Elle King puts a gritty, bluesy spin on her blend of pop- and country-tinged retro-rock. After debuting with 2012’s The Elle King EP, she hit number one on the Billboard alternative chart with “Ex’s & Oh’s” from her Top 30 debut album, 2015’s Love Stuff. By the early 2020s, she had released collaborations with artists spanning Ronnie Spector , Dierks Bentley , Wanda Jackson , and Andy Grammer ; she landed just outside the Top 40 with 2021’s “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home),” a duet with Miranda Lambert . 2022 brought solo recordings including The Bad Guys soundtrack contribution “Feelin’ Alright.”
Elle King was born Tanner Elle Schneider in 1989 in Los Angeles, the daughter of London King and Rob Schneider (actor, comedian, and former cast member of Saturday Night Live). She grew up in Ohio, and after hearing the all-girl pop-punk band the Donnas when she was nine years old, she decided she wanted to be a singer and musician. By 13 she was playing guitar, later adding banjo to her skill set. King began street busking and gigging around New York at the age of 16, moving to Philadelphia to attend the University of Arts, where she majored in painting and film. During that time, she acted in films including 2009’s Wild Cherry. After college, she spent time in Copenhagen and Los Angeles before returning to New York to settle in Brooklyn.