Elli Perry began her career as a performing singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer at age twelve by sneaking onto barroom stages around her home state of Georgia. During the subsequent twenty years, she independently released multiple albums of original material, designed and co-directed award-winning music videos, wrote charting songs for other artists, was awarded several artists development grants, and toured aggressively across the United States, Canada, and Europe.
And then she was run over by a minivan.
While in the midst of touring the two records she released in a ten month period between the years of 2017-2018, a woman who was texting and driving struck Elli while she was on her bicycle, dragging her beneath the van and into an intersection before realizing what had occurred. The accident resulted in a traumatic spinal injury that damaged Elli's voice, impacted her mobility, and brought her touring career to a halt.
Her forthcoming record, GHOST TALKER, was written over the course of the six years she spent recovering from that accident. Crafted while navigating physical and psychological isolation and frequently debilitating chronic pain, the record explores the terminality of all things- love, relationships, culture and place, life itself. But for all the ghost stories it tells, GHOST TALKER is a collection of songs that seek out hope and potentiality in the dark corners of loss; to quote the title track "What lives will always die, what dies is coming back to life again.”
Like her prior releases, this body of work defies genre, shifting from ambient alternative indie to Southern Gothic folk rock. The thread of continuity throughout these stylistic twists and turns is the power of her live performance. On stage, Elli Perry may be a melancholy mesmerist, a ballsy chanteuse, or a howling one woman vocal wrecking crew- sometimes all in the same note. Hers is a raw and arresting presence; whether alone with her guitar or as the powerhouse front woman of a band.
After many years of peripatetic wandering, Elli returned to Georgia and found her way to Savannah, a city that proved the perfect landscape for bringing GHOST TALKER to life. Recorded live at the locally beloved Back Room Record Studios by Grammy-nominated producer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Sovine, it features support from some of Savannah's most laureled session players. Elli and her band have quickly established themselves as a unique and electrifying element within the city's musical ecosystem, where they've headlined sold out shows and supported national touring talent. Elli released the record's first single and music video, Close Enough to Hurt in June of 2025. She will continue to release singles from the record and tour in support of them, both solo and with her band, throughout the year.