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Elton John and Brandi Carlile have teamed up on a brand new joint album, Who Believes In Angels?, and it's set to be released on April 4th.
Who Believes In Angels? features songs written by Elton and Brandi, with production and co-writing from Andrew Watt, as well as John's longtime collaborator, Bernie Taupin. Recorded at Los Angeles' Sunset Sound Studios, they wrote and recorded the album in just 20 days and were backed by a band of musicians comprised of Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith, Pino Palladino (Nine Inch Nails) and Josh Klinghoffer (Pearl Jam, Beck).
Elton and Brandi previously collaborated on their Oscar-nominated song, "Never Too Late," which was created for Elton's Disney+ documentary of the same name. The song is also included on Who Believes In Angels? and to give fans another taste of the album, Elton and Brandi have released its title track.
During an exclusive interview with iHeartRadio's Ellen K, Elton and Brandi talked about their new album and more. Carlile shared of the new music, "It's a culmination of four people coming together in the only time and space that it ever could have happened in. And to me, that's a true album, a documentation of a moment that is kind of undeniable. It's really mystical, it's musically beautiful. Elton wrote almost all of the music. I wrote a good chunk of the lyrics. Bernie Taupin wrote some lyrics, and we just had an incredible time making an album that felt otherworldly to us."
Elton added, "It happened about three months after Glastonbury and the end of my world tour. But I had come off the road and I had it, it wasn't let's do an album though. It was in the book. We're going to do an album. I wanted to bottle the energy from the tour into making this record. I wanted to shift gears and I wanted to shift her gears, and I wanted to shift my gears. But when it actually came back to the process of doing it, I was very tired. I wasn't feeling very well, and I was grumpy. And so the initial process was difficult as there were four people involved. And mostly it was my fault because I just was being unreasonable, and I was really worried about the album. I had a lot of self-doubt. Now, you may not believe that, but I had a lot of self [doubt] because I knew what I wanted this album to be. But you can't say, when you say that, you can't guarantee what an album's going to sound like. But when we got over the first few days, and I calmed down, the process flew and it was one of the most joyous, most exhilarating processes I've ever had in my life."
Listen to Elton John and Brandi Carlile's interview with Ellen K on iHeartRadio.