If you’ve spent much time at local stand-up, sketch, or musical comedy shows the past few years, you’ve probably seen Ellie Heath, and she probably made you laugh. But performing comedy wasn’t her original dream.
“I’ve been playing piano since I was six, and I’ve been singing since I was walking, basically,” Heath says. “In junior high and high school, my dream was to be a singer — I was actually in a Christian pop group for a couple years, despite the fact that I’m not religious. But in the last few years, I’ve been thinking to myself, I write sketch comedy, I write song parodies, I love performing and I love singing — so why am I not doing more of that?”
So Heath started writing joke-free songs again, culminating in Shine, her six-track debut EP that’s more likely to hit you in the feels than the funny bone. “It really happened in the year that I was quitting drinking. Sitting down at the piano and writing music was a really good way to process some of the feelings that I was having. And some of the songs on the album I wrote going into and coming out of our relationship, so there were songs that I wrote when I was falling for the person, and when I was falling out of love with the person. And a lot of the songs that I write tend to have a mental-health, self-love empowerment aspect to them.”
Heath released the EP’s first track, “Better Off,” in May. The title track will start streaming June 13 and she’ll perform the entire EP at Roxy Theatre June 20 — and she wants you to come! “One of my goals for my music career was to get a band together. So I’m really stoked that I’ll be playing not just with a piano, but with a full band for the first time.”
While she may have been a regular at Grindstone Theatre’s Weird Al Karaoke over the years, don’t expect Heath to make as many funny faces during her nonetheless catchy EP songs. But she’ll certainly smile while another upbeat band, Waffelhouse, opens the show (“You’ll leave humming their songs in your head, and they’re also super fun and funny!”), and DJ Kena León will close the show with a dance-and-doughnut party.
“I chose the Roxy because I’ve performed there lots, and felt like it would be a great venue for the show. And they have two spaces there, so if we sell a lot of tickets, we’ll be in the Nancy Power Theatre. Either way, it’ll feel full, but I’m hoping that we get over 150 people because I bought 13 dozen mini doughnuts!”
Get down and doughnut up with Ellie Heath at the Roxy Theatre, June 20.
