Formula Indie Sessions : Interview with CHRIS ELLE
1. What is your earliest memory connected to music?
My earliest music-related memories come from the choirs I participated in while attending music school. I remember being musical from a young age, but that period is when I truly discovered my passion.
2. How did your passion for creating music begin?
My passion for creating my own art began as an act of liberation. I grew up on the Greek island of Zakynthos—beautiful, but very conservative. As a queer, non-binary person trying to understand who I was at 16, I needed a space where I could exist truthfully, even when the world around me didn’t allow it.
Songwriting became that space. It was a way to pour my emotions, my fears, and my identity into something no one around me could interpret or control. I wrote in English because my family and most locals didn’t understand it, so it allowed me to express myself without being “heard” in a literal sense. They enjoyed the melodies without realizing how much of my inner world I was revealing.
Later, when I began writing in Greek, I used a poetic, symbolic language to keep my truths protected—especially when expressing the desire to leave my past behind and move toward my own light. The first song with Greek lyrics I created was “Sto Fws,” which means “In The Light.”
3. What’s the story behind your current music project?
My current release is a single called “Pia Thalassa”—“Which Sea” in Greek. The song asks: Which sea took you away from me? I held you and showed you how to love yourself. In Greek, the metaphor of the ocean carries a depth that I often rely on in my songwriting.
I wrote it a year ago during the end of a romantic relationship. It taught me how easy it is to lose yourself for someone else, and how essential it is not to. The song captures that confusion of knowing you were something good for a person, yet it still wasn’t something they could value at the time.
Originally, it was meant to be a soft ballad with minimal percussion, but as I continued producing it, it naturally evolved into the alt-pop sound that shapes my work. I feel this is the last major project for now that deals with past romantic relationships. From here, I want to focus more on my community, my transitioning, and the values that define who I am today.
4. How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
My sound is seductive, captivating, ambient, and rooted in modern art-pop. It draws inspiration from my Greek heritage, with an ethereal and “wet” sonic texture. I blend elements of trip-hop and indie RnB to create an alternative pop atmosphere.
5. What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
A recent conversation made me reflect deeply on why my artistry exists—why it matters and what gives it value. I realized that my purpose is to create a sonic space centered on equality, existence, and personal growth as a non-binary person within the trans and broader LGBTQ+ community. Moving forward, my songwriting will shift more intentionally toward these themes.
6. What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Every song begins differently, but some elements are always present:
• a strong, distinctive beat built through samples and editing
• my “siren voices,” the falsetto harmonies woven throughout my work • mandolin and string textures that create ambient stereo landscapes
I produce my own music and primarily work in Logic Pro.
7. Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
These days I’m loving Oklou. Her sound feels both familiar and completely fresh to me.
8. How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
I started creating art because I needed a safe space to express myself in a society that saw me as different or “weird.” My music is built directly from my lived experiences—it is my artistic vision.
9. What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
My music leans heavily into storytelling, so I hope listeners feel the themes of inner transformation, freedom, and self-worth. I also write a lot about love, but in a deeper, more personal, and poetic way.
10. What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
That you must do whatever it takes to make yourself happy and fulfilled. At the end of the day, your voice is the only one that truly matters. No one can dictate how you express yourself—only you know that truth.
11. What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
Realistically, EJEKT Festival feels like a fitting goal for my career path. But my dream festival would definitely be Lollapalooza.
12. If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
My dream collaboration is Sevdaliza. She’s an extraordinary artist who has influenced my sound in many ways, so working with her would mean the world to me.
13. Where can our listeners follow and support your music?
I’m most active on Instagram and Spotify, but everything can be found through my Linktree as well:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chris.e11e/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4iYwJ6vgRdGrR2mcCx4dZq?si=kJHwPAbb QoKn8TezOpu9fA
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Chris.elle
14. Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
My dream is to create music for my community—to offer visibility, space, and voice, especially in Greece, where trans people are still not visible enough in the music scene.
15. What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I hope they understand how deeply I feel what I create, and how my art continuously shapes and sculpts me.
16. Add a representative YouTube video below the interview: My new release:
