Lindsay Ell got lost in country music; with a reset, she's learning to love herself

Country singer Lindsay Ell is shown in Toronto on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Lindsay Ell has spent the past few years confronting some hard truths about herself, but that hasn't slowed her down.

As she rolls into a late-afternoon interview for her new EP "Love Myself," the Calgary-raised musician vibrates with a positive energy that seems to crackle through the flowing violet locks that have replaced her familiar blonde look.

Like her hair, Ell seems a bit different these days.

After questioning her path as a country singer and seeking professional help to deal with a health crisis, she's emerged with a renewed sense of purpose and switched gears to recording confessional alt-pop songs.

“I’ve never felt more excited to release music out into the world,” she explains as she settles into her record label’s offices in Toronto.

“For the first time in a long time, I’ve been able to … create the music I hear in my head.”

New direction

Getting to this point involved a lot of personal strife. She split with her management, signed to Universal Music Canada and confronted an eating disorder, all within a few years.

If she’s exhausted, it doesn't show.

Her interview with The Canadian Press was immediately followed by a mad dash to Niagara Falls, Ont. for seven days of shooting on Citytv's “Canada’s Got Talent,” the competition series she hosts. Then it was back to her home in Nashville to catch her breath before leaving for a marathon of songwriting sessions in Los Angeles.

In a few weeks, she'll return to Las Vegas to play as lead guitarist at Shania Twain’s residency, a gig she'll work into next year.

The hectic schedule hearkens back to the pre-pandemic days of 2020 when Ell was coming off the busiest period of her country music career. She had traversed the world with over 235 concerts that year and was putting the finishing touches on a new album.

Feeling of discontent

Yet beneath the surface, a feeling of discontent was growing.

"My world was spinning so quickly," the 35-year-old remembers.

“I was moving at such a pace that I didn’t even really know my own name. I didn’t take time to think about what I was doing or the music I was making.”

It took an outside force to finally slow her down. A group of Nashville industry friends were headed on a six-day wellness retreat outside the city and they invited Ell to join them.

The getaway came with a few stipulations. Visitors had to tuck away their phones and open themselves to being vulnerable in small therapy workshops. The point was to confront past trauma and address personal issues in a friendly and productive setting. For Ell, the experience was eye-opening.

When she returned home, she brought new emotional tools she felt might guide her on a healthier path for her personal and professional life. Within days, however, COVID-19 halted the music industry with strict lockdown measures.

“With artists like me who go 90 miles an hour all the time, seeing the whole calendar go from so many shows to absolutely nothing was hard,” she said.

“I put so much of my worth and identity into my job. When that was taken away overnight I was like, 'Who am I anymore?'"

Alone at home, Ell said she contemplated everything she had accomplished since Randy Bachman mentored her as an aspiring teen musician. Her career began with moving to Nashville to pursue dreams of becoming "a female John Mayer," not a country star.

'I don't have one song about beer'

In hindsight, Ell insists she never quite fit the country mould others expected of her. Throwing a steel guitar or banjo into the mix at the studio appeased producers but felt inauthentic. Live shows were sometimes off, too.

"I would play festivals between acts that I felt so unaligned with, (in front of a crowd) who wanted to hear songs about beer," she said.

"I don’t have one song about beer."

When the concerts began to return from COVID-19 closures, Ell hit the road, touring with Blake Shelton. Still, behind the scenes "a slow crescendo" was rising inside her — a culmination of troubles she had long buried deep. By January 2023, her feelings became impossible to ignore.

"I remember sitting on my kitchen floor bawling, eating everything in sight," she said.

“And it wasn’t joyful eating; it was painful eating. I couldn’t stop myself.”

Ell said she recognized her situation was serious and turned to doctors. She was diagnosed with anorexia subtype binge-purge, which means she would overeat before returning to a restricted diet that pulled her body weight back down.

In reflection, she fostered those habits over the better part of two decades as a way to bury past trauma, including being a survivor of sexual assault.

"I could control the shape of my body and felt like I had a grip," she said.

"You take those ways of living life — growing up in the entertainment industry and as a woman — and I got really good at numbing my emotions."

Ell's new five-song EP finds the singer-songwriter expressing some of those pent-up feelings. It took therapy and deep reassessment to get there.

"Love Myself" is co-produced with Doug Schadt, an early collaborator of clear-eyed songwriter Maggie Rogers, and the songs find Ell in a similar place of reflection.

"Wanna be somebody who loves their body, but I hate my body," she sings on the title track.

“I treat the scale like religion."

Other songs “The Hard Way,” “Pain Tolerance” and “Story I Tell Myself" go deeper into Ell's vulnerabilities through melodic pop music and using the songwriting skills she sharpened in the world of country.

Only now, she doesn't have to add those extra instruments to sound a particular way.

"I don’t see this movement as walking away from country music," she insists.

"I just want to make music that’s real. And I do believe it’ll find the right people."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2024.