In early 2012 Texan-bred, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Robert Ellis made his first trip to Australia, supporting Americana mainstay Justin Townes Earle. At that point Ellis had only one release to his name – 2011's country-infused Photographs.
Now Ellis is returning under his own steam; He's recorded and readied his follow-up long-player, The Lights From The Chemical Plant – scheduled for a February release – and its songs are completely different in nature. Gone are the overt country stylings, they've largely been usurped by a more 'pop' aesthetic in the mould of artists such as Paul Simon and Randy Newman.
“Yeah, those are my heroes,” Ellis laughs. “Alongside those country guys – I still listen to the country stuff too – but just the songcraft and ambiguity of guys like Paul Simon is really appealing to me. His shows are so fun, because he can play a reggae and a rock and a country song – he's not really restricted at all by any genre boundaries. And I think in the press too people give him so much leeway, I feel like he could literally do anything and people would like it because it's Paul Simon.
“Photographs was really fun but it was kind of a concept album – the country stuff was pretty much intentionally derivative, especially the stuff on the second side; I wanted that stuff to sound like Lefty Frizzell or George Jones, and I wanted it to wear its influences on its sleeve. My hopes for this new record are that it's a little bit more just my thing. For this tour I'll mostly be playing new stuff – I'll probably play a couple of songs from Photographs, but mostly for the sake of continuity. I'll be leaning a little less heavily on the country stuff and playing as much of the new stuff as possible.”
It's clear that this shift towards a less stylised sound is about Ellis following his muse rather than any grasp for a bigger audience.
“Yeah, when I say 'pop' too I think that may be a little confusing. By pop I don't mean like Rhianna or something; I honestly don't think I'd ever have a shot at achieving that kind of success, and that's not who I am as a writer either. It's just stuff that's a little less genre-specific. Actually an Australian guy who I really like is Gotye; I was really impressed with his record. It was huge over here in the States – and I guess worldwide – but I really liked how he positioned himself. It's not necessarily rock or beholden to any genre – it's a little bit ambiguous, which I appreciated.”
