Ellie Dixon

Mid way though her first UK wide tour, Autumn 22, we had the pleasure of catching up with the wonderful 24-year-old artist, Ellie Dixon, before her performance at Wild Paths in Norwich. We spoke all things Tour, TikTok and touched on her brand-new single ‘Swing’, which was released late last week.
 
 
Firstly, of course I want to ask how are you?
 
Yeah I’m really good thanks!
 
 
You’re in the middle of your tour currently, which is so exciting, so how has that been so far?
 
 
Really good, really really good, this is my first ever headline tour. It’s really felt like a step up because I’ve done a couple of headline shows, who have mostly been in London, when you put on one show and a lot of your mates come down, it has a very different feel to playing shows up and down the country and suddenly you have a room full of people where you don’t know anyone, it’s so surreal. It’s the next step up, I go anywhere in the country and there is someone knows the words to my song, it’s just mad!
 
 
So you’ve had a lot of incredible support acts for each show, are they people that you’ve played with before or new people you’ve met along the way?
 
It’s been a really nice mix actually of both, so last night was really nice because I was in my hometown (Cambridge) I know the acts, like Gabby Rivers and Reno and Rome, who I’ve sort of grown up seeing around.
The London show was awesome as I got a friend of mine George Moir supporting, who I absolutely love and then Belot, who I have a bunch of connections to as an artist, but hadn’t heard her play live before, so that was a really really good line up. I’m really excited for today as I’m actually being supported by someone, I met on Tiktok, called Ben Cipolla, he does really like joyous kind of jazzy, indie-pop, inspired by living in Sicily, so it’s like really warm. It’s really nice having someone I’ve met on TikTok and met through social media and now we’re both playing my show.
 
Do you think it’s even more special as you both blew up a lot on TikTok over lockdown, so it’s like we’ve got to the same level at the same tour too?
 
Yeah exactly! It’s really nice feeling the effects of numbers on a screen, because it’s amazing but it’s much less tangible. I’m now starting to see familiar faces at shows, where I’m thinking, ‘oh you came to that London show’ and ‘I saw you at that festival’. I saw a kid last night at my show, right at the front, that I met at a festival and she was in my t-shirt. I’m quite good with faces, so I remember a lot of people from previous shows, so it does make that sort of family.
 
 
That’s so sweet! So, do you have a pre performance ritual at all? Does it involve eating biscuits?
 
The tragic irony is that I wrote a song about biscuits, I can’t eat biscuits, I’m allergic to wheat!
 
What’s nice about this tour is that as I’m doing shows back-to-back, I’m learning what I need and what preshow things work for me. I don’t need a lot, I like to have a hot drink, something to help warm up the vocal cords and I just need 10 minutes of just quiet, so I can write out my set list, so I remember each song, what I need to say and then, I’m on stage.
 
 
That sounds so simple, but do you get nervous in the process or do you think, yeah, I’m ready for this?
 
It’s very mixed, that’s another fun part of touring, that each night is so different! Some nights I might think ‘why am I so worried tonight?’.  Like last night I was really nervous as my parents were in the crowd, even though I know they’ll love it whatever.
 

 
Jumping back to where it all started for you with your music career, how do you think your sound and music has evolved since you realised your first EP?
 
It’ been a very natural progression I think, I started off very young when I was 15, making beats in my bedroom and it started off very folky, singer, songwriter with my writing, but I think as I gained confidence my songs got more fun and funnier and as my production got better I learnt how to make things punch and how to give things energy. It’s been a slow grow of confidence, so it’s gotten more pop and energetic and I’m cracking more jokes in my lyrics, that’s been the biggest growth for me is having the confidence to write silly songs.
 
 
That’s something I love about your music too, even though you always have a message within it, it’s not super serious. Has that always been something that’s really important to you, that your music has a message within it?
 
Yeah! I used to write songs and not really know what I’m writing about, it just sort of came out. That still happens to a certain extent because you have to let your subconscious take over a bit, but I really like to have a point of view and a message, because when I play a song I want to be able to talk to people about what it’s about and I want people to understand and be able to relate to it, so I really like having a point of view on things, even if it is just biscuits!
 
 
 
I read that you realised EP’s through your time at sixth form and uni too, which must’ve taken a lot of work to create these through your studies, so when was it that you decided making music was going to be your top priority?
 
It was the end of my degree for me, I studied maths, which is obviously not being used currently! But I think I needed that time to gain confidence, I’m glad I didn’t start out in the industry when I was 18, because I think it would’ve been a bit carnage. Every summer everyone would go and do internships and I would make an EP and I’d keep doing that. Then in my final year I got a band together and joined ‘Battle of the Bands’ at my uni, I was playing around two, three gigs a week, on top of my uni work and it was very obvious what I wanted to do with my life.
 
I hit the end of my degree and I knew I wanted to really try this seriously, so I moved home, and I was very lucky that my parents let me live at home and just try and do music full time. At that point it obviously wasn’t paying, gigs were like fifty quid. So, I was very lucky to have that space and time to get better and just gain confidence and play shows and then Covid hit so I had to funnel that energy into social media and that was what eventually made everything blow up.
 
 
 
When you go to uni you’re 18 and you come out and you’re 21, 22 and you do so much growing in that time, not even in a musical sense, just in booming a real person and developing who you are. After having that time at uni, would you say it was the right time for you to start doing music full time?
 
Yes absolutely, I completely relate. When I was 18 I just didn’t have any of the self-belief of confidence, I had really bad performance anxiety as well, so I never thought I could be an artist. I really needed that time, and I don’t regret it, I don’ think I should’ve studied music or anything like that because I think it was really important to develop myself outside of music as my own person and I enjoyed, doing sums you know. I feel like it made me a more rounded person going into what is objectively just a bonkers industry, where you need to have a really strong sense of self, otherwise you can just get diluted and then it just doesn’t work, it will just fizzle loud really quickly if you panda to everyone’s ideas all the time.
 
 
I’ve seen how influential Tiktok been within your career, having that opportunity whilst still in lockdown to get your music and personality out to people, was it weird building up such a large fan base from home?
 
It was very weird. It was very exciting and so amazing and I’ m so grateful for, but it’s a very funny thing. I’d get so excited, but as the same time it sort of feels not real some of the time because you can’t see it, and it didn’t necessarily impact my lifestyle, I’m only feeling the effects of it now, going on tour now and signing to a label 6 months ago. Those were the kind of things that came out of it, but that took about two, two and a half years. So, I was seeing numbers on a screen and think, ‘Amazing!’, and wake up to millions of views on a video and then I’d go downstairs and make beans on toast and carry on with my day, it’s a very weird thing.
 
 
 
You obviously produced all your music in your bedroom acting as your music studio, and I’ve seen in a few views that you still use this space to create music, do you see yourself transitioning to a studio full time in the future or is your bedroom your safe space for your music?
 
I can definitely see myself being in studio settings more, I think it’s important to always push yourself and get into new environments as that’s how you get new ideas and learn. But I think it’s very important that I keep doing the core of what I’ve always been doing, as I think it’s very dangerous to have something go really well and then completely change it, because that’s not what people originally connected with. The reason my music is the way it is, is because I’m so comfortable and I’m in my bedroom, I’m not in a huge studio makes me want to sing about my success, like I’m “Billy Big Bollocks”. When I’m in my room I’m just like a little person going about my day and I need to remember to do the shop, and that I’ve run out of toilet roll,  that’s when you stay grounded and you write songs about life and that’s when people really connect with it because we’re all just silly little humans.
 
Also, I think the other thing is the creative freedom, when there’s no one else in the room, you think ‘oh what if I did that, that’d be really silly’, then you give to a go. I’d had never written a song about biscuits if I was in a session, you know. I think you’re more likely to take risks when it’s just you trying things and I’m really honoured that my label are still letting me do this, all the new tracks that are coming out, ‘Swing’ and onwards, are all still completely bedroom produced. My label is happy to trust me to do this and that feels like such a huge win!
 
 
So going back to your TikTok content, I feel like you put out so many different videos which I really love, then ones that I really like are when you’ve taken a different artists song and you’ve added your own verse into it. My favourite one is your verse to ‘As it Was’ but I’m a big Harry fan so that’s a bit biased. I was wondering which is your favourite verse that you’ve written so far?
 
Ooo that’s such a good question! I’ve always been so proud of the ’Toxic’ one, that’s one of my biggest videos on TikTok, but I think there’s a reason for that, I think it just hit. But I really liked the ‘As it Was’ was cover, that particularly resonates at the minute, as I’m going through a lot of life changes, just hitting twenty four, which feels like suddenly everyone is into adult hood. Writing that verse was quite therapeutic because it’s all about change, I tend to pick songs that resonate with me at the time. So probably between ‘Toxic’ and ‘As it Was’.