learning more about the minute details of the songs that she thought she knew well already. And during the process, also learning about what she wanted her own album to sound like.
And now, after the release of her own album, and more tour dates than we can count, The Continuum Project is coming to the public.
Lindsay is proud of it. She likes it. And while she openly admitted that John Mayer’s version of the album is the best version there can be (she’s a big fan, she was open about that too), she told us that her version is “exactly what I see myself as”.
It’s a combination of three things that make us excited for The Continuum Project…
1) The songs on the original album.
2) Lindsay Ell’s talent.
3) Lindsay Ell’s excitement when she talks about the project.
And when she played Slow Dancing In A Burning Room, as the fourth song in her set at The Phoenix, we instantly wanted to hear the whole thing. We can already imagine how good Gravity and Waiting On The World To Change are going to be!
The set continued with Mint and Good from Ell’s 2017 album, and then we got an interlude that brought cameras out, had Lindsay jumping and pumping her fist on stage, and turned a SiriusXM country show into a rock concert… The Guitar Battle!
One after each other, Lindsay and her guitar player took turns playing famous rock riffs that included Crazy Train, Seven Nation Army, Are Ya Gonna Go My Way and more.
As Lindsay played her set, her influences became recognizable. Earlier in the day when we spoke, she mentioned names like Shania, Sheryl Crow, and Terri Clark as well as Keith Urban and Brad Paisley. And as she played, worked the stage, and sang, pieces of those artists were visible in the subtlest of ways, while never being overt, and never taking away from her own musicianship or performance.
We also talked about her becoming an influence to a new generation of singers and guitar players. Lindsay told me that if you had told 10-year-old her that someday she’d have a feature on a Keith Urban album, she’d have freaked out. And she’s hoping to have the same impact some day. Already she’s had young fans tell her that she’s influencing them to learn guitar and sing, and she loves that. And she seems excited for a future when she can give the same opportunity to a young artist that she’s been given.
Note: Horses, the ninth track on Urban’s new album Graffiti U, is fantastic. Ell is a great fit, and when she hits the road on the Graffiti U World Tour in September it will be a treat for the crowds to see them play it together.
Lindsay Ell wrapped her set with two more songs from The Project, Space and her number one single, Criminal. And as she neared the end we watched the Toronto audience as fully engaged as maybe we’ve ever seen them. It’s the combination of her talent on guitar, her strong vocals, her look, her energy, the band, the songs… everything coming together that draws a crowd in and makes them hers. She earns them, all of them, and then rewards them with a helluva show.
What she does, isn’t easy. She works hard. She tours constantly. She writes and practices. She does all that she can to prepare herself to be better. And now, with The Continuum Project on the way, a new single coming to radio this summer, and tour dates with both Sugarland and Keith Urban so close she’s practically crossing off the dates in anticipation, she’s getting the chance to show the country music world that she’s ready for whatever else it wants to throw her way.
Give her a guitar and microphone then stand back and watch, she can handle it.
Lindsay Ell, Canadian Music Week 2018 Setlist
♢ Wildfire
♢ Castle
♢ Waiting On You
♢ Slow Dancing In A Burning Room
♢ Mint
♢ Good
♢ Guitar Battle Interlude
♢ Space
♢ Criminal
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[…] We’ve written before about Lindsay Ell as a singer and performer and songwriter. Fans who have followed her journey over the last few years know that she is talented and driven and puts in the work. As a performer, she’s as prolific as anyone in Nashville, telling us that usually she would be on the road for 280 days a year. In 2020, not so much. So while she’s had time to finish her album and do more press to tell her story during this cycle, she hasn’t been waking up in a new city every day this week to play her new songs live for fans, and that’s weird for her. […]