It’s All Beauty and Blood on Ellise’s PRETTY EVIL Tour

On the last night of July, something seductively sadistic lingered in the summer air around the Thunderbird Music Hall. Lined in the front by fans anxiously awaiting to see their favorite artist, the venue buzzed with the anticipation of hearing dark-pop royalty, Ellise, in all her glory. Stepping inside the dimly lit venue, immediately in sight was a flurry of black and red hair quickly zipping around like the white rabbit. Suddenly, Ellise turned to look at us with a glowing smile, welcoming EnVi in for the opening night of her PRETTY EVIL tour. 

After a quick hug to family members in attendance and a wave and hello to her mom, she led us back to her tour bus. With a spin, she plopped down against the light brown leather seats, her bright blue eyes excitedly bouncing around the bus as she prepared to spill all the details of her tour and most recent album, PRETTY EVIL DELUXE.

The Magic Behind the Madness

After touring multiple times as an opener, Ellise knew exactly how she wanted her tour to look, sound, and feel. From the setlist to the fan experience, no choice was made lightly. Named after her most recent album, the PRETTY EVIL tour is just that – a tour orchestrated to showcase Ellise’s new era visually and sonically. 

Though the biggest difference in what she’s done and what she is currently doing is that everything has been masterfully crafted by Ellise, for Ellise. Instead of choosing songs to hype up a crowd that she will hand off to someone else, with her first headline tour, everyone is there to see her and the songs they love. 

“Anyone that’s a fan of me coming to any of these shows has never gotten to see a full-length set from me before,” Ellise explained. “They’ve only been able to see me as an opener, so I want to give that really cool experience of this being my full show, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

To give fans the full PRETTY EVIL and Ellise experience for the first time, she focused a lot on mood and energy when curating the setlist. “I like to group things by sound. So, I knew I wanted the tour to open with ‘PRETTY’ and end with ‘EVIL’ because that’s true to the album and just true to the overall motif of the whole era.” In between, she placed certain older songs that have become cult-like classics, such as “DOLLFACE” and “911.” 

These songs made it to the setlist, not only because of the fan following behind them, but because of Ellise’s love for them as well. “I think I’ll always keep ‘DOLLFACE’ on my set list. It’s so fun. I have no other songs that sound like ‘DOLLFACE,’ so for sure that. I think I’ll always keep ‘911’ on the set list, too.” Stopping to think, she looked around and then added, “[Also,] ‘Did It Hurt?’ is one of my old songs. It’s on this set list. It’s been on every set list I’ve ever had because it’s just so fun to play live. It’s such a play-live type of song.” 

Concept to Clarity: From Album to Tour 

All three staple songs have a common thread: their ease of being sung by an audience. A main goal for Ellise, not only when crafting the tour but while writing PRETTY EVIL DELUXE, was to create songs that people could sing at a concert. In previous albums, Ellise focused on developing her sound, her narrative, and the themes that unified them all. Now, with increasing skill and understanding, she’s added the element of live experience. 

“When I was making this album, I’d just gotten off of multiple tours, and I was like, ‘Okay, I am envisioning, how are the drums in this going to sound? How are we going to have the bass? Are we going to have guitar?’” Being in the moment, Ellise spoke quickly but thoroughly, explaining, “That changed songwriting so much for me because I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to make sure I’m writing things that are singable.’ […] I really wanted to have live capabilities for every track.” 

This resulted in the selection process for the album’s track list being even more important. The original PRETTY EVIL album has four fewer songs than the deluxe, and additionally, there are 50 more songs that were written that haven’t been chosen at all. “Altogether through my career, I probably have 500 unreleased songs, maybe even more. Because, you know, that’s what you do,” Ellise said matter-of-factly. “You make music, like, almost every day, and then you kind of pick the cream of the crop and like what feels like it needs to be together.”

Especially with an album like PRETTY EVIL DELUXE, the song choices were pivotal to telling the narrative and perspective as thoroughly and cohesively as possible. With the four extra songs, fans got a deeper look into the story: a look back at a relationship as tumultuous as they come. As the intro song, “PRETTY,” reflects on the relationship, “EVIL” closes it. 

Ellise continued to explain that she doesn’t always know what is going to resonate with fans and what won’t. What might for her, could be completely different for them. The singer’s personal favorite moment in the album actually comes in the middle. 

“The most pivotal turning point in the album for me is my interlude track, ‘feel better together.’ That track to me feels like it really explains the majority of everything I’m talking about. […] It’s basically saying, ‘I thought if I brought this back into my life, things would be better, but we were wrong. We need to not do this. It’s actually worse.’ So that kind of really encapsulates the entire theme of the album for me.” 

From beginning to end, PRETTY EVIL DELUXE is a relatable and personal story about love, loss, and even desired revenge, but when brought to the stage, the intensity of every lyric and word increases drastically. Every note is deeper and every belt is more impactful. Because of this, the PRETTY EVIL tour is truly more a piece of powerful performance art than a concert.

The Triumphs and Takeaways of Tour

Behind the scenes, Ellise is running her own show as well. After touring with artists like Bishop Briggs and Madison Beer, she’s learned not only what touring is like, but also how to have a successful and healthy tour on her own. Now, she has her opener, Ella Red, by her side, and is prepared to pass down her found wisdom. 

“I feel like every time you tour, you learn on an exponential curve. Like, there’s so much to touring. There’s so many moving pieces, so many different jobs, so many different things in your schedule, rights and wrongs, what to do, what not to do. Every time I tour, I come out of it feeling like I learned a lot and I’m better at it. It’s a skill I’m developing.” 

Ellise continued to tell us about the hardships she’s gone through on previous tours, including going as far as to cough up blood on the first tour she went on. Due to how vocally strenuous her music tends to be and how intense she likes to get with her sets, she’s learned what her body needs and how to protect it through proper training. 

Because of these lessons learned, she’s never seen without her vocal steamer and throatcoat tea. But every girl needs a sweet treat every once in a while, and for Ellise, that’s nothing other than Uncrustables. “I never eat Uncrustables when I’m not on tour. For some reason, I crave Uncrustables violently,” she laughed out. “Gotta keep it healthy and gotta have the Smuckers.” 

Since this is her headline tour, she is the main attraction, which means there is added pressure to stay happy and healthy, something she isn’t taking lightly. During our time together, she mentioned how she’s never had a tour where she didn’t get sick, and her main goal for this one (don’t worry, she got up mid-sentence to knock on wood) is to not get sick and enjoy her full tour healthily with her fans.

As the conversation continued, this was the main mantra Ellise kept coming back to: seeing and appreciating her fans. While speaking of being able to play to her own crowds, her happiness seems to bubble over with anticipation for what it would feel like in a few hours during her first headline show. Even the act of being able to scream “SING!” and having the crowd really put their all into singing back to her made the artist seemingly giddy just speaking about it, evident that she doesn’t take it for granted in any way. 

When asked what she wants her fans to take away from the concert, she replied, “I hope they just have the time of their life. I want this concert to be super fun. I want everybody to feel included and make a friend in the crowd. That would make me so happy. I want everyone to just hear the music live.” It’s the mutual love for music and connectivity that made the opening night of her tour so special, but it seems that any Ellise fan could have predicted that. 

The Past, Present, and Future of Ellise 

Ellise’s art isn’t just in the music, but in every fiber of what she does. Everything from the beginning to the end of every project adds up to define the era she is in. To say she is in her most successful era yet is an understatement. From having a “dark, spooky, princessy vibe” in her early 20s to now having a sleek, horror, yet “overly feminine aesthetic” now, Ellise has never been more herself. 

Moving forward, it’s all about what she loves and what she believes her audience will appreciate most. While speaking on her stylistic evolution, she firmly stated, “If I’m putting out music and visuals, it needs to resonate with me if it will ever resonate with anyone else. So it has to be authentic.”

Because her authenticity has resonated so deeply with viewers and listeners, she now gets to soak up all her success, something she vocally expressed a lot of excitement for. “When you’re an artist, you do so much other bullshit that has nothing to do with music that when you actually get to go on tour and sing every night, you’re like, ‘I almost forgot this was the whole point.’” Now, taking a step away from social media promotions, she gets to do what makes her happiest almost every night: sing. 

At the end of the day, for Ellise, it’s her hard work, determination, trust, and love for herself that got her here. Over the last seven years, this is something she’s come to learn, and it’s become her greatest piece of advice for anyone looking to flourish, especially in the music industry. 

“A really prominent thing in this industry is people trying to tell you what you should be, tell you how you should sound, how you should look, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do. If you don’t have a very strong core sense of self and a really good trust-your-gut intuition, you’re going to get lost in the sauce so fast because there’s going to be so many people ready in the wings to make you what they want to make you.” Though she acknowledged how difficult it can be to love yourself, and it’s easier said than done, she finished her thought by adding, “At least love yourself enough to know that you have intuition and you know what’s best for yourself above everyone else.” 

And because of her bravery, wit, and strength, Ellise is able to not only spread a message of pain and perseverance in her music, but also of love. Through PRETTY EVIL DELUXE and the PRETTY EVIL tour, Ellise has shown that love can hurt, but love can also be beautiful, especially when it’s for yourself. 
And for listeners needing more of this message, with one last comment, Ellise shared vital information – more music is on its way. “I don’t want to say too much yet, but it’s going to come out after this tour, but before the year ends.” We will be keeping our eyes and ears open, but until then, Ellise can be celebrated and seen on the PRETTY EVIL tour across North America. It’s a beautifully spine-chilling time you don’t want to miss.

If you’re trying to prepare your vocals before the tour, Ellise’s music can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube. To keep up with Ellise and the PRETTY EVIL tour, you can follow her on Instagram and TikTok.

Want more EnVi exclusive interviews? Read our interview with Dionela, where he talks about his tour, inspiration, and love here!