“People are like, ‘It sounds so Nashville,’ but it’s funny because I had only been there for a year… and I’m in LA now,” says Kayla Graninger, laughing, during a recent phone chat (going on to note that she’s also lived outside of Chicago, Pennsylvania, Las Vegas, and New York City…) Graninger is better known at Elke, who released her debut LP, No Pain For Us Here, last year. The album was produced by Graninger’s partner, Zac Farro — best-known as Paramore’s drummer — who also directed Elke’s recent music video for “Traveler,” a whimsically weird road song that could perhaps best be described as “Twin Peaks Americana.”
“They all kind of mean something different and I equally love them,” says Graninger of the songs on No Pain For Us Here. However, the songs do have a common thread. During a recent interview with Audiofemme, Graninger said of the album, “It’s definitely Zac and I falling in love, but not every song is really about that, but more so about the freedom that I felt after the conclusions of ‘I’m loved and people can be loved.’” There’s a chance that you may have already heard recent single “The Pink Tip of a Match Turns Black,” a refreshingly lighthearted and quirky take on art-pop that has been receiving some radio play, which Graninger tells me is still one of the coolest things for a musician.
I ask Graninger about her favorite music, and she tells me, “I definitely grew up listening to a lot of doo-wop and The Beatles and classic rock. I just love old music.” She also tells me that her love of doo-wop will be very apparent on her next record, which she has already written and hopes to record in the near future. But, for now, Elke is focused on an upcoming two-week run of dates supporting Wild Belle’s Natalie Bergman, which kicks off March 7th at Songbyrd in DC and will be stopping at our very own Johnny Brenda’s this coming Tuesday, March 8th. Bergman recently signed with Nashville label Third Man Records and, last year, released her first solo full-length, Mercy, which Graninger tells me she’s a big fan of, in addition to being a good friend of Bergman’s drummer. When I ask what can be expected of Elke’s opening set, she seems to giggle and tells me, “A lot of fun outfits, a lot of performance from me, and a cover.”
*Get your tickets here.
