Lindsay Ell and Kristian Bush Form New Band ‘Purely for the Joy of Playing Music’
Lindsay Ell and Kristian Bush have a long history of working together -- Bush, of the country duo Sugarland, is Ell's producer, mentor and friend -- but the two artists have embarked on a new adventure, as a band called the Speakeasy Social Club. According to Ell, the duo began in March of 2018, after Ell and Bush played some shows together during the C2C: Country to Country music festival in the UK.
"We were like, 'Well, we're both on the bill together, so why don't we just hop on the stage at the same time? We won't make a setlist, we'll just have fun.' So we did just that," Ell recalls. "I didn't know the next song he was gonna play, and he didn't know the next song I was gonna play. We played different songs, and each other's songs. It was just purely for the joy of playing music, and it was the most fun I'd had onstage in as long as I can remember."
Ell goes on to say that the group formed with just a few ground rules: "It's always for free, it's only announced hours before we show up in a city and do one, and it's purely for the enjoyment of music," she explains. "We've done them as after-parties for Sugarland shows. We did one in Nashville [recently]. It's just been so, so, so much fun."
Does this free-form, improvisatory take on the group mean the duo has no plans to release an album together? Maybe not, Ell says: "That's definitely something we've tossed around, since we will be in the studio," she adds. "I'm sure at some point we may do that."
However, for now, the Speakeasy Social Club is mostly focused on the live experience.
"We never know what's gonna happen. So we've been recording our shows live, and, at some point, we're gonna figure out how to bootleg them secretly -- probably under a speakeasy password," she goes on to say. "But it's just fun, and that's what music is supposed to be about, and it's another way for fans to get excited and just get to see a live show from a different perspective."
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