#349 - Elle King on Being Nervous to Text Dierks Bentley and Miranda Lambert To Feature on Duets + Growing Up with a Famous Actor for Dad and Memories of SNL as a Kid + Having Success in Different Genres with her songs Ex’s and Oh’s to Drunk (And I Don't Wanna Go Home)

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Speaker 1: M L. King Is in episode three forty nine. Really first time we got to hang out with her. We met, we talked about it, we've briefly met. But it's really good and at an unfortunate circumstance leading into it, which you'll hear, but all good and she was totally down even though that the situation was not pleasant for anybody. But L is here and just to look back at L real quick worth a shot is her new song with her and Dark spent Ley. Here you Go. So they're back together and I stay back together. They did different for girls together back into which I can't believe it's been that long, can you? I mean, it's I guess pandemic brain? Six years? Is that right? Is that? Yeah? It's like when we started this podcast. That's been six years, six years since that song. That can't be right? Yeah, that song is six years old. Now. Wow, she had a big old smash. It's her song with Miranda Here is Drunk and I Don't Want to Go Home and a couple other number ones here and then I'll let you look that up, Mike. But x Is and Os was the number one alternative song and Shame was the number one alternative song. Yea, so yeah, I looked at up Mike and I'll talk that's that bizarre, bizarre bizarre. Uh yeah, so you're gonna like it. We talked about it all and I just leave it there. We do talk about it all. I just enjoyed spending some time with her. She's very honest, and you know, sometimes I gotta I gotta dig around a little bit to get people to open up because they don't quite know what they're getting into and they're sitting fourteen inches from me and it's just one on one and they're like, what's happening here? But L was good from the from the get and so I loved it. Check her out at L King Eat l l K, I n G check out a new song and enjoy this hour. All right, we are here with L King, which the I guess the worst part about doing a show from your house is that if things break, you have to fix it yourself. When I'm at the radio show, so the breaks that just go. Engineer clapped my hands on the leave and then I come back and it's fixed. Like ten minutes before you got here, the air went out, so we frantically try to call you to go what do you want to do? And you much more of a chance than I am. Ready to piece out. I just go sitting. You said let's do it, and I was like, oh, she's tougher than I am. I didn't want to she made me sound okay, well good, Well neither one of us then no, I actually can't tell. So okay, well we'll give it. We'll give it about ten minutes or so. Okay. So it's really good to see you. I think we've met briefly a couple of times, like on the side of things. Yeah, right, because I don't know that we've spent any real time together, but I know it's been like hey, yeah, I think I like said hi to you one time at the station, and maybe it's something like that sounds right, but I just know I haven't really had that l king like imprint on me. And people that work with you love you, you know, with do you mean dorks and I've and friends for a long long time, and he just speaks just so lovely of you. And I guess that was my introduction to you over in this space, because I remember x As and Os. I think that just when I think about my introduction to you, this is excess and OS right here. This is the first song. So would that have been like You're maybe not first, but like your biggest, most widely heard song. It's still okay. So that comes out, it happens. And then that to me was you here? I was like, Oh she did XS and OS. Now she's doing this song with Dirks, So how did that all come together? Just how did you get? Like how did the alien spacecraft arrive? Because everybody comes on a different spacecraft? How did you how did Jews arrive? And and and when? And why? Um? Well, I was riding next as a nose thing. I mean maybe I still am. I don't know, but um, I wasn't super It's fair. The world's are very very separate. Um and I was so in the alternative kind of rock pop thing because X's Nose came out as alternative and it crossed over to pop and became a big song. And then I got a call and I was asked if I would want to sing on a country song. And I didn't. I didn't know who Dirk's Batley was. I just wasn't in there. You just got a call. Yeah, so someone basically heard your texture for lack of a better word there and said that would sound good Onstead Dirks and Mary his manager who's now my manager. Um, and I didn't know who he was, so I called my brother. Um, my family is from southern Ohio, and I said his name is Noah, but everyone's Bob. And I said, hey, Bob, this guy named Dirk's Bentley wants wants me Dirks Bentley, Ellie, you have to do that. You have to do that. So I was like, well, okay, cool man. Hopefully my brother will think I'm cool. So I did it. Um, and they were so accommodating and they said, yeah, yeah, well we'll meet you. I was in Austin playing show and um, I didn't know. He flew his own plane in and he's so not like you, just he's so lovely and wonderful and um made me feel very like welcome. And UM, I hadn't done like a whole lot of collaborations at that point, and it was just really really fun. You let me play banjo on it and we just kind of laughed at a lot and the whole thing was maybe a couple of hours. And so he flew to Austin and met in a studio there. Yeah, so you were playing a show. It was like stubs or somewhere or probably I can't. I couldn't tell you like before you play that the day before. Yeah, we're going to go into the studio. Yeah, I have some I have some buddies that you know. I have run a beautiful studio Arleans Studios and um. And so they just got us in there for a couple of hours, and I mean, I had no idea what that would lead to. And I mean it changed my life completely exponentially. When they send you a track or when dark's because I just went through this, I do. It's nothing like you. But I have a comedy group and we play some decently size shows. And I just wrote a song and I just send it to one of my buddies. And I'm always weird about not weird. But there's a fine line in asking a friend to do something professional. It's a lot, it's a big ask, and if they're your real friend, it's especially if they're really famous. Uh. And in my case, when I asked my friends to do anything with me, they're way more famous than me. And uh, it's a weird it's a weird thing. It feels, yes, it feels very weird, and not that it's the same, but I just reached out to my friends and I do it in voice memo, so just you couldn't save it. And I was like, I'll tell you. It was Lanny Wilson, and I said, hey, Lanny, we did the song and we we opened up for Garth and we never open for anybody, but we wrote the song and it went billion plays on it. Do you want to sing the verst of this? You can write it. It's a comedy song. And then I'm like, I end it. I sent it and I'm like, god, dang it, and then you sweat. And then I'm like, because I know she doesn't. Then you're like, I know they don't want to do it, like I know they do. But but I sent her the track and it was empty, right, So I sent her my verse and there's an empty verse on it, just her. So my question is I get back around to that, is what did you hear from dirt? Was it the fully produced track you remember with someone else's voice in it? I mean, I believe they sent it to me and Dirk's was singing the full song, and they said we want you to sing verse two. Okay, so it was a full Dirk's version. Just imagine yourself singing verse two. Yeah, when you sing a song, it was it was already written. Right, Do you take any liberties because you do sing, speak, communicate in your own style? Do you take any liberties with when you're singing it back differently? Well, I was still really green then, and I mean I'm still very green and all of it. But it took me years to be able to say, um oh, I have an idea, and my idea is worthy of being said, and you know it. I wish I mean, I recently wrote with this girl named um L Langley and she's twenty four years old, and she's she's got the confidence that like I wish I had now, And I couldn't imagine being so confident in writing rooms and um to like say ideas and and I like, I wasted a lot of time being like oh yeah, okay, yeah, sure, you know that's what we should do, and then not like being my full self um so, but then I also was like let me just you know, mind my bees and cute. I was singing whatever you want me to do? I only play. I played banjo very poorly, but I could make it work and I could do this, and um, I just did what they asked. And uh then I I mean, I was like shown the country world, which is a completely different experience than I had ever seen ever. So I want to play a clip of that. This is different for girls from here, you go different. I'm assuming there was no hey, we feel like this is gonna be a single? Or did they? Um? I don't remember asking any A lot to remember, and I know, and it's it's pretty pandemic. I don't remember much either. I also had a I was in a very different excuse me, I was in a very different situation, Um, you know, with people that I worked with. So I I don't think that I had any control or wasn't even part of any conversation. I guess I asked that because it's a whole different ball game if you're if you know you're about to be on a single with Dirks, because especially if it's a collaboration, especially if it's a song that has some substance to it, right like, and it was all of this. It was a collaboration, it was a substance song, it was a male female so You're about to not only be on the radio and in Nashville, but you're gonna be on every show. You know. They're gonna be throwing you on a work Yeah. Yeah, And I think maybe they would have told you that had they known all that was coming. But it sounds like you just were baptized by Okay, here's the Nashville Fire, here's the single You're You're Running, Yeah, which I mean I like, right. And you talk about banjo, that's such a natural instrument for a country um. And I say that as someone who grew up in a rural town in Arkansas, but also I grew up in the nineties, so I listened to everything. I worked on hip hop stations, I worked on pop stations, sports stations. Um like, I grew up and listen to country me in my whole life. But that isn't all I am, right, And so you come from musically a stylistically different world, it seems for a second, but you also play an instrument that is very traditional in the country music world, which is the banjo. So how did you start playing the banjo? If that's not really You're not growing up in Kentucky around bluegrass. I actually I'm from southern Ohio. It was just near Kentucky. Where you go. Yeah, And um, I didn't grow up playing the banjo. Um. We lived in Columbus. My mom was a fit model, and so my mom would take a lot of trips to Hong Kong. And where my family is from where I call home is um Jackson, Ohio. Welst in a small small town, and so I spent a lot of my childhood there, um with my mom. And Um, I didn't play the banjo there Grandma, grandpa yeah got him. Yeah, my my mother's parents. So you you have a Okay, this is this is how I think a lot of people's mind are twisted about you. Right now, we just know L King pop alternative. Later it's L King, daughter of l a comedian, famous guy. We only know l A. L King. The fact that you grew up in rural Ohio actually says so much more about who you actually are these acting there twice then I think even I had an idea of I moved to New York City with my mom, met my stepdad, Um, who I mean basically showed me everything about music, mainly rock and roll and soul, which is like kind of everything that fuels me. UM. So he moved to New York when I was eleven, and then I would go back and forth and I would see my dad in l A or San Francisco when when I could. UM. I didn't start playing the banjo until I moved out and I UM I saw a guy playing the banjo, and when I was living in Philadelphia in the park, and I was like, man, let me try that. I can kind of play guitar. And I was like, oh, this is completely different. That guy let me borrow that banjo that like him and his dad made for a couple of years. And a couple of years later he was like, hey, can I have my banjo back? So I just taught myself how to play. But what people don't know is that I got um. I got signed to a publishing company because of a country song. UM a song I wrote on the banjo called good to Be a Man, and UM I went and I played it for I think it's now Sony, but it was e m I and I went and I just played my banjo song could be a Man, and he signed me on the spot and sent that song to Peter Edge, who's um big guy R. C A and um they signed me. I got signed because of a country song. When you were let's say your formative years, Hey, let's put you at a Yeah, Okay, let's go back to what were you listening to? Because that was around the time for me when it was Chili Peppers, Tim mcgrawl. It was obviously Nirvana had come and they had just gone mean and Kirk Obaan had died, but their explosion was just starting. So those formative years for me were that what were those for you? Around fifteen sixteen? You know, I grew up um in the house with probably I don't know, countless records. My stepdad is like, um, he's kind of a dick about music, like when he they called good Times as a joke because when he walks into a party, he like, I take over the music. So um, he he just always let me fumble through his records, so everything from UM, A lot of he played me a lot of soul, but a lot of like like garage, rock and roll. And then I was, you know, a teenager living in Brooklyn, so I listened to a lot of hip hop and like I love tripical Quest and I love Wu Tang and I love everything and I like to play everything. I love reggae so much. My son loves reggae. We listened to reggae all day long. Um, but I think what moved me the most is not a genre. It's so like a feeling. So what really like stuck out to me was emotional singers. So like I remember listening to Otis Reading when I was, you know, like fourteen years old, and be like, there's like I feel like there's pain in there. I what is that that I feel and connect with? And then I remember hearing Um, I don't know how, I must have been fifteen, and um my stepdad justin he gave me the cat a Cat power record called the Greatest. It was like the saddest record I've ever heard. And on the record there's a song called Hate and she's singing like I hate myself and I want to die. And I wasn't like turned off by I was like, Wow, this woman feels something and she puts it into music. And me as a listener, who's you know, going through emotions in life? And I'm such a deep, deep feeler, I like wanted to hug her. And I felt like hearing all this different type of music, especially something so raw and vulnerable and real as that gave me the okay to channel a lot of emotions that I have into music. Whether it's like I want to party all the time, or like my heart's been broken, or I'm sad and blue, or like I'm happy. I don't know, just any emotion, you know, I now have this cathartic way to get it out, because otherwise I think I would explode. So I listened to everything, and um, I know it's it's funny because now you know people like, so like, how how do you end up a country? And I kind of did trip and fall into like a very cush like landing and country and and I mean Dirk's brought me into that and but like the world that I saw of country was so just incredible and there's a reason why people want to come to country, and um, but what I saw from it was people are really happy and people are kind to each other. And I remember my first I think it was the c m A experience and I wore like I got on the Worst dress List or like fringe tassel pants. They said I look like a Matador person. I was like, all right, I'm on the list, and I was backstage and all everyone's doors were open, and someone offered me a drink and they're like, that person is really famous, and um. I saw Taylor Swift and she said she liked a song on my record, and I was like, okay, well, all right, I can just grow into a cave and never come again, because this is the greatest experience of my life. Um. And it was just really different because you know, I grew up seeing a lot of unhappiness and um, and in the pop world, I felt like I had to like claw so hard and work and fight for this place to be this person that I had thought I had to be. And it wasn't until I kind of kept trying to stick around in this country vibe, which was so fun, and I felt like I just felt accepted, and um, that's not something that like a lot of performers feel in a lot of different ways. So a couple of questions that I don't want to let slip by because she had said so much there back to when you're listening to music and you mentioned Kapower, You mentioned these records that you had heard that made you realize music was more than just a melody right or just lyrics. It was actually words that could make you feel something. Can you remember the first song or songs that you actually felt were written not by you before you? And I can give you an example to let you think that kind of what I do. I'll ask a question. If you're hearing me, just start giving my story. It's just because I want a good answer from you, and I I don't want to with you to feel rushed. For me, I was probably early twenties and uh, John Mayor Stopped this Train. That record came out, and when I heard the song, and you know, it's like, here's John may I got struggling with He's in that age of like mid twenties, and he's like, well, um, the only thing I'm good at is, you know, staying young. And he'd always been the youngest, and I was the same way where I was like this really young in the world of broadcasting, was always by far the youngest, fifteen years younger than and I and now I started to catch up and I started to be and I was like, man, the only thing I've ever been good at is being young. And so he but he wrote this song Stopped this Train about time and parents getting older, and I was like, oh my god, I feel that, Like I actually feel what he's saying. And it's the first time in my life that has ever happened. It's not a song that I was like made me feel sad or happy. It was like always speaking for me. When I ask you that question, can you remember a song that you heard that spoke for you. There's always been music that, like, I'm the kind of person that if I like, I love a song and I connect with something, like I have to like live in it and like I'm a one song on repeat until I can't hear it anymore. Um. So there's been like a lot of those all throughout my life. I mean, one huge one. Uh gosh, this is gonna be so bad. I think maybe Barbara Lynn, You're you're gonna you're gonna need me. Um And it actually wasn't un till I was older, but like, I listened to that song so much when I was going through my divorce because it was just like people are gonna hurt you and then they'll miss you and they'll they'll realize that you are good and it's important to hear stuff like that. I mean, music is such an amazing thing for the world because at the end of the day, it's the soundtrack to life and and it's it's our connection, and that's you know. Even pop songs that like you might not think are deeply rooted in emotion, they might be UM another one. I mean, I just can't remember like all of the ones from my teenage years because there's probably too many. Right. It's funny you mentioned pop songs that you may not think are emotional just because of maybe a tempo. Yeah, a tempo is one example, right. And one of those songs that I think of when you say that is and again it's a pop song and sometimes on eleven o'clock and you should buy the record of all the greatest hits the Proclaimers and I would walk five. That is such a love song, like when I wake up, I Know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a man wakes up next to you and it's like but instead it's presented as such a up You're like, well, this is kind of goofy. But if you just kind of extrapolate that, you're like, go, dang, that is it. That is quite the powerful song. Yeah, there's um the LSD collaboration. There is a song called Thunderclouds that was like blew my mind and when I had a really bad knee injury. And yeah, I'm not a skier. I'm like a potato on toothday. I'll try anything. Twice, I've skied twice. I've got three scars on my knee from it. Um, I'm not like a physical guy. It's not for me. Um. I like to even sit at concerts. I don't know I'm great chair dancer. UM. But I heard that song and I was I was like very immobile. I'm always hurt, by the way, because I'm just very clumsy, and I don't pay enough attention, Like I have a sprain an ankle right now, but I make a chic And UM, I remember like feeling really crappy in my body because my weight fluctuates all the time. And UM, I never wanted to feel like I can't run or I'm limited by my body. And I heard that song and I would like I would listen to on repeat and I would start to exercise. And I have still be like off of my divorce and a lot of most of these songs that I feel like we're written for me or from my divorce. But um, I would like listen to that pop song and cry while I worked out. I don't work out anymore, but when I did, I would listen to that song. I want to play and take a little side step here. This is l with dirks. This is worth a shot. Anyone here shot shot? So does dark So you want I mean, do you have a free coupon? That's like I would think You're like, all right, I did that song. It's quite the hit, like whenever I'm ready, I'm going to cash this in. No oh come on, no no no, no, no, no, no, no no. This was um, it was like a it happened very quickly. Um My, My whole the whole process of this record was Um, it's just kind of organical, Like it really did happen super organically. And I'm learning. I'm still every day I'm continuing to learn, like how different it is to be in country music. And two, um, there's there are no fans like country music fans, and they're like their lifelong fans and you have to kind of prove it to them and once you do, then they love you. And um, and so when the whole thing was you know, Drunk came out and UM, I got signed to a signed with a second label, Sunny Nashville, and UM they're like, well, okay, how are you gonna we'll we'll play it on the radio, Like how are you going to follow it up? Like why should why should we play drunk? And UM said, okay, well let's make any b And then the EP came together and it was like really really, I mean it's really good. So they said make a whole record and I was like, I mean, twist my arm. So it kind of came up out where Worth a Shot was a song that was going to make it on Dirk's record, and I'm I'm making the record with Ross Copperman, and UM, he just said, well what about this? And we were just laughing like well what if Dirk's sang on it? And I also feel like I couldn't make a country record and not kind of pay my respects of I mean, not only did he bring me into this, but change my life in so many ways. And he's a wonderful friend and we genuinely enjoy being around each other. He's very funny, and UM, when you do things like this with a friend, some of these things can feel like work, and when you do stuff with someone like Dirk's, it's you know, your stomach herds from laughing and and it's I don't know, it's just but I had to text him and ask him. But did you just go hill and be like, hey, did you have both of them? I mean that's what I went on. I've been like, hey, Drks forever. Yeah. She was like, no, you need to text him. So she takes gonna ask him classic Okay, that's that is very much on brand for her because she would still make you do it yes, And what's the message that you Because even though you know he os yeah, you don't have to say yes to that. But even though he does, you have a coop one, you still have to ask and it's awkward. It is awkward. What do you say? Do you? Do you text it? Do you voice memoir like I do? So it won't stay around. People can keep those, yeah, but they don't. They forget. They're always keep everyone like two minutes later like oh I should keep that, and then it's gone. I pressed keep before. Never So do you just text andally like, hey have a song you want to be on it? Um? It's different when you, I mean you have to. Like when I texted Miranda for a drunk it was a different text with Dirks, it was still like I fault mortified because for me, I value like our our friendship and I have some severe paranoia of growing up with you know, a famous dad um that I never want to be a take. I never want to be a taker. I never want to seem like I don't like users. I don't want I don't need any I don't want anything from you. If you're you know, if I become friends with you, it's like that's enough. But if you did want to do this, you know, um, it's always like, hey, I love you. I heard that you didn't want to like put this song in your record like Ross gave it to me. Maybe if he'd be interested, like what you want to sing on it with me? No pressure, absolutely no, I promise you can say no. Heck, i'd say no, that's I don't want to do it. There's no way I'd want to do this to me. But if you do, yeah, and so how long until he goes yes? Um? He sent me a very like a video of him going WHOA, Yeah, I want to do it. Yeah, I'd love to but that's Turks, you know. And I guess he had some familiarity with the song. He knew it, yeah, and we changed the key so he had and he even did a higher harmony. I mean, he's just his voice is very incredible, and I think that we sound good together. And Dirk's wouldn't do it if he didn't want to. He's enough going on. I do want to talk about Drunken. I don't want to go home if you play that one, Mike. I mean massive, just massive over in this world, and holy crap, congratulations because it's one of those rare ones that's so big that it's a unicorn that you see maybe twice a year, and it's one of those. But I guess I wonder what your relationship was with Miranda before this, if you had one, And because that's one that I would think would be a little more difficult if you don't have that relationship, or easier because you don't have the relationship, because you can just avoid the rest of your life. That's I'll be like, oh, you said no, I'll never see you again, right, Yeah? Yeah. I wrote drunk with Martin Johnson when I was twenty four. That really so years ago wild Yeah, we wrote uh, I had two days to two session days with him. We wrote America Sweetheart, which is a song off my first record that I mean should have I think she should have been a country song, which, by the way, that one I know that one too really well. Was that after or before record? Okay, so because I guess maybe which was first as a single where America Sweeter was never single. I thought America Sweeter it was gonna be single. I thought Drunk was going to make the record. Um, I just had different I didn't I didn't know that I had to say um, and it just kind of takes life to teach you um. And but I'm glad that it didn't because I had a manager that didn't want me to be pop and so he really had no idea kind of I probably shouldn't be thought of this, but he really tried to bury that. And I was like, man, that's gotta kick ass song and and so. But I still hadn't had my confidence in writing rooms yet. So Drunk that I always thought was like, dang, that's a massive chorus. But I hated the verses and um, it took me. I mean, I don't want to age my self. But I was probably twenty four and then how many years ago? I know, I'm all over the place right now. So we were sitting on that song. And then the last like three or four years, I signed a Red Light and I've been working with Mary and I was like, Mary, I've got this song that's like like we have we got to sell it to a DJ or something. And Martin and I hadn't spoken in years, and out of the blue, um, he texted me and he was like, Hey, would you want to sing on a song on my record? And I was like, yo, you got it. Funny you texted me because I think that we should rewrite the verses for Drunk Now. This is I met Miranda through Dirks. Dirks brought Miranda to one of my shows, I think Marathon Works or Marathon Music Works. Yeah, and um, and I met her and like, I like, I was embarrassed because I was learning about in years and I felt like I did a bad job. And um, here's like the super megastar and I may not know much about country music, but I know who she is, and um, she was really cool and really nice and um, and then I see her kind of like at award shows because Dirks and I got nominate for Grammy and I was kind of like, hey, what's up. And then I was doing nothing in country For two years. I was opening for like rock rock bands. I was opening I did like a very long tour with Heart and Joan Jett and Brandy Carlisle was on it. And then I Miranda asked me to be direct support for Roadside Bars and Pink Guitars and um. So we would kind of hang every night, and then she had, you know, we did the food round and film left thing and so every night at the end of the night, we'd all get up on stage and then she's got Wanda this like trailer that's a bar and loud music and just to hang and it's like her tours like the dream, you know, makes everyone feel welcome, and so we kind of just became cool. And then you country tours are so smart because you do like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then you wake up on the bus Nashville and Sunday and you can have a few days with your family. So I would come back and I was writing with Martin and we rewrote Drunk in fifteen minutes, and um, me and Mary were just talking and like, what if it's a duet? What if we asked Miranda? And I was like, well, how do we ask Miranda? Girl? You gotta text her. You need the sender of the song. You need to just do it. I was like shaking, hey, just like I love you so much, like I'm already I missed you from the tour and thank you so much for everything I have this song. And I said to her, it's true. I said, you're the only person I'm asking if if you say no, it's not going to be a duet. Like I'm so grateful for the tour, it was so much fun, Like if you would at all be interested in doing this, like let me know, and if you don't like it, lie to me. So um, she didn't tasket me back for a whole day, and the next day she text me back and she said that it was really catchy and she heard her husband singing in the shower and so she said yes. And neither of us. I knew it was a big chorus, but we were going to go to pop an alternative with it. I didn't, neither of us. We still laugh because we're like we did not think that it was going to do what it did, um, which is a beautiful thing. And uh, that song alone taught me so much about allowing things to have life of their life of its own, and it's really helped me to like not put pressure on things and kind of give room for I don't know, sometimes things to do it themselves. My wife is she just listened to a lot of Tipperary countries. She grew up in Oklahoman, listened to a lot of two thousand's country. Now she's very much into emo pop type thing. And but she came in the other day and she was like, hey, you know my new jam is. I was like, what's that. She goes, well, it popped up on like my emo pop playlist. I was like what. She was like drunk and I don't want to go home. And I was like, that's just not getting to you. She was, well, I don't listen what you do, I said, it only it only comes to me through this way. She was like, that's a good song, huh. And I was like, yeah, it's a really good song if you're asking me eight months ago when I was listening to it, I said, but it's great that it's still living right, like it's It's it's the life of it is still new to people because it is still such a good song. It is growing now in other places that's not just country, which is kind of the which is kind of where it started in a place that didn't really have a home in a good way, Like it was just art that you had written and you didn't really have a genre name or it was it was all for my first record. I wouldn't bring guitar to these sessions. I brought my banjo. I was just like a banjo chick. You were the banjo a chick that is that is wild? You know my perception. I'll just be honest with my perception. He is completely different than what I'm experiencing now because this is what I've felt when you came to town you did the song with Dirks that you were massive L a star. You you and I think this is how a lot of people feel because they don't know you. So I'm glad that we're actually able to sit down for and have the extended conversations Massive L a music star who have heard on pop radio or satellite or you know, do you know who is probably thinking she doing country music? Favor is really good at this as all these massive shows, and you know she'll be here for a couple of weeks and get her hit and bail out like that because you came from and it's not Now you learn it's not even that world. Like you had your own version of the musical world you were living in. I was completely wrong about where you were coming from from. Most people are about me, to be fair, and I think what is great is now we get to learn why our understanding was off. First of all, that you spent a lot of your life one to eleven and then back and forth in you know, southern Ohio. I have friends that are from there. That's as rural as it gets. Like your influenced by everything country music included in that um. And then again, I just thought you were a big l a music star coming to grace this with the presence and then chunk deuces. But two and I mean this in the best way possible, but too here and understand that you were in your own version of finding yourself at the same time time still am me too write that is a different picture that I'm read that I'm repainting of you. And I'm glad I got to hang out and learn that version because I just thought, well, all right, she's gonna come do us favor. Hop down here, do a couple of hits, and get out of town and go back to our fancy schmancy Los Angeles. No, I live on a farm in Rhode Island, by the way, So you live on a farm too. I have no idea who she is. Like every it's all misconception. King is misconception. At this point, she had no idea. Um, okay, well that is good to know. Not that it matters, but I think that I I think even with your dad being famous, I think we thought, oh Richard Hollywood kids, A lot of people think that, yeah, and I don't. Yeah, And I would understand why because and I saw that. I saw that. But my childhood had two like, like very big extremes. I had a dad that was I mean in the early two thousand's forget even SNL. I mean, yeah, I've got some memories of being backstages Saturday Night Live. You know, Um, I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad and your biological father, yeah, my dad Rob, Yeah, I didn't spend a lot of time with him and I would see him, you know, he would get me for like a little bit of time. But I spent a lot of time with his mother, my Filipino grandmother recently passed on, and um so I saw very different lifestyles. Um Uh. My dad was like a really big movie star in the early two thousand's and it was interesting to see. Um. But then my mom's side of the family, which is why I go by King because that they raised me. And um, I don't know, I if you, if you go through southern Ohio, you'll I don't know, I don't really know how to explain it, but like that's what home is to me, and um, I appreciate it, and I love to home my family. My family still lives there. Um So, I don't know, it's it's it was an interesting way to grow up to see both extremes. Um I'm glad that I had it because I saw what like I saw what can happen with fame, and I saw what can happen with money. And I I'm always like a watcher. I like I take everything in almost to like a paranoid point. Um But I'm glad that I saw a lot of that. You know, my quick version of why I'm asking this question is, I don't. I didn't have a dad. My dad left when us five, until I was thirty three, until I chased him down myself, I didn't. I had no relationship and so so we were estranged for a long time. It doesn't sound like were you guys are stranged at all through your childhood. No, so he was still your were able to be a fan of his work because he didn't resent him. It was just you would see him at times because I resent in mind terribly, Um, do I have daddy? Is he was like not asking as a kid? Did you? Were you angry? Happy that he was your dad? Like, what's what's the year old I'll think about her dad being famous? Yeah, I mean I I still have a lot of um. I mean I've done a lot of therapy in my life, UM, which has really helped me, like unload brick by brick of the crap that we carryer old lives. Um. But yeah, like I resented him a lot. I love me and my dad have a like a good relationship now and I love him a lot and I appreciate him and um him having young children really kind of I don't know it helped our relationship and um, but yeah, I was a very I was a really really angry teenager. Um, I was. I was labeled a bad kid. But I think it was just now that I'm a mother, I can understand like you just labeled them bad kid instead of thinking like, well maybe their needs aren't being met or like what is going on with them, or like what do they not have that is nurturing them? And um, for me, a lot of it was like I felt like my dad didn't like want, like he was like embarrassed of me. Um, because I was like a chubby teenager and my mom's this beautiful model and my dad is just like funny, goofy comedian but cares very much about what he has to look like on screen because that's his career. And so it was. It was a weird thing. I was like the chubby, goofy kid and nobody, no one expected me to get any level of success at all, um, because of the I'll do think the bad kid that you were not even the bad kid, more like the like the fat kid, like the goofy kid. I went to a lot of schools. I got kicked out a lot of schools I was. I wasn't a very good kid, and uh, I don't know. I just always played music. And I mean I had residencies in Brooklyn at like sixteen seventeen years old, and my my mom was supportive. She'd helped me. She care my guitar and whatever. But like nobody thought that out of all, Like the kids in my family, like my dad's brother had three daughters that were like beautiful ballerinas. They thought they were going to be like jamous actresses, singers and blu alone um and I kind of, I don't know, nobody thought that I was going to do, especially because I didn't want to use my dad's name. I mean, when I kind of started to get successful, we didn't. We hadn't been talking for years. My legal name is Tanner el Schneider. Oh it is okay, so you purpose okay, got it? Yeah, I got it. I started using my my mother's last name like as a teenager, and I just wanted to do I just wanted to use that name, not because I mean probably because I was angry and it's cooler, but also like that was my family and I I worked very very very very hard to get signed to get any tour, to play any show ever. And I never wanted anyone to say, you've got it because your dad and he knows this now you know. And because he wasn't he was, he didn't do anything. I worked my ass off and I didn't want to be connected to that do This is when my therapist as me all the time, and I struggle with it. But and this may be the dumbest question you've heard and can answer it so easily, but are you proud of yourself for what you've been able to do? Or do you struggle with being proud for yourself? Uh? Sometimes I it's important to be able to kind of like step outside of the snow globe and see the glory of it, especially if you know. I'm not like a cookie cutter person. So I feel like I I feel like I have to fight less hard now. But I'm very proud of myself. I'm very proud that my son, uh gets to see two parents that have very strong drive in their field, and that I want my son to see that he is more important in my career. But I want him to see that I can do this and take I take him on tour with me, like he comes first, and I want him to be a part of this. That's always been my dream. He's nine months, so he's not doing a lot of communicating yet. He's just taking a lot of in so far. I mean, yeah, he talked in his own way, but yeah, he takes it in. But he's cool man, Yeah, yeah he's cool. Did being a mom alter a lot of the feelings you had about being a kid? Um? Yeah it gives. I mean I have so much empathy. I mean my parents are very very young, and um, it softens me on them. I couldn't imagine doing any of this, um in my early twenties, and my mom had two of us. So, um, more empathy for my mother than dad, but especially because um, you know, my my partner is an incredible father and it is very very present and very hands on. Um. But I don't know all of it makes me the mother that I am. And I think I'm a good mother. I mean, I also think i'm a ship mother. But I care very very much and I want to be a good mom and I want to be a very present person because I also have a career that is different from my dad. But I am realizing that like I am in this entertainment industry, but I want to do it differently. And um, that's a huge thing that I love about country music is that they come back and they're with their families and and there's family tours. I mean, I'm touring like all your with stable tms and like I bring my son like it's it's I feel very safe about that, and I don't know, it's just I'm gonna do it my own way. Though. When you're you're an artist, you know you're more than a musician. You're an artist, especially hear when you talk about the different ways you're affected by by art. Do you have the other art skills like drawing? Can you? I don't know what? What else can you do creatively? Because I just feel like I'm looking at your all your tattoos, like there's something in you that just wants to always make an impact on something and through creation. So what else is it? What? How do you else do you fulfill yourself doing ours? It's very nerdy, but I I love I don't I don't know what I love crafting. I feel that SI I love Oh my gosh, um it comes out in different ways and I don't always get to have. Um. I'm never in one place for very long. So UM. It was weird because during the pandemic, I got really really into a very specific type of tidy, which is shibori, which is like a Japanese technique of folding and then natural indigo die. So it's like really beautiful and very intricate, and um, in hopes of having a baby and getting pregnant be we were trying, I made all these like extremely intricate and beautiful like baby blankets, and um, I love tie dyeing. I asked for a sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm like, I'm making everybody baby blankets like applicates. It's like very nerdy. Um. I like super intricate things that helps me shut my mind off if I'm just like busy work. I like to knit crochet. Um. When I was younger, I went to art school. I thought I wanted to be an editor. I wanted to make music videos or short films. Um. And I got really into illustrations, and I mean, I don't know if I'm good at that anymore. Worst handwriting in the world, worst handwriting in the world, Um, like around the house car. It's different now that I'm a mom. I'm I'm very neurotic. Um. I I think because it's so like we're not that we're unstable, but because we haven't bought a house here yet and we live out of suitcases. So I have systems, like I'm routine and systems in our chaos, so like folding techniques and organization is like a massive thing. Are you control freak? One hundred percent? But I think that that might come and stem from a place of not feeling like I had any control as a kid completely get it same, I'm such a control freak, but because I was a poverty kid and had no control of anything else. Yeah, but everything I could control, control completely and that has I mean, it still lives in me. And I have a wife, so I don't control as much, but things away from her. Like I'm such a control freak that now I can also see why it's not good sometimes. Finally, Yeah, it took a long time, but you can only hope that no matter when it comes, you are able to see it. You know, some people don't ever want to see it though, well, because when you when you see it, you have to acknowledge it, and you have to I didn't want to acknowledge it right exactly. It was working for me. I was being rewarded through my career with the things that got me to that point to be a control freak. So why would I try to fix that? Heck, I'm scared to go to therapy. I was like, I don't. I don't want to come to therapy. If I have fixed, I'm gonna be a failure. Like my fear was going to therapy would make me a failure because it was going to wash away some of the struggle that had got me to therapy, which is a drive right yes, yeah, And he's like, chill, yeah, you're good, homie. It will only deepen your drive. And he was like, I'm gonna fix you anyway. You can't wait. You can hear you get fixed like this is You're like a car, not a carburetor. We can just plug up. But wow, I see that you are hosting the c M A Fest show. That is first of all, good for you. That's awesome for you and Dirk's um I've hosted that show before it well, yeah one time. This is what you will love working for Robert Um. I worked with him there and I do this the CBS New Year's Show and love Him it is the same clothes for four nights because love that though. Yes, yes, I agree, Yes, that part's good. I dressed loud man and if I got a sick outfit, I'm aware four Here's the good part One. You only gotta pay for one outfit unless you get a backup case you spill on it. Right your they may be like I might have too because performance and hosting, well I mean hosting outfit right right, it's the same thing. You may have a second one in case you spill something. Yeah, So with that, that's good. We didn't get that. Maybe we should text Tiff. Yeah, So that's that's a good part of it. But the second thing is about day two in the same clothure like do I stink? Like do I. It's a lot of waiting around a whole lot, and you've got to be there all the time just in case something goes down. But you're gonna love it. It's awesome, and you're gonna spend four days and all these hours doing it and then they're going to show up for like an hour and a half and be like that was four days. I just use the twelfth second clip for Ford, it's awesome. Yeah, but know TV just weird. It is weird. It's weird. Congratulations, that's really freaking cold that you're doing that. It's it's very cool to me because my experience with it was I mean, it was during different for girls and it's it's funny that you or like your perception of me was that I was like some big l a m. Because when I performed that song with him, that was the biggest live audience that I'd ever played for. And I walked off stage and people, I remember people were like grabbing at me and they put me on the golf cart and we went like whatever past the stage and I had them pull over and I put my face in a corner and I cried because it was like such a big moment for me. So when they asked me to host, I was like and there, and they're probably going, I don't know if we should ask her, She's probably gonna think this is not nothing. Ask no, No, it's a huge deal for me. But all of these things, I mean, I get, I still get very very excited. Good for you. Yeah, I mean, I mean I I've lost a lot of that because I just think I'm gonna screw it up, and so I don't have excitement I have, So you let the anxiety get oh, fear of never being able to work again because I screw up so bad, no one's ever gonna hire me. See, my thing is I always mess up, so the bar is low, so you know you're going to mess up. So part of my charm beb Okay, Well my charm is that the bar can't. I don't have a whole lot of talent. Talent so if I if I don't have I can't really screw up that much. So I can't allow to screw up because I don't have a lot of anything else. I can only sing that well only my only funny. It's just a thing where but I'm like, well, if this doesn't work and the ratings are terrible, I'm never never getting hired again. I like that though, that You're just like, I suck. That's what I need to do. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know, it's it's worked for you. All of this stuff is from our childhood trauma, right, all of it's like, I don't know, it's not that I don't have confidence in myself because I actually I don't I And I don't know how I come off as I don't know if I I know what I look like and I know that like I'm allowed as bitch, not in the not like and and I hope not as much as I used to be, but like energetically, I hope I'm not. But like I look loud, you know. Um, But it's taken me a long time to like be okay in my body. And so I had to fake a lot of like really hardcore confidence, which is like very tough exterior, but like inside I'm like putting, you know. Um. And so now I'm just trying to kind of like mend the two of like I'm as softie, I don't have as much to prove anymore. Um, So maybe I can like let at like layer by layer, just like let it kind of chill. I think that's life, right, trying to mind it, trying to figure out the perfect mind hopefully hopefully try to heal and like get to a place of you know what, this is good. I'm happy. I feel like I'm gonna figure it out, and then the next day I'm gonna die. Yeah, I figure that thinks that's what happens, right, where I was like, I'll finally figure it out. We die. That's it. I think that's life. It's like, oh, that's what it is. Yeah, you're dad, and I'm going to share it with you. Somehow somebody up there pushes the button and it down. Now, Yes, okay, look we have I'm only mildly sweaty, So I'm going to count today as a success. I appreciate you sitting through and being in the sauna here. This is not hot? Is this hot seat? Because I feel cool? Maybe I'm just so comforting an interview that it's cool to you even think about that. Maybe. Yeah, it's a lot lott toast. I'm gonna lie. Um, let me say this. The new song which I think you're coming up to the radio show tomorrow to play, is that true? Yeah? Yes, dang, we're gonna find out if you can really sing Oh my gosh. Yeah. I wish they don't give us like they don't give us anything. Uh so uh l and Dirk's worth a shot. Now. The entire body of work that you've been creating that was so good, it's went from an EP to an LP. No, don't build this up now, don't you. No? No, no no, I'm only come on, you said it to me. I'm holding a mirror back up they Okay, someone found it to be just good enough, fair enough. If you take take it off me, then someone else found it to be just good enough to say, hey, you should make more songs and make a record. When does that whole thing happening? I would like to know, okay, so that there's not a date that I don't have. No, no, no, no, because there I'm soon got it and I don't even need a date. I just didn't want to miss something if it's like, yeah, idiot's it's all Friday? Okay, because so it's not. But the new songs out um dronking, I don't want to go home massive. Are you guys still pushing that in places? Another four? No, Well, it's showing up. That's the crazy part about it still showing up in places. Count your money, that's that's awesome. Keep counting it's coming. Congratulations on everything, really, thank you and the baby, and just thank you. Um. I like to congratulate myself because I found out a lot about you that I did not know, and that usually happens here. But I'm usually not wrong on just general perception. Pretty good, pretty good at that I've swung a miss big time one. You. I'll be honest with you, and so I'm really glad that that you came in and Mike, you just like, yeah, who knew? Who knew? She's cool? You know? All right? You guys follow L L King at E L L E King and I guess I'll see you in the morning. Yeah. Honestly, I want to say, like, thanks for giving me the opportunity to share more about myself because a lot of people probably have um their own perception of me and I can only be myself, so thanks for having me I try to be someone other than myself. Yeah, I like it, That's okay. Yeah, I don't want to be British sometimes that'd be cool, homelike, all right, el King, there she is and we'll see you guys. M