Interview with Ellise

Ellise is one of the best artists of this generation. Her candid lyrics and haunting melodies reel listeners in and keep them craving more. On the closing night of The PRETTY EVIL Tour Act II, I had the honor to sit down with the dark-pop icon. We discussed the tour, her last album, her newest single, and her upcoming project. Read this insightful interview with Ellise to learn more.

You just concluded Act II of the PRETTY EVIL tour. What did you do differently from the first leg, and what was your goal coming into this leg?

“The first leg of the Pretty Evil Tour was my first ever headliner, so it was a lot of trial and error. I feel like I was learning so much while being on the tour - and I still am. But  I definitely think, because of that in itself, this tour felt a lot more second nature and smoother for me personally, because I've done it before.
The hurdle that "this is a new thing I have never tried' has passed, which has been amazing."

On the first tour, I wasn't great at regulating my anxiety. I'm someone who gets overwhelmed and overstimulated easily. And so, of course, being on tour is the environment to be constantly overstimulated in. On the first act, I felt I didn't have great ways to negate that, and so it was overpowering at times. On this tour, I've really learned how to step back... If I need a moment, I'm going to put my headphones on and go to another room. It's all gonna be fine. And just little things, like little tips and tricks to sleep better, to eat better, to know when to eat so that I'm not starving at 6 p.m. and wondering, 'Why do I have a headache? Why do I have anxiety?'

So overall, I think just like being able to jump the hurdle of doing it once and having that experience has made me so much better at being chill and coping with the craziness that is tour, and it's been a great, smooth-sailing ride.

Meg Smith is your supporting act this leg. What is it like working with her, and are there any plans for future collaboration? 

“You know, we've been talking about it all tour. It's been amazing to tour with her.
She is honestly just such a chill girl. She's so kind and easygoing. It has been really nice to become her friend. We had mutual friends before this tour, but we had never actually hung out or met. So it was really nice to be able to not only tour with someone so talented, but also a really nice and kind person. 
So it's been amazing. You know, we're all living together in a little bus for a month straight, so personality matters a lot, and she's just been really great to hang out with.”

“Sexxxtapes” contains a very unique storyline about longing and self-preservation. What was it like diving into a topic so raw and honest?

“In my real life, I'm kind of a bit more of a reserved person, I would say. But when it comes to my music and what I write, I just have this 'no shame button.' I love to write about the most volatile things I experience, and the most, honestly, the most taboo, almost humiliating, embarrassing emotions I experience, because I know I'm not the only one. 
And I know that by writing stuff like that, it's not only cathartic for me, but it's something that almost has a shock value, where when people listen to it, they're like, 'Oh, like maybe I've felt this too, but I would never say that out loud.' And so that's kind of what the whole thesis of this new project has been. When we're with ourselves and ourselves only, we all have our little things we think and feel that maybe we don't really tell other people. And that's kind of what I wanted to write about for 'Sexxxtapes' and for the EP. 
It's a complicated emotion, but it's a real emotion, and I honestly, at this point, I just want to be real as fuck. I want to be the most real version of everything I think and feel. I'm not perfect. I'm not always the victim. I have my flaws and my toxic things and my crazy insecurities, and I just wanted to put them all out there.”

PRETTY EVIL was in my top 5 most-played albums of 2025 and personally considered a skipless project, so it’s hard for me to choose a favorite track. Is there a song that you would say was your favorite to write and record?

“Seriously? Wow, thank you! Thank you so much. I have a few favorites for different reasons. 
I would say, sonically, 'PRETTY' is my favorite. I just love 'PRETTY.' I feel like it's a very unique song.
It has a lot of elements to it that I don't feel like a lot of other things on the album have – both in the instrumentation and the amount of lyrics. It's a very wordy song, and I love wordy songs. If you listen to my music, I'm sure you would agree.”

“I would say 'valentine' is another favorite. That's probably one of my favorite songs I've ever written lyrically. It was kind of a difficult one to write, which, usually, when I'm writing songs, even if it's about the craziest things, it doesn't emotionally faze me. But that song was so fresh off the heels of the actual situation that I was very emotional while making it.
And so it holds a little place in my heart.”

“But I would say also, 'cherry on top,' I love. I think those three have kind of become my holy trinity of the album. They're my favorites, and kind of all for different reasons. I feel like they reflect the flavors of the album the best.” 

You utilize dark and morbid imagery in your songs to convey a multitude of human emotions. What are some of your inspirations for the macabre lyrics? 

“I think a lot of the inspiration in my music has really stemmed from, honestly, my childhood and my adolescence. I have always been into really dark media. Even as a kid, I was kind of a shock seeker and a little bit edgy. I always wanted to watch the scariest movie, read the scariest Stephen King novel, know about the worst historical events, not because I enjoy it or I agree with any of it, but literally to shock myself and to be dumbfounded that those things actually exist. That people make art that dark. And so I've always been into, you know, the world of Tim Burton, the world of all kinds of horror and sort of weirder type of movies."

“So, even my music taste was shaped by that. When I first started having my own music taste as a 10, 11, 12-year-old, I got into Nirvana, Melanie Martinez, The Neighbourhood, and early Lana [Del Rey]. And I just always had a taste for like these darker things. I mean, I do love hyperfeminine things as well.
Pink is my favorite color. I love all things hyperfeminine. I love to use that sort of imagery as well, but I definitely think at this point my brain is just sort of wired that way. It’s kind of just what comes out of me.”

Is there a favorite line you’ve written?

“Oh, my God. That’s a really good question. I think a recent favorite, I don't know about an all-time favorite, but a recent favorite that I've been loving because we're playing it on this set, and we didn't on the last tour, is in 'loser.' I say, 'I lowered my standards for you, a 10 reaching down to a 2. You weren't misunderstood, not some prodigal godsend, just playing video games in your room.' I feel like that's a good roast. I really.. I read him.”

I agreed and stated that the album’s song, “dead2me” is also a huge roast. 

“It’s definitely the most fun song on Pretty Evil. It’s just so angry and stupid. Silly, angry, fun, which I love. I'm a theater kid. I love my overdramatic moments. It’s the best thing ever.”

Which song on the setlist is your favorite to perform live, and why?

“‘Sexxxtapes.’ It has become so fun. It's also just been crazy to be playing these shows. Even before the song was released, everyone was singing along. It's the best feeling ever, and people really are responding to it in the crowd.”

Throughout the album, lyrics connect to other tracks (i.e., the red hair in “dead2me” and “valentine”). Is this something you did intentionally to transform the album into a cohesive narrative or something that happened naturally in the songwriting process? 

“Honestly, it was all very planned. As far as just the specific lines of mentioning red hair in both 'valentine' and 'dead2me', that wasn't necessarily preplanned. I made 'valentine' first. So, when I went in to make 'dead2me,' I didn’t think, ‘I know I'm gonna mention the red hair again.’ But when I had the idea while I was making the song, I was like, 'That's perfect,' because this album was all about one person. It was all about one situation that I went through. And so I wanted the entirety of the album to feel like that cycle of the beginning to the end, the high-high to the low-low of the relationship. 
And so it kind of just worked out really well when I was writing 'dead2me.'” 

"It's a real story. I really did find a red hair, and I kept it, and I saved it in a book. And that is how I eventually found out what was going on. So, I like to get real literal in a lot of my lyrics. I like to be oddly specific at times because there's so much music out there. I want to write about exactly what happened to me. Not the general feeling of it, the literal specifications of what I went through."

What does this next era of music look like? New genre? Collaborators?

“I would definitely say the sound is changing up a bit. 'Sexxxtapes' is a good marker for the sound of this new music. It’s kind of a double-handed thing. With the more raw, more honest, more gruesome, gritty song concepts, I also want things to feel more fun. I'm also at a place in my life where I'm growing, I'm aging, I'm getting older. I understand that not everything is the end of the world. And I'm sort of feeling this overall sense of happiness and a weight lifted in my real life, so I want that to reflect in the music. I think sonically, it really does. And it's a much more fun and free sound. It's still dark. It's still me, but it's definitely leaning a lot more into the synth pop land. And just a little bit more carefree.”

Who are your greatest musical influences? 

“I would say my top all-time musical influences are Ariana Grande, Melanie Martinez, Nirvana, Paramore, and Lana. Those are the artists that I found at such a pivotal, artistic moment in my early teens, where I think if I didn't find any of those artists, I wouldn't have become an artist in the same way that I am today.
So I definitely credit all those artists for being the first people who made me want to write songs and made me want to be an artist myself. And I still love their music today."

If you could collab with one artist, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

“Can I have a dead AND an alive? Okay, dead, I would say Kurt Cobain.
Alive? Do I say Hayley Williams [from Paramore] or do I say Ariana Grande? I'm going to choose Hayley Williams. I would love both of those so much. I would be happy to do either. I mean, if that happens to me, I can just die after that. One of the greatest vocalists of our generation the world will ever see. It's not talked about enough. It's jaw-dropping.”

Is there anything else we haven’t discussed that you would like your fans to know? About the tour, PRETTY EVIL, “Sexxxtapes”, upcoming music?

“I would love to. My new project will be out soon. It will be out in the spring. I'm super excited. I personally think it's the best music I've ever made. I think it outshines PRETTY EVIL, my entire catalog.
And I say that shamelessly. I think it's so good. And it'll be out real soon, by the end of spring.”

“Another thing about the songs is that the videos are kind of like an anthology. It's sort of a continuous story, so there will be a lot more Easter eggs, a lot more hints, a lot more sort of hidden meanings. If you haven’t seen it, the “Sexxxtapes” video has so many Easter eggs in it. I plan to continue to do that for the rest of them. I also plan to tour a lot more throughout the rest of the year.”

Follow Ellise on all social media to stay up to date on announcements, including the release dates for her latest singles and upcoming EP.

A heartfelt thank you to Ellise, Charlie Lewis, and Lewis Line PR.

Written By Karlee Skipper

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