Ella Eyre takes us down memory lane

Brit-pop sensation Ella Eyre, who kicked off the year with the aptly named comeback single “New Me”, takes us down memory lane with a look back at her most notable moments

Ella Eyre is back with a brandnew track and it’s one hell of a statement of intent for 2020.

Not only is “New Me” a brilliantly crafted break-up banger, it also marks a new professional era for the pop star, who joined Island Records last June after more than half a decade at Virgin Records. The track’ s dance hall inspired beat nods to this change in direction, with an evolution in sound she calls ‘more cultural’. Although a second album has yet to be announced (it’s been five years since her first), it seems unlikely fans will have to wait long, with a UK tour slated for May and June and, according to Eyre, a full bank of material that, like “New Me”, was recorded in Jamaica last year.

Eyre burst onto the scene in 2014 as a featured singer on Rudimental’s

No. 1 mega-hit “Waiting

All Night” and has since become a regular feature on the radio and the British celebrity circuit. With a big, bold vocal and a knack for writing catchy hooks, she’s behind some of the most inescapable songs of the past few years, from payday anthem “I Just Got Paid” with Sigala, to “Answerphone” with Banx & Ranx.

Here, the Brit Award winner covers everything from changing her team and how she moved on from her ex to the first time she got drunk and her first big spending spree.

GQ: The first time you realised you wanted to be a musician...

Ella Eyre: The first time I realised I wanted to be an artist was a year into my musical theatre course. We were planning the big show that happens at the end of the year when all the agents come in and I just remember thinking, “If I’m going to present myself to anybody that’s going to help my career, I want to be doing it with my own song and I want to be doing it in my own character, not a character I’ve been told to play because it’s in the script.” I wanted to be who I am and share what I’ve got to say, because at that time I felt like I had a lot to say.

GQ: The first song you wrote...

EE: It was called “I Can’t Breathe”. My best friend has it on her phone and she brings it back to haunt me every now and again. It actually wasn’t terrible. I’ve written some worse songs since then, but you could really hear the musical theatre in my voice still.

GQ: The first time you played in front of a live audience...

EE: In terms of my first ever time on stage, it was in primary school when I played Mary in the Nativity. It was a two-night show and both nights I forgot the baby. I just remember being at the side of the stage and beside myself. I was only five and it ruined the whole thing for me because I was just convinced that everyone thought I was this motherless Mary. My first Ella Eyre show was when I supported Bastille at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in around 2014 and I was going under the name “Ella”. I’ve still got the poster. I love those boys. I’ve been a massive supporter since day one.

GQ: The best advice you’ve been given...

EE: I get given excellent advice all the time, but this particular occasion is what kind of inspired “New Me”. You know when you’ve dated someone for a while, you break up and it lags on, you sleep with each other and you just go back, you do silly things? I remember my mum being like, ‘OK, what you need to do is delete every trace. Block his number, Instagram, email, get your shit out the house and just cut off. Stick with it for six months.’ I did that. Though it was hard, actually it was so much more rewarding in the end, in terms of what I was trying to achieve with the whole clinging on, dragging it out and wanting attention but not getting it. I think by actually taking a step back and being confident in my decision and taking responsibility for my own life, my own mindset, and looking after what I’m doing and looking forward, then that person was then suddenly like, ‘Wait, you don’t take >>

‘if you’re in a toxic situation, cut it off’

an interest in me anymore.’ And then in that I felt, ‘I’m so over this.’ It was just a really empowering thing. If you’re in a toxic situation, cut it off. You realise then how much you don’t need it and then when you realise you can have it back, you probably don’t want it anymore.

GQ: The first thing you’d do if you became president?

EE: I would lower the voting age to 16, just because at 16 I had a really good idea as to what was going on in the world.

And I think actually it’d encourage young people to really pay attention from an earlier age, because I think by the time you get to 18 you’re a bit like, ‘Ah, I’ve got other things to worry about.’ It’s really important for young people to have the opportunity to have a say in their future.

GQ: The first time you threw a punch and meant it...

EE: An actual physical punch? I remember punching the back of a chair on a plane when I was flying back from LA to London and they announced over the Tannoy that Brexit had gone through. More than three years later I feel like that was justified.

GQ: The first time you ever won anything...

EE: Winning the Brit Award for Best Song for “Waiting All Night”, which was my first ever release – I featured on Rudimental’s track. It was a genuine shock that, like it going to No. 1, set a very unrealistic bar for me in my mind. I remember just being like, ‘You know what? I’m just so grateful to be nominated,’ but my managers knew and they filmed my reaction. I genuinely thought that people knew at awards ceremonies that they were going to win, but that was one of the moments I really didn’t. I’m glad my managers didn’t tell me... I’ve since changed my management slightly... I’ve got one of them, still, and then one I replaced last year. I realised that my management team was very male-heavy and was also lacking in terms of diversity. As somebody who’s half Jamaican

I wanted to make sure that I was representing, but also that I was surrounding myself with different personalities and characters and backgrounds, diversity of thought. When I left Virgin I decided that if

I was going to make changes I was going to make real changes, to benefit my character or my personality, but also my career. I’d say that the direction with the new music is definitely a lot more cultural than it was before, so I need that influence around me.

GQ: The first time you went viral...

EE: It was on BBC Radio 1’s The Live Lounge with Rudimental. There’s a video on Youtube of me doing it wearing a Dunlop jumper and I remember I got so much flack for this bloody jumper, which I’d been wearing because the guys only asked me to come to Radio 1 with them at the last minute. They played it down so much that

I just rocked up in my jeans and Dunlop jumper – then the Live Lounge was filmed! Everyone was like, ‘Aw, bless her in her little Dunlop jumper’ and to this day it’s actually quite an iconic thing. That was the first time anyone had seen me perform live on screen and people still send me that video saying, ‘This was the best holiday song.’

GQ: The first time you made money from being a musician...

EE: Probably when I signed my publishing deal with Warner Chappell when I was 16; that was the first time I’d ever made anything at all out of it.

GQ: The first time that you blew a paycheque frivolously...

EE: I remember buying my first Gucci handbag. I was in Canada with my mum, it was on Boxing

Day and I just felt like it. At that point, I still hadn’t bought anything designer and I’d always had my eye on this bamboo Gucci bag and I just saw it in the shop. I’ve still got it.

GQ: The first time you were starstruck...

EE: My mum worked for Alexander Mcqueen for a brief time. She works in fashion, she did sportswear design and then she worked as one of Mcqueen’s PAS. I remember meeting him and I’d only ever heard things about him at home because obviously mum would talk about it. He was so tall and I was so small and I just didn’t know what to say. It was really cool, though.

GQ: The first time you read a piece of fake news about yourself...

EE: I read that I was worth two hundred million. My friend sent it to me going, ‘Oh my god! You didn’t tell me you’re doing this well’ and I was like, ‘Oh, babe, how I really wish I really was.’

GQ: The first time you got properly drunk...

EE: It must have been when I was about 14, when I went to my friend’s sweet eighteenth. It was also my mum’s fiftieth birthday that day, and I got blackout drunk. I’ve never, ever lived it down. I was drinking margaritas, and I remember the barman saying to me, be careful with these, they’re lethal. The rest is history.

GQ: The first time you realised that you were actually any good…

EE: When I didn’t get a lead part in the choir at school. I remember thinking, ‘Really? You chose them?’ Not even in a negative way, but I think that made me understand that my voice was different. I was really confident, I could hold a note and I was passionate, I would’ve loved to have done a solo, but I just never got picked for it. It was because I had a husk in my voice that a lot of my singing teachers were trying to iron out, as though it was a defect, but I think when I realised that I was actually good was just when I realised I didn’t sound like the other people in the choir.

GQ: First thing you’d ask Kanye…

EE: How much does Kanye love Kanye? I have so many questions, but they’re probably not printable. They’re all very left.

‘the music is a lot more cultural than it was before’