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Ellie Arnold on Music, Dance, and Independent Creativity · The Scene Projects

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Today's guest is Ellie Arnold, singer, songwriter, dancer, and powerhouse performer
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ranked top 10 in the world by IDO.
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She blends pop energy with bold choreography and fearless artistry.
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Turn it up.
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Our conversation with Ellie Arnold starts now.
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This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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from across the Midwest.
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Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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Well, welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is Ellie Arnold.
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Ellie, welcome to the show.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm so stoked.
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Yeah.
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This is great.
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I know you're a busy gal as we can hear by your intro there.
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You got a lot of stuff going on now.
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But before we get into that, I'd love to give you the floor here and give us a little bit of
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your backstory.
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Yeah.
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For sure.
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Both of my parents were professional dancers, their whole lives, and they started dance
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studio.
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And I was originally a competitive dancer from birth pretty much, but I always wrote songs.
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So my goal with moving to Nashville and starting up this music career was to be able to
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put dancing and singing altogether.
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So when I perform, it's a full blown production show.
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So, yeah, I'm doing that.
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I think most of us, like, start off singing and then pick up dancing later.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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With
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with dance moms and dance dads, like, you're just did you come out of the womb then just
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dancing?
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The feet were kicking already and you were off and running?
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Yeah.
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Pretty much.
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I didn't have much hair when I was little, so they would, like, take bows to my head.
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And I also couldn't walk when I was, you know, in class, so they would, like, hop me across
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the floor when I was a baby.
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I've pretty much been doing it since birth.
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That's wild.
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Well and I love that you haven't grown up to resent it.
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I I think for a lot of people that have that, you know, that it is you're so passionate about
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it.
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And sometimes that's hard.
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I mean, even for me, I I'm 39, so I've been playing music for a long time.
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There's been points in my life where nobody ever forced me to play music.
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But I would be like, you know what?
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I'm tired of doing this.
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You know?
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So Yeah.
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I love that you're so passionate about it.
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And now bringing the singing and the dancing together.
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Yes.
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What kind of music?
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You're in Nashville, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're country anymore.
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What kind of music do you write?
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I do a lot of rock, funk, pop.
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I've I grew up writing everything, but I've I've sort of found my sound or I'm starting to
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find a pretty consistent sound with where I'm at now in life.
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And that is funky, weird, be yourself, screw what everybody thinks kind of just kind of fun,
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upbeat music.
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I just love your attitude.
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You remind me of me at that age.
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Thank you.
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Maybe still now.
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I I wanna say that I have a little bit of that, that I've always just done my own thing.
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You know?
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Yeah.
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If I wasn't like that, I wouldn't have built this media, you know, budging media empire that
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we're working on.
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You know, the scene projects are have a radio station now.
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We're on a TV channel on Roku and different things and and have dreams of, you know,
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network television in our mind.
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But I'm also a songwriter myself, and that's what made it easy when I was starting out to
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just be like, you know, I'm passionate about not just my music, but of all original music
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and and all types of original music.
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So it was really hard in a world where you have to be so niche.
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Right?
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You gotta find a niche and just stick to it and stay in your lane and do that one thing.
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And I was just like, but I don't wanna do that.
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I get so bored easily.
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Yeah.
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Not me.
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I'm gonna do it all.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So
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what do you think of Nashville?
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Have you been there for a little while now?
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I have.
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I moved here about a year ago.
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It's it's a very my lifestyle has always been very chaotic, and I'm always in a lot of
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cities.
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I love, like, big cities that's constantly going and going and going.
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Like, I love that.
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I found that Nashville is a slower city.
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It's very peaceful here, and I like that.
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I like it.
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It's very nice.
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It's really it's really cool to be able to meet the kinds of, like, crazy people that I have
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met.
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I met my whole team here, and it I I love it here.
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It's it's awesome.
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And I feel like Nashville was maybe traditionally considered the South, but I feel
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like it's a lot more Midwestern vibe because I I grew up in the Midwest.
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I'm from South Dakota.
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I live in a town of a thousand people.
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I I've spent most of my life here, but I have family in Chicago, and then I've been all over
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the world.
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I've lived in Los Angeles and not a lot of time on the East Coast, but lived in some fairly,
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you know, big cities, right, as as big as it gets.
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And while I appreciate that hustle and bustle and that energy that a city can bring, I feel
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like I almost stand out more in Midwestern places because there's not a lot of people like
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us in most of these places, Ellie.
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And I and even a place that's known for music that there's not a lot of people like you in
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Nashville.
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Not a lot of people with your spunk and energy out there that are putting it out.
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And and a lot of your singer songwriter types that are kind of laid back and playing the
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guitar and singing and not necessarily going out and, you know, Paula Abduling it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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For sure.
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Especially under I completely agree about what you said about it being more Midwestern.
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I'm from New Orleans, so I'm from, like, Deep South.
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Yeah.
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We're all a little bit out of it.
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Like, we're all over the place.
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But also going back to what you said about us, you know, not necessarily fitting in here.
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I thought that that would be, you know, a difficult thing going into this career being so
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gung ho on, like, I'm not changing for anybody.
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This is what I do.
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It actually worked out in my favor.
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I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb, like, no.
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They won't like me, but it ended up being the opposite.
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So, yeah, I'm I'm really I'm really grateful to Nashville for that for sure.
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And it's just the heartbeat of music right now.
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Right?
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It it was a a a country town maybe twenty five years ago even.
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Yeah.
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But it is really the heartbeat of popular music in general now.
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I know all kinds of artists that are going there, and, you know, the studios that you
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have, they're amazing.
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The players that you have there are just phenomenal.
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And it's a great opportunity for young artists to go to really cut their teeth.
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Maybe you're not gonna make what you would.
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I mean, we make really good money up here in the Northwest or in the Midwest rather because
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there's not an overabundance of acts to go out and see all the time.
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Right?
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There's not that dilution of it.
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But I know a lot of people that, go down to Nashville and, you know, have that Nashville
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recording artist name because they've worked there before but are able to come back and use
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a little bit of that clout to get maybe a little bit bigger gigs out here in the Dakotas
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or Minnesota and Iowa and to make fairly good livings for themselves playing the Midwest in
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the summer and then going back to Nashville for the winter months and and being able to be
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around and be inspired by all of these creative people as well.
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Right.
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No.
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Completely agreed.
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So New Orleans.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Homegrown.
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Your city?
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All the time.
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They're crazy down there.
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I miss them terribly.
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Like, I come way out of whack.
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I used to use that term for just like if, like, my friend was telling me about her boyfriend,
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I'd be like, yeah.
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That's way out of whack.
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I would usually use it as a derogatory term.
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But when I moved up here, I was like, I really am wacky.
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I come from a very wacky family.
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And so, like, I I just remember being like, I can make this into something good.
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So a lot of my family loved way out of whack because I that was a term I used, and then I
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used it to just describe how we are.
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But, yeah, I really do.
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I miss home.
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I miss all the gumbo and, you know, family time.
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I'm extremely close with my family.
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Yeah.
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Then that's definitely a southern thing and a New Orleans State.
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I've been I got to visit there one time on tour.
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I wasn't there for very long, a couple of days, but enough to soak in and just be like, this is
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different.
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And, unfortunately, it was, you know, post Katrina, so, you know, Bywater wasn't what it
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used to be, you know, thirty years ago, or, you know, fifty years ago.
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But these beautiful neighborhoods and these awesome, awesome houses and just you could just
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feel it and smell it and just the electricity in the air and your Yeah.
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You know, the ghost tours around at night.
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Now I I will admit that I had a a few too many pina coladas on the street while I was down
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there.
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And I didn't remember as much as I should, but it was enough to know that I wanna go back one
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day and, to visit again.
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So now that we're getting out and touring a little bit more, I have New Orleans circled on
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my list of places that we wanna get to next March on our spring tour.
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Yeah.
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It's they for sure live in it's like their own little world down there.
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It's like how New York City is their own little world.
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I feel like Nashville is its own little world.
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New Orleans is for sure.
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Well, it's just physically.
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I mean, with with Lake Pontchartrain right there, I mean, it's just you're almost on an
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island.
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It's not.
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You know, you're on a peninsula, I guess it would be, but you're out there, and it's, you
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know, easy to get cut off.
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That one road gets taken off, and nobody's going anywhere.
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You know?
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I literally It's just it was wild driving in along the lake.
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You know, we were coming from the Baton Rouge area coming down and just being like, is this
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thing gonna go for we're on the lake.
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We're driving on the lake.
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What are we doing?
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Yeah.
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It's like never ending.
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Oh, yeah.
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For sure.
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Longest bridge I've ever seen in my life.
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We've been on it for 40 miles.
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Yeah.
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It was a little unnerving for someone who spent most of their life landlocked in South Dakota.
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Right?
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Like, what are we what are we doing?
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But It's interesting.
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City and and just so grateful.
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And and it it is.
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It's out of whack in the best kind of ways.
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Yeah.
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It's out of whack.
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No pun intended.
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Is that the name of your new album or what?
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Well, I'm releasing singles right now.
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First song I put out was Way Out of Whack.
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Yes.
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That is the name of my first song.
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And how could it not be?
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Right?
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Yeah.
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I I remember they asked me what I wanted my first song to be, and I was like, it's gotta be
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way out of whack.
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That song is just an introduction of who I am.
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I was like, I gotta have that introduction to the world first.
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Incredible.
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So are you signed to a label down there, or are you operating independently?
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What's what's your work?
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Currently, I'm independent.
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I am with a management company called Honeysuckle.
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Lyric Mullins and Megan Williams both own it, and they are also some of my best friends.
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So it's actually really cool.
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I'm working with all of my best friends and making crazy art and doing photoshoots and all
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this crazy stuff, and it's it's a lot of fun.
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But, no, I'm not with a label yet.
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I don't think you wanna be with a label anyway.
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They just try to change you, Ellie.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's yeah.
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I agree.
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I agree.
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And that's not where your superpower is.
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Your superpower is in being different and and having that.
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Can you talk a little bit about, you know, did you ever have a moment where you weren't kinda
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being managed by someone in your music career?
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Were you were you lucky enough to find people that that really cared?
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Because my experience has always been managing myself, booking all my own gigs, making all my
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own decisions for better or for worse.
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So I'm just interested in kind of your experience a little bit.
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Yeah.
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I moved up here in January, and my mindset was like, this is your only option.
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You're gonna figure it out.
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I was putting in everything I had, and I was attending a school called Dark Horse.
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I don't know if you've heard of it.
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I was in their songwriting course.
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And, I was in class rehearsing one day, and this was about two months after I had been
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here.
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I was rehearsing for one of our performances, and this girl walked in, and she just, like,
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sat on the couch in the recording studio.
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I was just sitting there.
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I was like, I didn't know who this was, but apparently, like, some people had started
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talking to her.
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So was like, okay.
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People must know who she is.
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And then about, like, twenty minutes later when we were done rehearsing our set, she walked up
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to me.
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She was like, what do you say we go get ice cream?
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I was like, ice cream?
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She was like, what are you doing on your dinner break?
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And I was like so we ended up going, and that that's how I met Lyric.
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That and then from there, it was just we've been together ever since.
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So That's incredible.
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Yeah.
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Incredible stuff.
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Have a, we have a young friend of ours.
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Shout out to Belle Modine.
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She's going to Belmont.
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And Nice.
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Knowing her school experience, she's going for production and, you know, a little bit of music
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business in there as well.
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But, speaks so highly of the education system down there and and these schools and being in
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the area.
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And it's the connections that you make, whether it's with your fellow students or, you know,
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some of the faculty maybe know somebody that invite them into those rooms and different
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things that Yeah.
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It's really an advantage.
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And and I don't remember there being a lot of that when I was coming up.
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I mean, I'm almost 40, Ellie.
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So it's been a long time since I ever thought about college or any of that stuff.
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And Yeah.
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And music wasn't really I didn't know what I wanted to be at at 17, 18 years old.
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Right?
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I I was just kind of floating around, and it wasn't until, you know, being out.
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It wasn't until, like, busking on the street that the guitar and music had value to me all
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of a sudden where I was like, oh, maybe I should just do this.
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You know?
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Like, if I'm worth a $150 playing on the beach down in Venice, California, like, I could be
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worth something to a venue.
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So it's taken me a long time to build up a music career where, you know, for a young
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person like yourself to make those connections rather early on in your, you know, in your stay
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in Nashville, I think that's awesome.
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And it really speaks to the the camaraderie that there is in the independent music scene
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now
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Mhmm.
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As opposed to maybe twenty or thirty years ago, when it was you gotta get signed and, you know,
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you're only trying to impress A and R reps, and and they'll tell you who, you know, to go play
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for and to do.
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And I just don't think that that's a it wasn't a breeding ground for good music, and it wasn't
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you know, it was a very dangerous world for a lot of people, especially young ladies like
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yourself.
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Yep.
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It was just a breeding ground for machines Yeah.
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Basically.
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Yeah.
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No.
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I agree.
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Mhmm.
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So what's, what's coming up next?
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You're releasing some singles.
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Are you you playing any shows around Nashville?
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Hoping to do some shows in January.
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I have Way Out of Whack Out.
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I have a song called This Town coming out in two days.
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It is a Halloween based song, not like the thriller kind.
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It's very it's a mix of, like, a lot of genres.
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I don't know if I could pinpoint it, but that's coming out.
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And then we're gonna take a slight break for the holidays.
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And then when January comes, we're releasing a song called Jet Black.
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And that's more of my funk rock stuff.
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So, hopefully, by the time January comes around, we'll be doing some shows.
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Incredible.
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We are catching you at the inception of your music career.
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This is cool.
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Very beginning.
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Very beginning.
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My first song was released, like, a month ago, September 5, so a month ago.
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How awesome.
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Well, congratulations to you, and and I look forward to maybe getting to connect with you
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when I'm down in Nashville over the weekend.
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I'll be down covering the Josie Music Awards.
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This episode will be out for six month or not till, like, April.
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But, if we need to get it out earlier, Ella, you let me know so we can tell people about all
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these songs you got coming out.
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But you might already be a huge star by this time.
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So I'm looking forward to, living in the future.
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It is a crazy thing.
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And Yeah.
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I look forward to, hopefully getting to connect with you in Nashville and meeting some of your
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people and seeing what you guys do down there.
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It'll be my first time ever going to Nashville, and I'll be working at the Grand Ole Opry.
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So I'm pretty stoked about that.
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Yeah.
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Come jam.
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It'll be fun.
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Now that's what I'm talking about because I am not as country as most people around me are.
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I much more appreciate the funky blues and rock and roll.
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So we'll have to get together.
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Ellie, congratulations to you and the best of luck in everything that you do.
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I will be streaming the new song, and, I'll throw some thriller moves out while I'm
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listening to it just for sakes anyway.
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Thank you so much.
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I appreciate it.
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Awesome, Ellie.
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Well, thanks for your time today, and thanks for being part of the scene.
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Thank you.
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I hope you have a wonderful day.