Interview with New York based pop enigma Elliot Lee
Elliot Lee is unique. Unique in both style and music. My favorite part about it all is that everything you see is absolutely her own. She doesn’t gravitate to the color pink because of a popular choice nor does she do it because it’s the anti-choice. She doesn’t make pop music and put fierce rock inspired guitars in them because she thinks it’s the cool thing to do. Everything she does comes from inside and she is a point in her life where she does what truly feels right and makes her happy. And guess what? It works. Who knew that being ones true self could be the code-cracker? Interesting and inspiring at the same time.
Before I ever spoke with Elliot, I found myself lost in the production of her music, the lyrical content, the natural raw tone of her voice and her flow. She sings with vocal precision when needed and she moves with quickness through verses in a way that will leave your head spinning. After our conversation I found myself listening to her songs with a different perspective and admired her songwriting even more. These songs are deep. Almost too deep for standard, happy pop music. Maybe that’s why the guitars always felt right to me.
When we did speak, I wanted to find out what was on her mind when she wrote the songs on the EP – “Pink (Freak)”. Elliot Lee tells Sound Vapors, “For Upside Down, I wanted to sit down and talk about the way my whole life has kind of felt like things were not going the way the was right for me and it was going the way other people wanted it to go. So all the time I just flowed along doing what other people wanted me to do or looking like how they wanted me to look. Once I started drifting away from that my world kind of flipped upside down. It was like, I can be the opposite of what everyone told me to be. It works out for me.”
Lee continues talking about the other tracks. She says, “Dirt was kind of the same because I’d just gone to L.A. and I was trying to work with some producers there. It didn’t really work out for me because they were trying to change who I was and (said) that lyrics didn’t matter and all this stuff. So I came back and got with some of my friends here and we sat down. I ranted to them about how I felt and pulled together a song about it and how it made me feel.” You can feel her frustration at the beginning of the song Dirt as the voice says.. No, you don’t listen to the lyrics anyway. As Dwight Schrute says – FALSE. I was drawn into her lyrics from the outset.
Elliot Lee finishes up describing each song with the records’ first and title track – Pink (Freak). Lee tells me, “Pink was also definitely in the same vein of feeling different and trying to figure out where I fit. Trying to tell people that I am who I am and that they don’t have to have a label or an idea of who I am based on the stereotypes. Because I am who I am.”
I asked her what colors mean to her. She replied, “For me, colors are really important just in everything that I do because even when I write notes or do anything boring I have to add colors to it because it helps me stay grounded and on the positive side of things. Growing up I rejected the color pink for a long time because I was going through a theme, punk phase and I was like, I can’t like pink. I’m kind of a poser if I like pink. Then I grew out of that and now I can be all these things and I can like pink and I can wear pink when I’m not feeling the best. Even when I’m feeling all of these sad emotions and these strong feelings, I don’t have to wear black or dark colors like that. I can wear my pink and I don’t have to look sad, just because I feel that way.”
On the flip side of these emotions we discussed, Lee is an incredibly upbeat person and has a great sense of humor. Makes it all the easier to sit from afar and cheer her on. I look forward to hearing new music from her (as she and I discussed, the writing process never really stops). Finally, I asked her if she’s happy. She says, “Yes. I’m very happy with where I am right now.” I’m sure her fans are just as happy to have her in their lives as well.
You can hear my entire conversation with Elliot Lee by clicking on the link to your favorite place to listen to podcasts or by watching the video version on YouTube.
-Tommy Marz
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