ELLA JANE IS GAINING PERSPECTIVE (and so am I)

Photo by: Sam Schucker @schucke.r

I first met pop singer/songwriter Ella Jane on a brisk December day in 2021. I had moved to New York City three months prior and purchased tickets for her show at Baby’s All Right, an iconic Brooklyn venue, the minute that they dropped. I had been listening to her for over a year prior and had interacted with her a few times on Instagram and TikTok. I had hopes that she knew who I was, and every time she commented on a TikTok of mine about her music, replied to my Instagram story about how the kids I watched loved her discography, or reposted my story celebrating my ticket purchase, I felt that relationship solidify. But let’s be clear here – while Ella may have had a vague idea of who I was, that wasn’t friendship. That was Ella merely existing on the internet, being, as she puts it, “approachable and nice” and having someone (in this case, me) mistake interaction for acquaintanceship. I did make one real friend from Ella reposting that ticket-purchasing Instagram post, though, and that was Sam Schucker.

Sam (or Sammy, as I now know them) dmed me saying that they’d seen Ella’s repost, that they were going to the Baby’s All Right show alone, that we had some Instagram mutuals, and maybe we’d see each other there. When the show came around, we spotted each other in the crowd and chatted afterwards. We sat across from each other on the Q train as we journeyed home that night, and the rest, as they say, is history. Sammy is now one of my best friends. It was their idea to bring me on as a writer with Fanaticus, their idea to work on pieces as a duo, to combine my writing skills with their powerhouse photography. And now, here Sammy and I are, four years later, working together on a piece about the very artist that brought us together, at the very same venue where we first met. 

Ella Jane returned to Baby’s All Right with a headline show on October 21st, 2025. In some ways, the excitement and anticipation I feel are just the same as they were four years ago. But a lot has changed. To start with, Ella and I are actual, real-life friends now (I couldn’t quite tell you how that happened, but I know that my tattoo of her lyrics, as well as my parallel (if much less impressive) life in the arts are both major contributing factors). Ella has released a full-length album and some singles in the years since she last played Baby’s. She’s toured as a headliner, received a shoutout from Elton John, did a one-year stint with a label, and then decided to return to indie artistry. She’s dyed her hair and cut it short, had a major surgery, and had a song on the Heartstopper soundtrack. The landscape of Ella’s life has changed drastically – politically and digitally (as all lives have in the past four years), as well as literally, given her cross-country move from Brooklyn (not too far from her hometown in Westchester) to Los Angeles. When Ella and I got together before her recent show at Baby’s All Right, I wanted to know what the venue means to her, and what it means to return four years later, given all that has changed in the intervening years. 

“For me, Baby’s was a big symbol of me moving to New York in my early twenties,” Ella told me. “I didn't grow up going here. If I ever were to go into the city for a show, it was to MSG or Bowery Ballroom, or even Terminal Five. Those were definitely more prominent in my childhood and my teens. But I started going to a lot of shows at Baby’s when I first moved here when I was 19, and so I feel like, to return to where I have gotten to see people that I love play, and where I played my first headline show ever, is super cool.”

As Ella continued to reflect on her time living in Brooklyn, another theme emerged - her queerness. Jane has been out and proud for as long as she’s had a true public presence, but it’s certainly something she’s become more comfortable and confident in as the years passed.

“The live music scene in Brooklyn is kind of emblematic to me of being in New York in my twenties, but it was also my first foray out of [being completely] surrounded by a lot of people who were like the people I grew up with. And I think having my friends out here be older and so much more diverse and so much more openly queer shaped me in really major ways. And so it is cool to be back here, just seeing how far I’ve come personally, in accepting my own identity… I was out, but I don’t think I was really internalizing just how much it mattered, how important my queerness was to me.”

Two of the older friends Ella is referencing are Kevin Atwater and August Ponthier, who make special guest appearances at the show that night to sing harmony on Ella’s recent single “Seattle.” I ask her what it means to be performing alongside two fellow openly queer musicians and why it feels important.

“I mean, I'm definitely in a pivotal point in my queerness, where there's been a lot of big life changes… I’m exploring my own identity and whatever, and I think, in terms of having Kevin and August being here with me… I mean, my fanbase is so fucking gay. The way that I can create a safe space for them… it is special to be out and be proud [alongside August and Kevin] in front of my younger queer fanbase… In this current political climate – obviously, we’re in New York, this is a bright spot, thankfully, with Zohran, and everything… it is definitely a nice little blue bubble of hope. [But] even in New York, even in a blue city, everyone has their own personal relationships to being queer and how people treat them for it… and [shows like this are] the way that I can create a safe space for [queer fans].”

Photo by: Sam Schucker @schucke.r

Later, when they’re rehearsing the “Seattle” vocals, I hear Ella remark to August and Kevin, “You used to be just people in my phone, and now we’re singing together.” I’m all too familiar with the idea of people in your phone becoming real life friends (see: Sammy and Ella), but I’m curious what the dynamic is like for Ella, especially given her self-described “so online” internet presence and the primarily-teenaged fanbase she finds herself with.

“The way that [teenage concert-goers] learned primarily to interact with artists was on TikTok [due to the Covid-19 lockdown], and I think that’s changed a lot of the concert experience now. It changed a lot of interaction with other people. But I do think for me, it's an interesting gauge of my own comfort and my own gut instincts. I’m someone who doesn’t mind meeting fans at all, if they’re normal when I meet them, like it's fun to-”

At this moment, I interrupt Ella and thank her for thinking I’m normal. She responds with a quick quip of “Hey, I wasn’t talking about you!” and returns to making her point.

“It is totally fine, it’s cool… especially emphasizing – obviously there are boundaries – really, like, I'm just a girl close in age to you”

At this, she gestures to me.

“You, for example, and we’re doing similar things in life. And that's an aspect of the internet that [is great], being able to connect with fans in the way that I think you wouldn’t be able to do if this were the 90s and I was playing music in a basement.

I ask Ella if it’s ever a difficult line to walk, if and how the blurred lines of internet parasocialism complicate the artist-fan relationship.

“For me, the biggest microcosm of it is that, on my past two headline tours, the way we were able to break even was having people pay more for a meet and greet. I've had some of my favorite fan experiences in the meet and greet, [but I’ve also had] more uncomfortable fan experiences in the meet and greet… Obviously, just the act of paying money to go and meet someone, there is already a power dynamic in it, and there is already a level of putting that person on a pedestal. Which is the point, like as an artist, that's what I'm asking people to do, to pay me to do.”

I point out the fact that, when we pay to see musicians perform live, we are often paying to literally look up to them as they stand on the elevated surface of the stage. Ella nods in agreement.

“Literally. I think [there is a] cognitive dissonance between that and [the fact that] I am approachable and nice… [that] I don't like to be someone with too much of an ego about me, [that] if people are normal and cool, I’ll be normal and cool back. I think some people misread my kindness as friendship. I’ve had experiences with people I’ve literally never seen in my life coming up to me – and again, it's tricky, like I've posted about my family and my dog, whatever – but I have fans say to me, ‘how is Clyde, how is Sam?’” (Clyde and Sam are Ella’s dog and twin brother, respectively), “and I'm like… ‘I don’t know you.’

And beyond that, there’s this sort of negging that goes on now, like playful bullying, that is only ever appropriate with a close friend of yours, with someone that you know, that you have a shared context with. A friend of mine can say something about my outfit looking like something funny or whatever, and I can accept that because I know my friend loves me and likes my outfit – or even if they don't, whatever. But sometimes, people will pay extra money to wait in line and talk to me, and then they're like, ‘you look like … whatever.’ And this is not actually how you should interact with people. 

That being said, some of them are so lovely. I definitely don't want to discount that. I think, as an artist, the ability to connect with your own fans, as someone who was a very avid fan of artists at that age myself – the ability to connect with [the artists I was a fan of] like [my young fans] connect with me would have been very cool. I can empathize with where they’re coming from.”

I find this disconnect particularly interesting, the jump that fans sometimes make between how Ella acts (kind) and how they receive it (friendship). I ask Ella if this gap presents itself in other ways in her career, like in who she hopes to market herself to, versus who actually sees her marketing.

“I think at this point, because of how fraught and bizarre the algorithms are, yes, I think there is a gap. And there was a moment in time where I felt very confident in a particular type of marketing, and outreach, and branding that I could figure out by myself. I knew exactly who I was bringing and generally how big that fanbase would be, at least in the beginning. I just knew who to reach and how to do it, because I was so online. [And I was] so early to TikTok that I would be able to post and see, ‘ok this did well and this didn’t.’ I was able to figure it out in real time, and even if I was having moments in my career where I was independent, or I was having problems with management, or whatever, I still was able to lean on, like, ‘I’m good at marketing and I am able to dependably draw in this fanbase,’ and that’s really special. And I think over the past two years, that feeling has nearly vanished completely. I think that music being accessible is really amazing, but I do think the downside of it, of so much music-making, is that, because there are so many people making music, nobody has enough money and time to support all of them, and so it's really like a battle to be heard. And I think [being heard has become more difficult] because of the algorithm, because we’re all so beholden to it. I’m really excited to play the show tonight, but my ticket sales were way down from where they were the first time I played here when I was 19.

I think it’s a very unique time for musicians. And it does get a little frustrating to know that I am making music that I think is much better than what I was making when I was younger – I’m not saying I don't like that music, I just am older and more confident in my taste and my music-making skills  – and I think it is hard to put so much time and so much money into making music and trying to make content and trying to use the skills that I know I do have around [making and marketing music] and feel like it’s falling on deaf ears.”

Ella and I talk about what the TikTok landscape looks like nowadays, full of TikTok shop content and corporate fan accounts positioning themselves as and of teenage fangirls. I point out that there are teenage fangirls who could be paid to do what they’re already doing, but that the importance of reality and honesty in online marketing has been severely devalued. Music labels seem to care more about controlling the conversations around an artist than whether those conversations are based on human connection and truth, despite the early success of music marketing on TikTok being directly tied to human connection, whether between artists and fans or among fans themselves. Ella is eager to jump on this point.

“The way that I started marketing myself was quite literally like an advertisement. I was making PowerPoints saying, ‘Here’s why I should be your new favorite artist!’ And at the time, everyone was like, ‘Oh!’ They thought it was cute that this girl, me, was just in her dorm treating music promotion like a homework assignment. And now the idea that anyone would be [purposefully and obviously] marketing themselves [is unthinkable]. It has to be so accidental. People want to feel like music is falling in their lap. No one wants anyone selling themselves, but that's what you're doing. So you have to find the perfect balance of it needing to look polished, but it also needs to not look like there’s a label behind it."

We get to talking about different successful (and earnest) marketing strategies we’ve seen, including how a good edit from some 17 or 22-year-old can completely sell a tv show, movie, or song. So, of course, I ask Ella if she’s seen any good edits to her own music.

“Not enough,” she tells me. “I’m waiting for a “Seattle” edit. Editing is an art form… Also Twilight. I definitely want a Twilight edit.”

“We’ll work on that,” I tell her. “I’ll get my best people on it.”

In some ways, Ella Jane’s career feels a lot like it always has. Her music is still tender and painfully specific, perfect for both dancing and crying your heart out. Ella and her music still bring people together, whether it’s a four-year-long friendship or a seconds-long shared glance with a stranger in the crowd. Yes, she’s been in rooms with some of the biggest musicians in the world, but she still asks a friend to run her merch table and wears half-broken in-ears decorated with pictures of her dogs. Her dad still stands in the middle of the audience, beaming as he videos his daughter in all her popstar glory. Ella is playing the same venue, closing with the same song she did four years ago. To some, this may seem like stagnation. But what the energy, precision, and power she brings to every moment of her conversation and performance make abundantly clear is just how much staying in touch with the (online, queer, and kind) person she’s always been has allowed Ella Jane to grow.