Ross Ellis is a prolific songwriter – having secured cuts with Tim McGraw and Gary Allan – and artist, recently releasing his first hit of the year ‘I Wish You Would’ through Sony Music Nashville recently. Here, we interview Ross Ellis about the track and his career so far.
Hey! So glad to see things are a bit more normal over there, you’re really getting back to normal?
Yeah, I’ve had close to 40 hours of rehearsal since Thursday for a show in Kansas. Then I had Bible study this morning, and I’m gonna go hit some golf balls after this.
You must be so excited to finally play the new music out. ‘I Wish You Would’ is meant to be played out live, to get that full experience.
I’m telling you, I have this new band and it’s a straight up rock band. ‘I Wish It Would’ sounds incredible with them. We’ve been practising so hard getting ready for the shows but I just can’t wait to get on stage and and rock these things out. I’m so excited to play ‘I Wish You Would’ but then I’ve also got some new stuff I’m playing that I’m excited about too, but it’s gonna be a straight out rock band.
It’s definitely got a heavier rock sound. Is that something that you’ve been consciously moving towards?
It’s a little above subconscious, I’ve always been kind of a rocker dude. Like, Kings of Leon are my favourite band and going in [to record] that’s what Dan Huff and Brandon Hood, my producers knew. Dan Huff is a legendary guitarist in his own right, so I’ve got him and all these rocker dudes, including Aaron Sterling on drums. I’m a band guy – I geek out when I get to meet and hang out with these guys. So, I was like ‘let’s make this sound like Radiohead,’ I was into those sounds. I’m calling it grountry – Grunge Country. I’m trying to get that to catch on…
It’s obviously been a minute since you released music. During the pandemic, was that a very conscious decision to sort of hold off until you’re able to play them live? I guess on the flip side, why did you choose ‘I Wish You Would’ as the lead-out track?
Yeah, it was and everybody in the world was in such a strange place – we just didn’t know what was gonna happen. So I just dove into the production and creative side more. I wrote songs but the Zoom writing is not for me – I’m a people person, I like to be around people. So, with ‘I Wish You Would,’ it’s less personal – it’s personal to me, but it’s not as serious as ‘Ghosts or ‘Buy Buy.’ There’s still the dark breakup, sad stuff, but I wanted to make a sexy breakup song. I just thought it sounded cool.
Obviously, over the past year, you’ve been incredibly busy – getting some amazing cuts with Tim McGraw and Gary Allan. How did those come about and what was it like to receive that news?
Tim had it on hold for like a year and we kind of forgot about it. After a while I was like, ‘Well, I guess that song is going away.’ Apparently Tim is good about it, if he holds onto something and I had heard news through the grapevine that he loved the song, but I had no idea. I showed up at my publishing company one morning, and they said, ‘Tim cut it. He cut the song’. I wrote the song with two of my best friends – one of them writes at my publishing company with me – and we just bear-hugged. I’m from the same place as Tim, we went to the same college and we were actually in the same fraternity. He had his own little shrine and we always joke that I would have a little picture next to it. When I found out, I lost it. I called my dad and my mom and he cried, and I cried. I just it was a huge thing.
That’s a huge moment in any musicians life, a big cut like that.
It didn’t do exactly like I thought it would, but it did fine and I got to meet Tim. When I was a kid, my mom would always have his stuff on, like ‘When The Green Grass Grows.’ It’s weird, so it really still hasn’t hit me. Then, the Gary Allan song – he’s another bucket list type of artist. It’s cool to have those cuts and think I can do this music thing. It’s been really cool for me.
Obviously, you said you’ve written with your friends and can you talk a bit about building that Nashville community of songwriters and that cool group? How has that shaped your craft as a songwriter?
Yeah, I’ll put it like this, Nashville has waves or classes. When I moved here, I didn’t know anybody – I lived in a motel in Opryland because I thought that’s where Music Row was – but I somehow ended up having a meeting with this lady at Peer Music Publishing (some lady in town thought she was my cousin or some weird deal). She hooked me up with Hunter Phelps and Jameson Rogers, they were my first two roommates for a couple years and now Jameson’s got a big ol hit of his own and Hunter and him have written so much. It’s pretty cool how it all worked out, we always knew we’d do something, we just didn’t know what. They were a little bit older than me and then I found my wave and my music wasn’t exactly like theirs – I was more of an East Nashville rock type. If you stick around long enough, you find your groove and your people, it’s about finding people you trust to be honest with and to open up to – it’s like a therapy session and then you condense it into a song.
That’s what’s really cool about Nashville, everyone always thinks of country when they think of the town but the sound is so much more diverse than that – there’s an indie side, a rock side and the genre is so varied.
Nashville is a really cool place to be right now. You can do any kind of music, and I’m trying to just do my thing and see what happens. It’s a really cool, creative place to be and I think after this pandemic, it’s just gonna get better and better.
Yeah, I feel like everyone’s ready to unleash the creative side. We’ve been inside so long. I just wanted to go back to one of your earlier tracks, one of the first of yours I heard – ‘Buy Buy’ – can you talk a bit about that one, it’s so personal?
Yeah, that was a strange day, it was a God thing. I had been going through a break-up and money issues and family issues and just being a wild ass to be honest with you. I literally just went to the beach and just drove there and I came back. One of my best friends, Allison Veltz – she’s a big hit songwriter now – and Tommy English, he’s worked on the BORNS stuff and Kacey Musgraves. They’re good friends of mine. Tommy had a track looping and when I walked in the room Allison could tell I was stressed and needed to get something off my chest. I was in a very confused, trying-to-find-myself place. So, for like 45 minutes, I just freestyled on a microphone. I just blacked out, I don’t know what I said, I still don’t know as I told them not to show me the whole thing. They condensed it down to four minutes or whatever it is. It’s like I had to do it or I couldn’t go on. I had to get that out, that song may have saved me in a way. I still don’t know what it means or where it came from. I couldn’t even listen to it for the first eight weeks,
The audience can just take whatever inspiration from those songs that they’d like to.
That one’s really changed my life. It’s cool to see that people connect with it. I don’t know if I’ll ever write a song like that again, I’ve written some pretty special ones here lately that I’m excited to share, but that was the crux of where I was.
Obviously, you’re talking about new music about to be released. Do you have any idea of when we can expect that music to come up?
Yep, I’ll be putting out a new one pretty soon. I don’t know how much I can say right now, but we’ve got some stuff coming that we’re very excited about. They have that same vibe. I’m just trying to make weird and hopefully cool music.
Well we’re excited to hear it and hopefully see you in the UK when this all goes away!
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to chat, appreciate y’all. I’m about to go hit golf balls.
