Joel X Eleanor Talk New Double Single And More

Apr 2, 2026 | Interviews

Words by Glenn Sargeant

Feature Image Photo Credit: El Fragotsis

Joel X Eleanor are a London power alternative duo and soulmates destined to bring colour, drama and fun to modern music.

Who is in Joel X Eleanor, how did you meet and what do you play?

Eleanor: It’s what it says on the tin, Joel plays every instrument, I do the writing and singing. We met just like in a romcom. I had just left behind a toxic relationship and moved to the UK. I just wanted to do music and get a dog (still don’t have one, because it turns out in the UK landlords don’t want renters to experience happiness).

So I met Joel at my day job, and then it turned out I had rented a flat across the road from him. I could see into his living room! We started walking home together, and of course talk turned to music, he told me he could play guitar, I asked him if he’d like to be in a band with me, and the rest is history!

Joel: I’d been living in Cardiff for 2 years. I had finally moved out of a houseshare into a single bed flat and was so relieved to finally be alone. I had given up playing the guitar and making music because it wasn’t making me happy. I’d even tried selling my guitar but all my old housemates got mad at me and said I would definitely regret it. They were right because Eleanor moved across the road from me and we were seeing each other every day, and I soon found out that she wanted a boyfriend to write music with.

What is your earliest musical memory?

Eleanor: sitting on the floor on a sunny day, watching my mom fold laundry, listening to the radio and muttering along to It Must Have Been Love by Roxette.

Joel: When I was 6 years old and we lived in Mozambique, my dad was playing a Now That’s What I Call Music CD just before bed and I heard Vanessa Carlson’s ‘A Thousand Miles’, and it moved me so hard that I cried and couldn’t fall asleep for the whole night, and my mum scolded my dad for letting me into the room while playing music.

When did you begin songwriting?

Eleanor: I began writing poetry at a young age, maybe around when I was 8, but I’m not entirely sure. I never had anyone to write songs with before I met Joel, which was much later in life (in my 20s). I had a brief stint in a band when I was 17, where I did manage to write a song with others, but then the guitarist died in a car accident and the band fell apart.

Joel: When I was 11 years old, my parents got us our first car with a radio, and I heard modern music for the first time. I had a musical awakening and I convinced my parents to get me a guitar, but they got me one from a hardware store that was super-glued together and missing key pieces, like a truss rod, so it was almost impossible to play properly. Songwriting came from frustration at not being able to express myself musically – instead of practising my guitar, I just sat alone in the park, composing tunes in my head that I didn’t think I would ever be able to play.

You have your double A-Side single “Garden Plot / Something Strange,” out now. What was the story/inspiration behind the tracks?

Eleanor: They are both love songs, but they’re quite different from each other.

I wrote Garden Plot in 2023, using a French cafe jazz tune that Joel was fiddling around with. I was inspired by Joel asking me to give him flowers. I thought that cut flowers wilt and die and leave nothing behind – it would be way better and more meaningful if I dug a garden plot for Joel with all the flowers that he could wish for, flowers that will continue to grow back year after year. The lyrics were meant to express that sweet loving sentiment. But Joel took the song and made the music dark and heavy, which revealed a sinister obsessive subtext to the lyrics.

Joel wrote half of Something Strange in 2022 – it’s our only song where he attempted to write lyrics. He wanted to describe the feeling of confusion and disbelief that he had when I first moved in with him – waking up in the middle of the night and being surprised that he wasn’t alone anymore. I am also a painter, and I loved the theme of colors in the chorus (“I see colors, orange and black”), writing the rest of the lyrics following that theme.

Where did you record the tracks and who produced them?

We recorded the tracks ourselves, in our living room, at an Airbnb in Derby, and even at Joel’s granny’s house! We did the production ourselves, with mixing and mastering done by Julie Bartley at Rolling Audio in Newcastle.

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

Joel: We stayed at an AirBnB in Derby for one night around Christmas. One of their pieces of decoration was a Christmas tree made of little metal cones. I set that on the floor and Eleanor held up the microphone and I bashed that tree with my drumsticks like an angry baby, and that’s the tinkly piece of percussion that you hear throughout ‘Garden Plot’!

Did you use any particular instruments, microphones, recording equipment to help you get a particular sound/tone for the record?

We have a condenser microphone from Lewitt that seems perfect for recording Eleanor’s voice in a DIY setting. It doesn’t just seem to accentuate Eleanor’s contralto, but it seems to cancel out other noises when she sings. We can’t afford to record in a studio, we record at home, so the humming of aeroplanes and radiators would be a big problem if it wasn’t for this feature.

Which of your tracks hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?

I think both Garden Plot and Something Strange are quite reflective. Garden Plot is intense, and obsessive, but not angry.

The angriest one is yet to be released. For now, our happiest, most hopeful released song is Edge of Victory, and our angriest is How Long.

Were they difficult songs to write?

Eleanor: With Garden Plot, Joel first came up with the tune, and then I actually took a few months to write and perfect the lyrics! But writing a song isn’t just a quick flash of inspiration and you’re done – making good art takes time.

Something Strange was different, Joel started writing down a few lyrics, then handed me the song because he didn’t know how to continue, and I came up with the nice bridge (words and tune) in about an hour. But even then, the last line of the song took a few days!

I think it’s all part of the creative process, sometimes you just don’t know exactly what the song needs, and you have to come back to it over and over again, but you have to keep going.

P.S. I only ever wrote 3 songs in a single burst.

Do you have any visualisers to accompany the release?

Yes! Our video for Garden Plot was filmed by the very talented Piyushi Dubey in Camden and Walthamstow.

For Something Strange, we did it all ourselves. We used a fancy cocktail dress donated by a friend!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAKnaDBH3Ys – Garden Plot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duxpwUIFNVQ – Something Strange

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

London isn’t where we were born, but it is where our duo belongs. This is where a lot of our songs were first heard by an audience, where we rehearse with other people, and where we met some of our first ever fans. Five words: grand, colourful, bright, musical, alive!

How do you look after your voices?

Eleanor: Joel doesn’t sing so he doesn’t really need to do much, other than hydrate, which he does!

As for me, I do breathing exercises and warm up before singing.

Also, just making sure that songs are in my range has helped a lot – when we first started out, I’d sing things at the top of my range because that’s how we wrote the song and I could technically do it; but then lowering things a bit has actually helped bring out more of the depth of the song.

Do you have any live dates planned in the UK/Europe in 2026?

Yes, we’ve got 2 confirmed dates, June 6 at HMV Canterbury in Kent and September 12 at Spectrum Festival, Matlock, Derbyshire. We’re organizing more shows as we speak so we’ll likely have more added to the list, which we update on our website.

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

Songs that have become classics. Songs that people know the lyrics to. Songs that make people feel something, even after we’re long gone.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

Eleanor: I just use a microphone, the reliable Shure SM58. Joel uses a Guild electro-acoustic guitar for our unplugged shows, and his Pacific Peach Fender Jazzmaster with a Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal for shows with a full band. He’s got other pedals, but the distortion is his favourite and he doesn’t have a pedal board with all the latest gadgets. He’s far too invested in the performance to constantly be glancing at all the different pedals anyway!

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

Eleanor: I’ll go with a classic and say The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins – it’s got bad people, romance, friendship, and a strong female protagonist, so it would be fun doing the score for such a well-rounded story. I also think it’s time a new adaptation was made!

Joel: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s a book that just stuck with me. I read it just before I met Eleanor. It’s about a girl who’s raised to serve a malevolent force that lives in an underground labyrinth, and she barely sees the light of day. She thinks her journey is to descend further and further into darkness, but one day she breaks out of her mental prison, she escapes and she wanders out into the sunlight in a daze. I felt all of her feelings intensely while I was reading it so I know the music would burst out of me.

Do you have any further music releases planned for 2026?

Yes! We’re working on an album. We’ve got about 4 albums worth of material ready, and we’re constantly writing more, but we have to pace ourselves a little. We’re recording 10 songs to be released this summer!

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

Influences: Muse, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Television, The Wipers, The Gun Club, Crowded House, Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blind Melon

Recommendations that are not necessarily influences: Gábor Szabó, Jenő Hubay, Ezra Collective

What makes Joel X Eleanor happy and what makes you unhappy?

Happy: being on stage and having a crowd enjoying themselves while we’re playing!

Unhappy: lad culture in rock music, discrimination in all its forms, animals and people being hurt.

Feature Image Photo Credit: El Fragotsis

Double single release “Garden Plot / Something Strange” out now.

Listen Here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4jbynXYDrAwSYQA9fgIpbH?si=6t4QC6IWSTm6J2ngxEWmjg&nd=1&dlsi=1edb5fc758df445c

LIVE DATES:

6th June – HMV, Canterbury

12th September – Spectrum Festival, Matlock