The Sit Down with Ellis J Barraclough
Hull raised, nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter Ellis J Barraclough showcased a rare blend of mature songwriting and youthful charm with his debut single ‘Patience’ which received backing from BBC Introducing, BBC Radio London and BBC Radio. His undeniable potential is set to continue elevating as he shares his follow-up single ‘Blasphemy’.
Since picking up a guitar at seven and writing songs since he was twelve, his musical upbringing led to him being discovered by Vincent Garcia who produced the new track and has also seen him playing shows with the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Inspiral Carpets and comedian Lucy Beaumont. With new music and a busy summer of shows, including the debut of his five-piece live band The Sunscreen at headline shows in Manchester and Hull later this month, Ellis joined us on Zoom to talk all about it.
Let’s talk about “Blasphemy” which is the track that you’re focusing on right now. You put it out a while back and I know “Patience” which came out more recently is still doing its thing too but when did you write the song and what is it about it that you feel makes it really special?
“I wrote that when I was about sixteen and I was living in Brough at the time. I grew up in Hull, really, but I had my teenage years in Elloughton and Brough, which are little villages. When we lived in Elloughton, it was a beautiful house but I had the box room and I felt a bit trapped in there, so when we moved to Brough I thought I might be able to get a bigger room but it was smaller. I think because of that room, I spent a lot of time and I loved the house, don’t get me wrong but just physically in my room, sometimes I would play my guitar on an angle because it would be touching either wall. So, I’d been spending my time defining what it means to be a fool and everything I did was blasphemy. I mixed it myself originally, not the recording you would have had heard, but the first songs I did myself on an app called BandLab and I really liked this one. I think it's that one that Vince, my manager heard and sort of went, yeah, let's do this!”
You mentioned Vincent (Garcia) and he produced the final version of the track, but obviously the two of you are working together beyond just an artist to producer relationship, so how the two of you first meet and start working together?
“It was through my grandad really. Vince used to live in a little town near me called South Cave and my grandad once set up a PA system in a pub that he owned, so my grandad had known him because of that. My grandad thought that after I started writing a lot of music that I needed to do something with it so took it to Vince because he had recorded music and knew more about stuff in the industry, then it went from there.”
Talking about the writing room and when he is sat in the producers chair, what does he bring that to you is a really good fit for what it is you're looking to be putting out?
“Well, I guess it's just the individual techniques that he does, you know? He's got a bit of a specific way of producing, well I don't know whether everyone does it but I definitely never heard of it and it’s a little technique called swipe comping which is really gruelling, but it works. When you’re recording vocals, rather than doing a run through of the whole track, you’re sat on a loop of one lyric where you feel like you a singing like a four-second lyric, what feels like fifty times where I will hit it, wait another second and hit it again to get the perfect one. That sort of makes it sound a bit specific because with my voice, in one takes, I probably wouldn't have ever got there just by myself. Also, every now and again, he just chucks in things like, I think you should change just one word because it works a little bit better.”
Lastly on “Blasphemy”, you shot a really cool video over in Venice for it. How did that come about? Had you been there before and just thought it was a fit?
“No, I’d never been to Italy. What happened was, the guy who does my photography, Luca is from Italy and when we knew we needed to shoot a video for “Blasphemy” where we were like, "Oh, should we go to St. Paul's Cathedral just do something around there? You know like a London type thing maybe until Luca goes come to Italy. Okay, sounds good. We went there but we didn’t just go to Venice though as he lives in a little town near Venice. The countryside is beautiful, and it's like these old castles so we did some shoots there, but they didn't end up getting used, which is a bit of a shame.”
Since picking up a guitar at seven and writing songs since he was twelve, his musical upbringing led to him being discovered by Vincent Garcia who produced the new track and has also seen him playing shows with the likes of Ocean Colour Scene, Inspiral Carpets and comedian Lucy Beaumont. With new music and a busy summer of shows, including the debut of his five-piece live band The Sunscreen at headline shows in Manchester and Hull later this month, Ellis joined us on Zoom to talk all about it.
Let’s talk about “Blasphemy” which is the track that you’re focusing on right now. You put it out a while back and I know “Patience” which came out more recently is still doing its thing too but when did you write the song and what is it about it that you feel makes it really special?
“I wrote that when I was about sixteen and I was living in Brough at the time. I grew up in Hull, really, but I had my teenage years in Elloughton and Brough, which are little villages. When we lived in Elloughton, it was a beautiful house but I had the box room and I felt a bit trapped in there, so when we moved to Brough I thought I might be able to get a bigger room but it was smaller. I think because of that room, I spent a lot of time and I loved the house, don’t get me wrong but just physically in my room, sometimes I would play my guitar on an angle because it would be touching either wall. So, I’d been spending my time defining what it means to be a fool and everything I did was blasphemy. I mixed it myself originally, not the recording you would have had heard, but the first songs I did myself on an app called BandLab and I really liked this one. I think it's that one that Vince, my manager heard and sort of went, yeah, let's do this!”
You mentioned Vincent (Garcia) and he produced the final version of the track, but obviously the two of you are working together beyond just an artist to producer relationship, so how the two of you first meet and start working together?
“It was through my grandad really. Vince used to live in a little town near me called South Cave and my grandad once set up a PA system in a pub that he owned, so my grandad had known him because of that. My grandad thought that after I started writing a lot of music that I needed to do something with it so took it to Vince because he had recorded music and knew more about stuff in the industry, then it went from there.”
Talking about the writing room and when he is sat in the producers chair, what does he bring that to you is a really good fit for what it is you're looking to be putting out?
“Well, I guess it's just the individual techniques that he does, you know? He's got a bit of a specific way of producing, well I don't know whether everyone does it but I definitely never heard of it and it’s a little technique called swipe comping which is really gruelling, but it works. When you’re recording vocals, rather than doing a run through of the whole track, you’re sat on a loop of one lyric where you feel like you a singing like a four-second lyric, what feels like fifty times where I will hit it, wait another second and hit it again to get the perfect one. That sort of makes it sound a bit specific because with my voice, in one takes, I probably wouldn't have ever got there just by myself. Also, every now and again, he just chucks in things like, I think you should change just one word because it works a little bit better.”
Lastly on “Blasphemy”, you shot a really cool video over in Venice for it. How did that come about? Had you been there before and just thought it was a fit?
“No, I’d never been to Italy. What happened was, the guy who does my photography, Luca is from Italy and when we knew we needed to shoot a video for “Blasphemy” where we were like, "Oh, should we go to St. Paul's Cathedral just do something around there? You know like a London type thing maybe until Luca goes come to Italy. Okay, sounds good. We went there but we didn’t just go to Venice though as he lives in a little town near Venice. The countryside is beautiful, and it's like these old castles so we did some shoots there, but they didn't end up getting used, which is a bit of a shame.”
We’ve got some shows coming up and I see from your socials you’re teasing you have a band as well. Is The Sunscreen like a separate project that you're working on or it is kind of like a Springsteen with E-Street type thing where it's going to be Ellis Barraclough and The Sunscreen?
“I'm not really sure, to be honest ha-ha. It's more of a sort of thing where rather than it just being me on stage, because it doesn't accurately represent what my songs actually sound like as they're not really just singer-songwriter songs, you know, they’re full songs with every instrument in it and it was getting now to the point where it's like, we need to fill in a bit of space. It’s called Ellis Barraclough and The Sunscreen, where I just wanted a little bit of backup behind me. Do you know? It makes you feel a little bit more special when you've got a whole band behind you.”
Looking through the summer, we’ve hinted there is a rollout of music, you have these gigs in Hull and Manchester with the band as well as a big festival in August, but beyond that is it looking like a busy summer of just trying to get out as much as possible?
“Well, at the minute we’re not completely solid, but every single opportunity that comes we’re grabbing it so I'm trying to fill it in where every week I’ve got at least two gigs even if the majority of them are just dotted around Hull. The one in Donnington, is a festival in August and I can’t wait for that because I went there one time with Oscar from Ocean Colour Scene’s son Leon and we played as a little three piece with his mate which sounded great. The festival is amazing.”
You've done quite a few bits with the OCS guys, haven't you? How did you first meet them and start kind of getting in with that crowd?
“Well, I'm very, very lucky in the fact that they like me enough to keep me on the payroll. It originally happened just through word of mouth, where one person tells me, then they tell someone and they know Ocean Colour Scene, then they had a listen. The surprising thing for me is that as soon as they heard me, they said yeah we’ll have him on the tour, not just one little starter gig which was mind blowing. The first gig was in Edinburgh and I was really nervous about that, because until that point I hadn’t played in front of that many people, you know. It was like three or four hundred people in the audience and then behind me, backstage is Ocean Colour Scene who I really liked and even before then I was a fan. Then when they liked me was it was just beautiful because I get to do what I love with people that I look up to.”
Lastly, whilst we are pushing “Blasphemy” and “Patience” is still on a roll, what are we looking at further ahead in the year? Are these songs and the next part of the rollout building towards you putting out something extended?
“Well, the plan is, well I've got three albums recorded before we release any of them because I don't want to get album syndrome, where you'll release an album and then, you know, the record company will be like, right, give me the second album, we need to release it soon. So I can give them the first album and the second album is ready straight away but we've recorded two and a half, I've got about four songs left. The funny thing is as well is that up until now, I already wrote all the songs, they were all just sat on my phone and I was just pinging them across but now I have to write them for a purpose, I properly feel like a musician, you know?”
This has been cool, thanks for the hang and I think a lot of people particularly in the Americana world will really like what you do. Then also with a name like Barraclough being a very typical Yorkshire sounding name, you wouldn’t be out of place as being the head of one of the Northern houses on Games of Thrones.
“Ha-ha that’s the best thing I’ve heard and yeah it does sound very medieval. I now just need a picture of me in the full armour.”
Well if all else fails, I’m sure that AI can at let you pretend I guess but hopefully catch you out on the road soon as this has been a fun hang.
The new single “Blasphemy” from Ellis J Barraclough is out now and you can find it along with all of his other music on Spotify & Apple Music. Ellis has a busy summer of gigs and festivals planned both himself and with his new band The Sunscreen, which you can keep up to date with on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK & FACEBOOK.
“I'm not really sure, to be honest ha-ha. It's more of a sort of thing where rather than it just being me on stage, because it doesn't accurately represent what my songs actually sound like as they're not really just singer-songwriter songs, you know, they’re full songs with every instrument in it and it was getting now to the point where it's like, we need to fill in a bit of space. It’s called Ellis Barraclough and The Sunscreen, where I just wanted a little bit of backup behind me. Do you know? It makes you feel a little bit more special when you've got a whole band behind you.”
Looking through the summer, we’ve hinted there is a rollout of music, you have these gigs in Hull and Manchester with the band as well as a big festival in August, but beyond that is it looking like a busy summer of just trying to get out as much as possible?
“Well, at the minute we’re not completely solid, but every single opportunity that comes we’re grabbing it so I'm trying to fill it in where every week I’ve got at least two gigs even if the majority of them are just dotted around Hull. The one in Donnington, is a festival in August and I can’t wait for that because I went there one time with Oscar from Ocean Colour Scene’s son Leon and we played as a little three piece with his mate which sounded great. The festival is amazing.”
You've done quite a few bits with the OCS guys, haven't you? How did you first meet them and start kind of getting in with that crowd?
“Well, I'm very, very lucky in the fact that they like me enough to keep me on the payroll. It originally happened just through word of mouth, where one person tells me, then they tell someone and they know Ocean Colour Scene, then they had a listen. The surprising thing for me is that as soon as they heard me, they said yeah we’ll have him on the tour, not just one little starter gig which was mind blowing. The first gig was in Edinburgh and I was really nervous about that, because until that point I hadn’t played in front of that many people, you know. It was like three or four hundred people in the audience and then behind me, backstage is Ocean Colour Scene who I really liked and even before then I was a fan. Then when they liked me was it was just beautiful because I get to do what I love with people that I look up to.”
Lastly, whilst we are pushing “Blasphemy” and “Patience” is still on a roll, what are we looking at further ahead in the year? Are these songs and the next part of the rollout building towards you putting out something extended?
“Well, the plan is, well I've got three albums recorded before we release any of them because I don't want to get album syndrome, where you'll release an album and then, you know, the record company will be like, right, give me the second album, we need to release it soon. So I can give them the first album and the second album is ready straight away but we've recorded two and a half, I've got about four songs left. The funny thing is as well is that up until now, I already wrote all the songs, they were all just sat on my phone and I was just pinging them across but now I have to write them for a purpose, I properly feel like a musician, you know?”
This has been cool, thanks for the hang and I think a lot of people particularly in the Americana world will really like what you do. Then also with a name like Barraclough being a very typical Yorkshire sounding name, you wouldn’t be out of place as being the head of one of the Northern houses on Games of Thrones.
“Ha-ha that’s the best thing I’ve heard and yeah it does sound very medieval. I now just need a picture of me in the full armour.”
Well if all else fails, I’m sure that AI can at let you pretend I guess but hopefully catch you out on the road soon as this has been a fun hang.
The new single “Blasphemy” from Ellis J Barraclough is out now and you can find it along with all of his other music on Spotify & Apple Music. Ellis has a busy summer of gigs and festivals planned both himself and with his new band The Sunscreen, which you can keep up to date with on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK & FACEBOOK.
