Elle King joins Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen for a look at her country debut album, ‘Come Get Your Wife.’ Elle describes fully committing to country music, paying tribute to her ultra religious grandmother, and how Tyler Childers hand-picked her to record his song ‘Jersey Giant’.
Tune in and listen to the episode in-full this Friday (January 27) at 11am PT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET or anytime on-demand at apple.co/_TodaysCountry.
Elle King Tells Apple Music About ‘Out Yonder’ and Writing in Nashville
When I had just had the baby and then “Drunk” started to explode and they wanted me to make an EP, which turned into an album. I was like, “I don’t know what to do. Oh, great. Nashville’s amazing, best songwriters in the world. Send me some songs.” That’s how “Out Yonder” came to me.
It was just wonderful and amazing and so cool to have those writers [Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley, Matt McKinney]. We did it in two days and we probably wrote eight songs. Six or seven I think made the record. And we just wrote so many different types of songs. I think that day we wrote “Tulsa,” “Lucky,” and then “Bonafide.”
Elle King Tells Apple Music How Tyler Childers Asked Her to Record ‘Jersey Giant’.
I met Tyler years ago because where he’s from in Kentucky is not very far from where my family’s from in southern Ohio. My brother’s like, “Elle, there’s this guy, Tyler Childers, he is playing the River Rat Festival.”
He said, “You think you could get me to meet him? I just love him.” I know that he has millions of fans all around the world, but he’s like a hero where my family comes from. So I was like, “Sure, cool, let’s go.” We went and it was really, really fun. I met him and he was so cool. So when ‘Jersey Giant’ started to blow up on socials and everything, RCA called him and said, “Hey, you have to record it.” And he said, “No.” and they’re like, “Okay, well who else on RCA will you give it to?” And he was like, “Elle King.” And they’re like, “Okay, I guess we’re going to ask her.” I was like, “Yeah, Tyler Childers is going to give me a song, hell, yeah.”
Elle King Tells Apple Music Why She Likes the Country Genre So Much Compared to Rock or Pop
When I first started coming back here [to Nashville] and being a part of this, I felt like I had to be someone that had to be here all the time. It wasn’t until I started playing country shows and going on country tours and being much more part of this world that I felt like I didn’t have to wear that mask so much. That’s why I like Country music. I can be myself and nobody’s telling me that I need to change at all.
Elle King Tells Apple Music When She First Realized She Could Sing
It wasn’t until maybe 12 or 13. We had moved to New York City and I was taking guitar lessons. I started writing songs and I went to some open mics. I remember everybody was only allowed to do one song. It was the first time I ever had any experience like that. You sign up. You wait your turn. You get one song. And I sang a song.
Everybody said, “Do another one. Do another one.”… I was the only person that sang two songs and I was like, “Thank you.” 14 years old like, “Mom, you see that? I sang two songs.” My mom was like, “Good job, baby.” She would carry my guitar into bars and she didn’t care that I got a fake ID. I just kept going from there. Teachers would come from school to meet me in bars and hear me sing when I was like 15. I just never looked back.
