Fresh off a stint of questions about her tour run with Shania Twain as Twain’s lead guitarist, Ell speaks with genuine gratitude for the experience but makes it clear that fence sitter isn’t about stepping into anyone else’s spotlight. Instead, it’s an opportunity for her to confront the ongoing tug-of-war she faces within herself. From the hopeful shimmer of “magic” to the tongue-in-cheek snark of “good guy,” the EP captures Ell balancing vulnerability and contradiction, seeking connection while standing firm on her own boundaries. 

When I connect with Ell in her air-conditioned trailer at Festival d’été de Québec (FEQ), Québec City’s legendary and sweltering summer music event, she’s eager to break down the stories behind fence sitter, as if unpacking the music is the only way to make sense of it all. “When I’m writing a song and I’m like… ‘can I say that?’ That’s when I know I’m onto something good,” she begins, suggesting this moment of hesitation—and breakthrough—was a frequent companion during the making of the project. “I’ve never gotten as much of a response from my songs than I have from playing this EP for my friends,” she grins.

At one point, I throw her an inevitable journalist cliché: describe the EP in three words. “Vulnerable, confident, authentic.” It’s a tidy little triad—PR-ready, sure, but not entirely off the mark. “One thing I learned while making this EP was that the more honest I get, the more that the music connects,” she says. It sounds simple enough. But coming from an artist who admits to having built a career on spotless riffs and songs that rarely let the seams show, it lands differently. Her earlier work often felt engineered for clarity, and while fence sitter doesn’t entirely abandon that instinct, it does loosen its grip a little—like someone finally unbuttoning the top collar after years of smiling through it.