Ellise Asks the Ultimate Breakup Question on "Kill4Me"
"Kill4Me" is the first bonus track from the upcoming 'Pretty Evil Deluxe.'
Music
Ellise wants to know: Would you kill for her?
It’s a question she asks on her latest single “Kill4Me,” the first bonus track from the deluxe edition of the album Pretty Evil.
“The song is saying we both know the relationship needs to end, but I can't do that,” Ellise says. “I’m not strong enough to take that step, so you need to kill it for me.”
A heavy bass line carries through the song. Ellise describes the track as “fun, while also being a bit deep and melancholy.”
On it, she sings:
It’s my ritual, never letting go
Dig my fingernails down to the bone
Oh, if it’s really love, then you’ll pull the plug
Only one I trust
Tell me, would you kill for me?
“Pretty Evil is really about the spectrum of a full relationship. Right from the beginning when you first meet and you have the hearts in your eyes, all the way through the very end,” Ellise says. “The deluxe is the aftermath of all of that.”
Pretty Evil Deluxe adds four tracks, including “Kill4Me.” It’s out Friday, June 13.
“I always knew I wanted the world of Pretty Evil and the album to have an after-the-credits scene, like ending the chapter,” Ellise says.
For Ellise, songwriting is a way to turn her life into art: the good, the bad and the evil.
“I try to pick apart my situations in life and then write something for every different division of what I’ve picked apart from it,” Ellise says. “You have to take that and find a whole spectrum and range of colorful emotions in it to be able to write a full scope of it.”
She writes based on experience, but controls what version of herself she reveals in her art.
“This is based on true events, it’s based on my life, it’s based on my experiences and emotions and it’s coming from the heart, but I’m recreating it for you in a way that is how I want to portray it as an artist,” Ellise says of her art.
Ellise’s art exists by glamorizing her life — not just in the music, but in the visuals.
The cover art for “Kill4Me” shows Ellise lying in front of sheet panels, lit by a spotlight. She calls the black-and-white photograph “simplistic but glamorized.”
Once again, Ellise turns the ordinary into art.
“You have to romanticize everything, especially as an artist,” she says. “Romanticizing random things in your life is the only way you’ll even really get inspiration to make music, to make visuals, to build a world around the things you’re saying.”
For Ellise, world-building means meeting her audience where they are and giving them what they want: Music and visuals; authenticity and performance.
“It’s my job to make sure that at every single place you can go listen to [a song], I’m giving you a visual piece of content,” she says.
This attention to detail allows her to convey the emotion behind her artistry in the way she intended.
“That is what I want you to absorb from it and how I want you to perceive me as an artist,” she says.
She doesn’t want her art to live in a vacuum — she wants her community of fans to find home in it. She doesn’t make art in a vacuum, either. Ellise brings in collaborators to expand on her own artistic vision.
“I think working with other people is the most efficient way to grow as your own artist,” she says. “Working with the people I worked with on this album is really what opened the door for me to even find this sound.”
Now, Ellise prepares to bring that sound to fans in a live environment for her first headline tour.
Ellise previously opened for Madison Beer on the “Spinning” tour. That’s where, Ellise says, she learned “everything” about live performances and touring.
“I feel like I got the best tour crash course on earth,” Ellise says.
The “Pretty Evil” tour starts July 31 in Pittsburgh, PA and continues through August.
Whether or not you listen to her live or on a streaming platform, Ellise has a message for her fans: “I’m making music for you. I want to serve your interests and give you back because you give me so much.”