Maggie Eckford or Margaret Eckford, better known by her stage name Ruelle, is an American electropop singer-songwriter. Her music has been used on television series such as the opening theme songs of Dynasties, Shadowhunters, and The Shannara Chronicles.
Early life and education
Born the middle child of three sisters, Eckford grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and attended a private Christian high school. She attended music school in Sydney, Australia. Ruelle is now based in Nashville, Tennessee. She adopted the French word "Ruelle" as her stage name because she liked how it gave off a sense of darkness and mystery, and how it has multiple meanings, including "chamber".
Music
Though Nashville is known for country music and rock-and-roll, Ruelle's first two albums, For What It's Worth and Show and Tell, released under her birth name Maggie Eckford were indie pop. She then adopted the stage name Ruelle to represent her musical career, and moved towards electronic pop with EPsUp in Flames, Madness, and Rival. Ruelle's first television placement was a song in a Japanese iPad commercial. Alongside the theme songs for Shadowhunters and The Shannara Chronicles, her songs have also been featured in numerous prime time television series, including Arrow, Inhumans, Dancing with the Stars, , Cloak & Dagger, Eyewitness, Famous in Love, Grey's Anatomy, Guilt, How to Get Away with Murder, The Leftovers, Midnight, Texas,The Originals, Pretty Little Liars, Quantico, Reckless, Reign, Revenge, Riverdale, Scream, Sleepy Hollow, So You Think You Can Dance, Teen Wolf, Titans, The Vampire Diaries, The Walking Dead, Wynonna Earp, and The Village. She featured in both the trailer and the soundtrack for The Loft as well as trailers for Bad Moms, Before I Fall, Free State of Jones, and Keeping up with the Joneses. Her song Game of Survival featured in the 13 Reasons Why trailer, the Gears 5 trailer and the trailer for David Attenborough's BBC Earth series Dynasties. Madness is in Siren, and The Looming Tower trailer features the song Rivals. In July 2018, the released trailer for the upcoming series Titans by DC Universe features three of her songs such as Madness, Monsters' and Revolution. She also released the song Take it All, used in a trailer for the British soap Emmerdale. The song Slip Away was featured in an episode of Midnight, Texas season 2. Ruelle has collaborated with electronic music producer Ki:Theory, providing the vocals on his song Bringing Me Down. Ruelle's best-performing song on the Billboard charts was I Get to Love You, which reached #15 on the Spotify's Viral 50 on March 5, 2016. Ruelle also provided vocals to the song 10 Feet Down by NF, part of the album Perception which hit #1 on the Billboard 200 Chart in 2017. In January 2019, Wake Up World a collab track between Unsecret and Ruelle, was used for the first teaser of the STARZ exclusive limited series The Spanish Princess. Ruelle decided to split up her new album into two EPs as she felt that 10 songs at once can feel like a lot to digest. She wanted listeners to be able to give them all the attention they deserve. Earth Glow was released on Wednesday 7 August 2019 with 5 songs and then another EP soon after with another 5 songs. Her favorite song from the EP is the 4th song Like You Mean It because it is about her husband. Fleurie, a fellow artist and close friend, wrote Like You Mean It with Ruelle, alongside mutual friend Jeremy Lutito who also co-produced the EP. The second EP was released on the 22 November 2019 and is titled "Exodus". Fear of Letting Go is on the second EP. Ruelle has also been collaborating with some friends since 2018 on the side project Club Yoko. Their song I AM'' was in the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 commercials.