Robby Klein
Lindsay Ell is known as a badass guitar player, a knockout vocalist, and a talented songwriter, but this year she opened up even more to the world by sharing a difficult truth.
While gearing up for the release of her sophomore album, Heart Theory, Ell revealed that she had been raped at the ages of 13 and 21. It was a secret Ell had long kept hidden, but three years ago she found herself speaking with girls at Youth For Tomorrow, a Virginia-based organization that supports young victims of sexual abuse.
“I was there to help them launch a music program—I didn’t think I was going to say a word about my own story,” she says. “This 12-year-old girl was sitting beside me and said, ‘My parents sold me into sex trafficking when I was little.’ Here’s this 12-year-old girl and she has so much light in her eyes and in her heart, and she’s had this dark history. I left the campus that day knowing that if I didn’t talk about my story, I was holding back the opportunity to help other little girls or boys like that—or adults.”
Robby Klein
Released in August, Heart Theory is based around the seven stages of grief and finds Ell sharing her own healing process.
“From the beginning of this record, I wanted to write songs that were super honest. I wanted to take listeners on this journey and be like, ‘OK, this is where I’m at. This is what I’ve been through. This is what I’m feeling and maybe you’ve felt that too,’” she says. “If they can listen to track one through track 12 and hear me slowly unravel through this time in my life, could it inspire them to take a deep dive into part of their own lives to find that level of healing in their own story?”
That said, Ell didn’t originally plan to make a concept album, but her subconscious had other ideas.
“I was halfway through the record when I realized, ‘I’m writing these songs in the order of how I am going through this process.’ You could see my transition. You could see my growth just by looking at the song titles and dates. I thought, ‘How cool would it be to write an album where you can see that progression?’”
The result is a deeply personal yet universally therapeutic album that dives into all of the emotions that accompany the grieving process. The second to last song, “Make You,” finds Ell singing to her younger self.
“I tried to write this song so many times and failed,” she says. “It’s too dark, it’s too heavy, it’s too difficult to write about. Brandy [Clark] and I had become friends over the past few years and one day I called her up and said, ‘I really want to write a song about my story as a little girl and I don’t know if you’d be into it...’ and it took her two seconds to say, ‘I’d be honored to write this song with you. Thank you for asking me and for having the courage to do it.’”
That song inspired Ell to start her own foundation, the Make You Movement, which focuses on helping disenfranchised youth and young victims of sexual assault.
“It’s been so rewarding to put my money where my mouth is. I want survivors to know that they’re not alone,” she says. “If I can be even a tiny bit of someone’s healing journey and an advocate for survivors out there then I’ll feel like I’m doing my job.”