Interview: Shania Twain's touring guitarist Lindsay Ell on playing Glastonbury and why Beyonce's Cowboy Carter changed country music
Shania Twain's touring guitarist Lindsay Ell talks to us about rocking Glastonbury, whether she and the 'You're Still The One' hitmaker will hit the studio together and Beyonce spearheading an "exciting time" for country music...
Shania Twain’s guitarist and ‘Canada’s Got Talent’ host Lindsay Ell had a whirlwind 2024, touring with her idol, including playing to 140,000 people at Glastonbury Festival for last year’s Sunday afternoon legends slot.
After supporting country's biggest stars - including Brad Paisley, Keith Urban and Blake Shelton - Lindsay got the call to support the 'Man! I Feel Like A Woman!' hitmaker on her 2023 'Queen of Me Tour', that later led to musician joining Shania's live band for the her third Las Vegas residency at PH Live, before getting to rock out on the 'Greatest Hits Tour', and the world-famous Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, last year.
Here, the Canadian-born, Nashville-based musician, 35, talks about the “legendary day” at Glasto, whether she would collaborate with Shania on music and why Beyonce going country was the best thing to happen to Nashville…
Wow. It doesn’t get bigger than playing Glastonbury with Shania Twain, tell us about that?
Oh my gosh, yeah, Glastonbury was such a fun time. I mean, talk about such a legendary Festival, and it was such a legendary day, of course, and I played in the legend spot, and there was 140,000 people watching our show. I mean, I had never seen a festival that big, let alone that many people watching. It was just so, so sweet and so it's a day I will never forget.
Would a duet with Shania be on the cards?
Oh, my goodness, I would be honoured to do a duet with Shania one day, if, if I could ever be so lucky. You know, we've gotten to be such dear friends from touring together last year, and then now me being in her band, and I just look up to her so much. And the career she's built and continues to just grow in in amazing ways. And so that would be so, so fun.
Will you be continuing your touring stint with Shania?
Who knows? You know, I'm just sort of taking it show by show.
Being on the road can get exhausting, how do you practice self-care?
I think that self-care can look like a lot of different things. You know? I think that the beautiful thing about self-care is you really get to learn how to listen to yourself and I think that's the most wonderful thing, because you can access it from wherever you are. You know, you really just need to look inward, not outward. But I also will say that it it's difficult sometimes, you know, I think that life is so noisy. I think that our attentions are like constantly taken away by all of the distraction and social media and all the things that our brain is like being pulled left, right and centre to focus on and so I think that it's so easy to lose sight of what we might need. And I hate the stereotype around self-care, because it's become like, sort of a glorified, I don't know, like you're gonna go to the spa or something, which the spa is a beautiful place and, anytime somebody can go to the spa, I'm like, all the power to you, but, sometimes I think that self-care is more quiet and, like the little things. And so I think on the road, self-care looks a lot like journalling and giving yourself time in the morning to meditate or just think or sit in quiet, and even if you can just find, like two minutes of quiet, I think that that is sometimes the best gift of self-care that you can give yourself.
You’ve been open about your mental health and battle with an eating disorder online. Why is it important to share that journey with your fans?
You know, I think that one of the things I have looked up to all the artists who inspire me is their transparency to their journey and their story. And I guess I learned very early at some of the humanitarian work I was doing with organisations all over the world, but specifically a lot in Canada and the US. And I just got to see firsthand at how much vulnerability can really impact people and really bring us all together, and so it's been a very important part of my story, of being able to be open and share what I'm going through in the hopes that people will identify with maybe a bit of my story, or it will just give them the confidence to go talk about their story. I think it's, you know, the things that we go through in life that make us who we are, and when we can, we can share that with each other. I think it really like fuses us together as human beings. And I believe it's like, really, really powerful. So I just, I kind of made a pact to be as open as I can. And when I got diagnosed with my eating disorder last year, I was like, ‘Well, I think this is something that maybe other people could hear me go through my journey with it, and maybe it could help some people who are in a similar spot or are going through something in their own lives. ‘So yeah, it's been sort of a up and down roller coaster, but I think it's really powerful when you know you can help other people not feel like they're alone.
You’ve lived in Nashville for more than a decade now and seen some changes. So what did you think of Beyonce going country with Cowboy Carter last year?
I think it's incredible. You know? I think that the fact that Beyonce is bringing more fans into country music and inviting more people into the format is awesome. I love that. You know, genre lines are blending and are blurring more. I think that that's what should happen. I think that music should be more so on what makes you feel good and what makes you connect to who you are compared to what genre it is, which, you know, growing up country music and moving to Nashville 15 years ago, music was a lot more about where it fell in between the genre lines. And so I think it's a really exciting time right now for country music. And it's amazing that artists like Beyonce and Post Malone and Lana Del Rey are coming into the format being like, I want to make a country record, when really, it's just, I want to make music that's maybe inspired by previous country things, but it's just good music, you know.
Your last album was 2020's 'Heart Theory'. Can you tell us about what you’ve been working on lately?
Oh, my goodness. I have been recording in Brooklyn, New York. And I've been having the time of my life. It feels like this era I'm in right now; I'm experimenting more than I ever have with music, and it feels so good. I am no longer making sonic choices of this is what I feel is going to get on the radio, or this is what I feel is going to be successful. I'm just making music that I love, that's really good, and really wanting to see where that takes me.
