“I Want the Listener to Feel Uplifted”: Elles Bailey Discusses Her New Album, ‘Beneath the Neon Glow’

The artwork for Elles Bailey’ fourth studio album, Beneath the Neon Glow, tells you everything you need to know about the next chapter of the rootsy, blues-rock trailblazer's story.

There are a few deep blue tears cascading down the right side of the cover, prominent enough to be acknowledged and accepted, but unquestionably overpowered by vivid, rich crimson hues, vibrant, energising ambers and playful splashes of pink.

Beneath the Neon Glow is an album about embracing the various peaks and troughs of life, and striving to find joy and contentment in the midst of the rip-roaring rollercoaster.

This is epitomised on the opener, ‘Enjoy the Ride’, which finds Elles Bailey delivering the titular cri-de-coeur alongside an emphatic, electric guitar-fuelled instrumental. ‘Leave the Light On’, another single released ahead of the full album, is tinged with the sadness of exchanging home for the road, before Bailey determines to embrace her ‘rolling stone’ spirit and make the most of her adventures.

There's a constant tussle between the variegated, visceral moments of both pain and euphoria that life has to offer. Wistfulness meets wide-eyed wonder on the serene ‘Silhouette in a Sunset’, while Bailey gives in to a yearning for escapism on ‘Turn Off The News’, both of which capture the powerful dexterity of the record as a whole.

Beneath the Neon Glow extends Elles Bailey impressive run of eclectic, genre-fusing albums, while clearly marking a new direction for the ‘Hell or High Water’ singer-songwriter.

Bailey shares with Holler, “What’s interesting is the process of recording my last album, Shining In The Half-Light, and Beneath the Neon Glow was almost exactly the same, with the same people in exactly the same studio. However, I knew when we started making Beneath the Neon Glow that I didn’t just want to go and make the same album again - and, to start with, that's down to the songs and the songwriting”.

Elles Bailey reveals that she had a broad pool of candidates from which she selected just 10 songs, “I wrote 40 tunes for this record and Joe Wilkins, Dan Weller and I whittled it down to the final 10. I also feel I stretched myself while writing, pushing my voice in a way it hadn’t been used before, searching for more interesting melodies and finding the sweet spot where vowel sounds and melodies meet to make the song sound ‘right’. There are a lot of intimate lyrics on this album. Dan always said he felt it sounded more heartfelt, and I think lyrically there’s a lot of pain and sadness and honesty. However, melodically, it’s very uplifting - and I think that’s the take-home from this. I want the listener to feel uplifted!”

Elles Bailey has long been synonymous with the powerful lyricism she employs on the likes of ‘Cheats and Liars’ and ‘Medicine Man’, and she showcases this yet again on the poignant, introspective ‘Turn Off The News’, which serves as the album's grand finale.

“’Turn Off The News’ is not written about being unaware of what is going on in the world around you”, Elles Bailey explains, “But it’s written about the privilege of being able to turn off the news and escape into a story and protect yourself just for a moment from the pain from the day. It was inspired by the 2023 Turkey and Syria earthquake”.

The ‘Wildfire’ crooner touches on how that harrowing event coloured the song, “It broke my heart watching the new stories unfold every day, watching the devastation, and I really just understood how privileged I was to be at home, to be sat on my sofa, safe and warm, and to be able to escape when so many people were trapped”. Just this week, Elles Bailey took to socials to apply the message of ‘Turn Off The News’ and express her sympathy with those involved in the horrific Southport stabbings and the riots taking place across the UK in recent weeks. Aptly, she concluded with a mantra taken from Imelda May, “If the choice is between love and fear…. I choose love! And boy do we need more love in this world”.

It feels as though ‘Turn Off The News’ has a sonic sibling in ‘Good News Day’, which doesn't appear on DSPs, but is being released acoustically on the deluxe CD editions of Beneath the Neon Glow. Bailey muses, “I love ‘Good News Day' and my goodness, don’t we need that sometimes...I recorded it acoustically with Matt Owens from Noah and the Whale. We’ve been friends and collaborators for ages, but it was so nice to be able to actually record with him for my project”.

The juxtaposition between the empathetic anguish of ‘Turn Off The News’ and the untethered joy of ‘Good News Day’ embodies the resiliently optimistic ambience of Beneath the Neon Glow. This project cements Elles Bailey's position at the forefront of the UK's burgeoning Americana, roots and blues scene, with Bailey's nuanced, textured and evocative songwriting driving another stellar record.

In addition, Elles Bailey delved into what fans can expect her to perform at her Beneath the Neon Glow tour-stops, her experience playing at Glastonbury this year and her dream duets, including Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Raitt and more:

“To let you in on a little secret, I’m still deciding the setlist and it’s so hard to choose. I want to give these new songs as much airtime as possible, but this is also my fourth album, so it would be nice to celebrate some of the songs that have come before as well.

As always, you will be treated to a rollercoaster set with an incredible band, and regardless of the size of the venue, I believe it will feel like an intimate show. That’s how I want them to feel”.

“I’ll never forget the roar of the crowd. I’ve not heard anything like that in my career. We were playing early Saturday afternoon on the Avalon stage, and I was expecting people to be pretty subdued, a little hungover, a bit over the heat - but no, they were with us every second of the way. It truly was a remarkable experience”.

“The list is pretty long, but if you could go out to Brent Cobb, Mavis Staples, Chris Stapleton or Bonnie Raitt and ask them if they'd be up for a collab with Elles Bailey, I’d really appreciate that...!”

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