Elena Erin is a musical gift from the chilly Canadian north. Some of the best music comes out of small towns, and Elena’s art is no different. Her 2022 debut album was featured on popular Spotify playlists, and her song Build a Ship climbed to #2 on the CBC’s Top 20 list. With her next album, Roaring 20s, to be released in the spring, Elena answered questions for IINAG about her new single, Only Kink I Haven’t Tried.
Tell us about the new song you just released this week.
“Only Kink I Haven’t Tried” came as a lyric to me – the idea that you’ve tried every wild thing in life but missed the main thing you were looking for in it all. And how someone can be so obsessed with something in a “kink” sense, and applying that feeling to something pure and basic as love. My favorite part of the song is the bridge, where this person is talking about having built up a life with someone, and says “you on my wall under family portraits, took all my Grammys and put them in storage, I like all the prizes but I like you more.” It feels like a reminder to me about what really matters in life – not romantic love necessarily, but the people around you. I don’t think I’ll be on my deathbed measuring the quality of my life by how many accolades I’ve received, but instead the richness of relationships I’ve built.
You recently posted about doing the cover art for this song on your social media. Have you done this for any other song, and why is creating your own visuals, specifically collage, important to you?
Creating artwork for my music began as life seeming to “take away” something to give me something better. I was rushing last-minute to get my first song out this July, and when I was about to send it to my distributor, realized I had no artwork or recent photos to use, or budget for a photoshoot. So I decided I’d just make something myself, grabbed a bunch of magazines and art supplies and put the first cover together. This artwork started so unintentionally but came out as something that felt exactly like my feelings and mood as a visual expression. And I would’ve had no idea I could create something like that had I not been pushed to. They seem fitting for the songs as they’re visually telling the stories I am musically.
Do you have any rituals you participate in that help inspire your songwriting?
Putting myself in upsetting situations. Which I’m just owning. I have these narratives I tell myself that love is so hard to find, or I always get rejected, or no matter how hard I work things never work out for me, and it’s actually not true.
But part of me loves the pining for someone and the drama of the stories, and the music that flows out when I feel these things deeply.
So I let myself feel them. I let myself feel like a 3 month situationship ending is the most heart-wrenching betrayal ever and get an album out of it. I let myself romanticise a situation in my head and write love songs about an illusion of someone. I let myself feel like my career not going to places I want means I’m failing and rejected, and also write songs about that.
I’ve decided life is like watching a movie, and while I’m not into horror or people dying, I seem to love the movies of overcoming struggle and tragic pining love and being an outsider trying to find her place in the world.
What has 2024 looked like for you as an artist?
The beginning half of 2024 felt like coming out of hibernation. I finalized mixing and mastering my album in the first few months of the year, released my first song in July, and that’s where everything began gaining momentum. I released four singles over the course of this year, made artwork for all the singles, filmed music videos for most of my album, played shows in the UK, Canada, and USA. It felt like a year of launching and getting ready for an even bigger launch next year.
Do you have a dream collaboration?
Sevdaliza. I admire her so much and she’s such a cool “distant” mentor. Someone I take advice from even though I’ve never met her irl (yet). And Raye.
What is next for you?
Up next is my album “Roaring 20s” releasing next Spring. This is a concept album set in a 1920’s esq landscape, but in today’s modern 20’s. It follows the story of a woman who’s climbed to the top of all her dreams, only to have to face herself and be confronted with her own loneliness, purpose, and worth. The album opens in a party in New York City with the song “Sick Rich Girl” and follows her “undoing” as she analyzes and takes apart her life to see what’s going on.
There’s another single coming out in January which is the last song I added to the album, and then a tour throughout the UK, USA, and Canada in the spring alongside the album release, and playing festivals throughout the summer.
Thank you so much for chatting with us!
