An interview with Los Angeles based musician Ellington Ratliff for The Human DNA issue

Interview by Elif Ozer / elifozeerr1

Photography: Anna Lee

Oh, he's getting shot, yeah
No one call the doctor
We've been waiting in the water
Since there's no one inside
Damn, my head is heartless
Feeling in the darkness
For the power of aching harness
Still, there's much as they try

excerpt from “Sun To Rise!” by Ellington Ratliff

As life throws a person into a cycle of ups and lows, each has different coping mechanisms to overcome the inevitable unpredictability of this. Ellington Ratliff finds shelter by channeling his emotions related to the emptiness and chaos of existence into his songwriting process.

Let’s start from the beginning of your journey as a musician. What made you get into the music industry?

In theory, it was my love for music that was started at a young age with my dad's vinyl collection, which turned into bands with friends in high school, one of them being R5 which led to legitimate touring and making albums on a larger scale.

Now you are a director, editor, songwriter, and artist, who goes after his own musical adventure. How does it feel to become a solo artist? Tell us a bit about it.

Haha yes, there are many hats to wear when you are doing everything yourself. It feels really good to be a solo artist but there’s definitely a lot of stress that comes with it. If things go wrong you have no one but yourself to blame but then you also have the creative freedom to do anything or make anything you’ve ever wanted to. I think it's worth it.

Where do you get your inspirations?

Inspiration is a tricky subject because, for now, it really comes out of nowhere. But if all else fails, I do try to get inspiration from other music. I have a playlist on my Spotify called “Any kind’o inspiring” in which I will save anything that I will be at all inspired by. There's a lot of Alt/RnB etc, but there can also be smooth crooner jazz from the ’50s or industrial music, there are no rules.

Could you highlight the creative process after being inspired?

The best part about being inspired is getting into a flow, which is where, for example, you can be working for hours and it feels like minutes. Most of the time it starts with a melody in my head or overall idea for a song that I will place in my voice memos. After that, it may sit in my phone for a while but when the time comes I’ll start working on a production and then vocals. There have been times as well where I’ve had a 4 bar loop for a month and one day on a treadmill the melody/lyrics will come to me and I’ll rush out to record it on my voice memo before I lose it (that's what happened with my first single EMT).

In three words describe your style.

Chaotic, Saturated, Exploratory

You are born and raised in Los Angeles. How did it shape your identity and your music?

I think it shaped me in the way that I was surrounded by a lot of different people with different influences. For instance, my parents grew up in the ’60s and 70’s so there was a lot of Motown and Classic Rock and then my Dad worked a lot with Gospel groups so there was a lot of that. The kids at my school liked Indie music and Rap so that was very informative. It's also very easy to see anyone you want living in LA, so from a young age I was seeing all of my favorite bands. Once I started going to festivals, it was over. I was fully enthralled with playing live music.

“Sun to Rise!” is the first song you wrote for your solo project. The song represents hope in our hard times in our lives. Is there a specific story from your personal life that inspired you to write such a song?

At the time when I wrote "Sun To Rise!" my life had taken a sudden 180 and I felt like I had lost a lot of what I had identified with, but at the same time, this song was the first moment I felt I had found my voice and my sound as an individual. And that's what this song speaks to, sometimes when you feel lost or things are bad, you look back at those moments as the most important because of the changes that might be forced upon you which ultimately lead to you evolving.

“EMT" is another song you wrote during a period of your life where you were feeling lonely. According to your writing processes of “Sun to Rise!” and EMT, would you say you become more creative during your low times of your life?

That's a good question and at times I wonder about that myself. There’s a stigma in which people say that musicians are at their best when they’re miserable, or that they write better songs, which is very much false. Low times are very much a part of the human experience, but it’s what you do about it that matters and I think it’s important to share those moments because people can relate and hopefully find their own answers, maybe even from your song.

Besides your musical career, you also played in several tv series and films such as Criminal Minds, Disjointed and Raising Hope. Can we expect to see you on the screens in the near future?

I’ve been acting since I was young and I love being on set, there’s something very exciting about the whole experience that has stuck with me. I also love movies and during quarantine, I’ve been doing my best to go through as much of my list as possible, which gets me excited to be on set again. Nothing to report in that regard as of now but I am very much open and interested in someday doing something that expands the edges of my comfortability.

To what extent would you agree with this argument as a creator: “There has been an explosion of creativity during the pandemic”?

I definitely agree and I think people have done lots of great things during the pandemic but I have had a different experience. When the lockdowns began I started a new phase in my project which was instead of writing and being creative every day I was finding mixers and people to help me finish my project. I met mixer Mark Needham (who mixed 1975 and The Killers) near the beginning and we started working together and he totally added new elements to my songs that I didn’t know were possible. Since then I’ve been focused on creating music videos and releasing music, so still creative but a different type of creative.

Lastly, could you share what is on your agenda for 2021 as music-related?

I have an EP coming out this spring and will hopefully start performing live whether that’s still in the realm of quarantine or maybe even, I can't believe I’m even saying this, in front of living breathing people.. could you even imagine? Regardless there will be music as long as there’s someone to listen.