Rising UK singer/songwriter Ellis J Barraclough may only be 19 years old but his music and lyrics and overall personality suggests an artist and a man way beyond his years. His debut single ‘Patience’ was a beautiful introduction to the Hull based artist, attracting the attention of Americana UK, BBC Introducing, BBC Radio London and more.

Currently on tour, Ellis has supported acts such as Ocean Colour Scene as a band and as a duo (Simon and Oscar) and is quickly gaining a huge fanbase.

More recently, Ellis released his single ‘Blasphemy’. The song instantly catches your attention with its infectious beat and melody. Ellis’ vocals draw you in with his melodic tone and his lyrics spark curiosity making you eager to hear more.

Ellis says, “It was a time when I felt really confused and everything in my life seem to come with a thousand questions and I didn’t have any of the answers.”

The song was written solely by Ellis and was produced by Vincent Garcia. Garcia in fact, discovered Ellis. Vincent Garcia (of Drizabone, the ‘90s soul/acid-jazz band who scored a big hit with ‘Real Love’ ) helped Ellis book his first shows which included support slots with the comedian and writer Lucy Beaumont, Inspiral Carpets and Thomas Dolby.

Having until now primarily performed solo, Ellis J Barraclough has debuted his new five-piece live band The Sunscreen at his headline shows which include the Whiskey Jar in Manchester (May 20th) and the Hull Social (May 22nd). He is also confirmed for the Off The Tracks Festival in Castle Donington at the end of August

Ellis may have only just started out in the music industry but if this is how he is writing at 19, we expect to see his career soar throughout the years to a point that I wouldn’t be surprised if he becomes a Radio 1 favourite and selling out shows across the globe. In fact, I expect to be begging on my hands and knees for ticket to his show in the not too distant future.

We caught up with Ellis to get to know him a bit and talk about his music and more! Ellis was laid back, funny, clever and incredibly sweet.

How’s your week been?

It’s been lovely, actually, sunny at the beginning of the week, and now it’s all getting a bit not sunny.

I’ve seen you’ve been involved with music pretty much your whole life. What is your earliest memory of falling in love with music?

Probably just being showed. You know, as soon as I was showed music, I just fell in love with it. My Uncle always tells me story how he came to pick me up from primary school one time, and I was only about five, and he had ‘Black Magic Woman’ by Fleetwood Mac and apparently I was like, “Yeah, I really like it.” I was only five years old. So I’ve been showed by family members, and we’ve got a musical family as well.

Your Uncle, I believe, nearly made it into the big time with his band?

Well, I can’t remember personally, because I wasn’t around, but ‘The Dirty Dream’ they were called, and they were like, on the cusp. I don’t know what happened.

What instruments can you play other than the guitar?

Bass and drums.

Nice. Which one are you least confident on?

Drums probably. I loved playing drums so much when I was in college, the course I did was production and performance and what we had to do was record a whole song just by ourselves. So that was including drums and everything like that. So I spent like, a whole month up to that point, just all I’d ever do was come in and practice drums and I got to a point where I was like, I could play them solidly. I’ve always sort of dabbled in drums, but then I was like, Oh, well, I’ve got to do it for something now. So I’ve got to really get tight. And it’s just so fun. It’s brilliant. Yeah,

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote?

I was probably really young, like seven ish, it was really child like and you could tell a seven year old wrote it. But then when I got sort of 15, I started properly writing and I wrote a song called “Never Die” which is going to be on one of my albums. And that sort of made me go, “oh! well, I should probably start doing this. You know, I should probably take this seriously.”

Let’s talk about ‘Blasphemy’ can you tell us about the writing process behind that song and why you decided to release that one as a single?

Yeah, I just sort of, I was just sort of hopping around. I think the lyrics sort of lend it to me being homeless. I wasn’t homeless, but it’s metaphorically, you know, didn’t really know what I was doing, you know, so just hopping around and because I didn’t really understand it, I thought it was blasphemy.

Was it lengthy process, or did the song come quite quickly?

Quite quickly because it’s only, like, four chords, and it’s power chords. So it’s just strumming. So I was just powering it away and they sort of just came to me and then in the bit where ( sings “I spend my time…”,) when I first did that, it just came to me and as I was writing it, I was like, “Yes, I like this one. You know, let’s, let’s do this one” and it became a single.

Can you tell us a little bit about ‘Patience’?

Yeah, it’s about being patient haha. How did I write that one? I had the riff for ages, (hums riff). I had that for absolutely ages, but never, ever did anything with it. It sort of it was sort of like a sweet child of mine thing, where I just play it every now and again to warm my fingers up and then get on to like other songs. But then, as I was playing there, sort of started writing a bit of lyrics to it for no reason, and then there’s the sort of meaning behind it came that no matter where you are and like you just got to be patient and things will work out even if you’re not particularly that much in a rough spot, just patience is a good thing to have.

So you’re working on an album. What are your goals for this album? What can you tell me about it?

Well, I haven’t particularly worked out what songs are going to be on what album yet because I’m going to have finished three before I have released any, so I suppose the fun part is, after I’ve recorded, the third is to work out which songs go on what. Because I’ve not done it, I’ve not done it in a way where it’s like, oh, you know, this first album is definitely containing this material and this and that. So it’s like, after we’ve created all the jigsaw pieces, then I’m going to figure out how to work out the puzzle.

What about book ends of albums? Are those important to you like how to give it a opener and a close?

I have a couple of ideas about every now and then doing a bit of a concept, you know, where a song will flow into the other song, you know, with a bit of music. I am particularly doing it in a way where it’s like an intro and an outro type thing. It’s just songs. I’m going to try and roughly do it in when I wrote them, so they have a particular theme. I think, because I’ve gotten older, my songs change a little bit, you know? They take on a bit of a different form.

Is there a particular song you’re dying to get out there?

Yeah, it’s called ‘Time Back’. I can’t wait for people to say that. It’s like a psychedelic Indian song, really George Harrison.

Tell us about The Sunscreen, your band.

Just a group of guys making music, I suppose. It’s just a group of people that I decided to put together for a band because I think the music that I was doing didn’t really translate well when it was just me on stage. I can do it, I can do it well, and it sounds good, but you get to a point now where it’s like, you know, if you would play one of my songs after seeing me on stage, you’d be like “whoa! where’s all this other stuff come from?” Because there’s so much in it, and the way we’ve recorded it and everything like that. So we were like, oh, put together a band. So I’ve got some actual music behind me when I’m playing.

Do you write all your music on your own?

Yeah, I do the writing on my own. Yeah, because it all just comes from me sat in my bedroom. So everything comes from me and my brain, really. Even the first sort of demo recordings I spent days tweaking to make sure the right.

So you’re writing on your guitar, do any of the songs sound completely different from writers room to when they’re fully produced at a point you’re like, Oh, wow. I didn’t know it could sound like that.

Yeah that’s what ends up happening, because you’ll be playing and you get some ideas, you know, you are strumming down a rhythm, and then you’ll get an idea of a little bit of the lead thing you can do in there, or a particular one note that changes the sound of an entire chord progression. And then when it all comes together, what happens is you’ll have all the instruments down, and then as soon as you put the drums down, it just makes everything make sense. And you’re like, wow. And as you start recording the drums, sometimes you can’t do it because your head bopping so much.

Do you have, like, live music translation in your mind, when you’re writing, like, how would this translate?

I’ve never really thought that to be honest. No, I just sort of, when I go up on stage, I just play loud and sing, well, I’ll try to haha I sounded really cocky then.

You were touring with Ocean Colour Scene, What was that like?

Brilliant. I mean, I was one of their fans. Well, I still am, really. I’ve got one memory of my mum showing me ‘Fleeting Mind’ in the back garden. And we had the Alexa. It was one of them, really long Alexa’s, if you can remember them, cylinder type. It was that in the back garden and it’s a just a really relaxing song. And from then, I was like, “Oh God, I really, really liked these guys”. And then five years down the line I’m touring with them in Scotland and it was just phenomenal, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it happened. So lovely as well.

Was it them as a duo or was it the full band?

I’ve done one gig with the full band, because it’s obviously a lot harder, and they’re selling out big shows. But when it’s just Simon and Oscar, the drummer and the front man, Simon, I’m on there tours and hopefully I can get onto another one. Fingers crossed