We talked to BBC Introducing’s brightest new star about gentrification and genre-jumping.
It’s a blustery Autumn night and we’re at an effortlessly cool student bar on the tree-lined fringes of Regents Park. Yes, there’s a student bar by Regents Park! Only three quid a pint too! Bargain!
The walls thrum as Elle Exxe’s band sound check for her album launch gig later on in the evening. Excited young people with neon hair and neon clothes chatter and throng in anticipation. Elle Exxe is the epitome of 2016 pop. Depending what song you’re listening to, she can be confrontational, introspective, confident or soulful. It’s music for a generation who’ve grown up in a time of sociopolitical turmoil. Brexit, chemsex, terrorism. We haven’t got time for soppy ballads. We’re making defiant electro and dolloping sunscreen blobs of trippy trop pop all over the place!
We’re sitting in a distressed leather armchair with a cold pint. The doors swing open and Elle storms in, looking like Hackney’s answer to Jemma Frost. Head-to-toe in white leather, complete with thigh-high boots and a cape. She demurely takes a seat (well, as demurely as you can whilst dressed all in white leather), and we talk travel, politics and London nightlife.
Hey Elle! So I hear you directed one of your own music videos? That’s the dream!
I loved it actually. I directed it, I produced it, I did the graphics editing on it, all of it. Everything! Planning it all is a lot harder than you expect it to be. I was literally going up and down the streets of Notting Hill, trying to find people who looked interesting enough to be part of the video. There was this guy in it – I think the official term is “bear” actually – he was literally dancing on a street corner in Notting Hill. I was like “I have been looking for exactly you! Please will you come to my video it’s tomorrow!” and he was like “yeah I’m there!” And we didn’t think he’d turn up, and then he did, and he was just the nicest man.
That’s why I love London!
Yeah, you can do whatever you want and it’s normal.
There’s been a lot of dialogue about how venues are closing in London, rent’s getting too high, stuff like that. Do you think there’s still hope for London?
Well, I have to have hope I guess. But I’ve just been in Korea, and they have a music district called Hongdae in Seoul. It’s kind of the music capital of Korea. Which London should be of the UK. There were so many venues there, and all of them were open until six in the morning. In fact, there was one which was open until eight in the morning, other places were just 24 hours. And nobody complained. Everybody was happy. It was busy and money was being spent, so it was good for the community! I am a little bit worried about London. So many people want to live here, and everywhere’s getting knocked down so more people can live here…but at this rate we’re all going to be living here with nothing to do. And we won’t be able to afford the venues that do exist, because they’ll be paying so much to keep fighting legal battles. So I am worried, yes.
Where do you go out then?
I actually don’t go out a lot these days to be honest. I like house parties and stuff, that’s more my vibe. I hate queuing at bars! That was another thing that was amazing in Korea, there was no queuing at the bars because they don’t really drink! We were getting some eyebrows raised by how much we were drinking. And what I really love there, is you can go into a newsagents, buy your drinks there, and then go into the clubs with them. I would actually love if everywhere here was BYOB, and you could just carry a rucksack with all your drinks in it.
So, your sound, particularly Lost In L.A., is a little bit Charli XCX. Is that a fair comparison?
I had a really weird dream about her this morning. I think if I told you the details it’d be too weird actually. But I really like her! I think she’s really cool. I like her sound, and I can totally see why we’re getting comparisons. I think it’s mainly Lost In LA. I don’t think the other songs have as many similarities. Like, I can’t imagine Charli XCX singing “Lately”. Or “Home With You”. But yeah, I like speaking my mind and getting a bit aggressive on stage. I like to rock out on stage so I need Lost In LA because it’s punchy.
So, the video for “Lately” has a drag queen in it, playing you! What’s the story behind that?
I was playing a show, and this person came up to me, and they said that they wanted to impersonate me for a video, and would I be up for it? And I was like “a hundred per cent, that sounds absolutely amazing!” And actually we’d been thinking of an idea kind of vaguely similar anyway. So we put our heads together and worked it out. Normally he’s a comedian, that’s his main thing. But he wanted to experiment with gender.
I thought it was a really cool concept. And hilarious too!
Yeah it’s got a bit of everything!
It’s funny because you wouldn’t necessarily have expected that kind of music video from the song…
Well I wanted to fight against what was expected. I felt like what was presumed from a song like that was it was gonna be me and a guy in a bed, all smouldering and sexy, or you know, what the industry think is sexy. And I thought “that’s just not me, I don’t wanna do that.” So I tried to be creative with it, and tried to do what WAS me. And that video is definitely me. There’s a combination of shyness, which is what I was representing, and then the over-the-top, in-your-face-ness of him. It represented my two personalities.
So tell me what you’ve got going on at the moment then!
So, in the next couple of months I’m releasing as much stuff to do with the album as possible. I’m currently constructing a plan to head out to LA to shoot a film with a lady called Baddiewinkle, who’s this amazing eighty-two-year-old rebel basically. She’s got crazy pink hair and wears marijuana plant t-shirts and stuff. So I’m planning that, and that’ll come out next year sometime. I’m writing new material. I’m gonna be on BBC Introducing on the 30th too! So I’m really looking forward to that. And the Unsigned Music Awards, I’m up for a nomination for best female solo act, and I’m performing at The Troxy for it, and it’s all being televised.
Wow amazing! Exciting stuff. Thanks so much Elle.
Thank you!
• Elle Exxe’s debut album, Love Fuelled Hate, is out now.
