Elle King

Take Elle King for example. She has burst onto the scene in a big way – with Grammy nominations for Best Rock Performance and Best Song – but has been building towards this moment her entire life. Her debut, Love Stuff, dropped a little over a year ago, and since then the Californian performer has been touring to beat the devil, but only now will she finally find her way to Australia. As often as she performs, however, this whole carousel still strikes her as surreal.

“It boggles my brain a little,” King says. She talks rapidly and with great colour, as though we are catching up after downing a couple of afternoon shots. “This is my first album, and my first single. I don’t have a computer and I don’t Google myself or anything, but people kept sending me links to Grammy predictions, and I started thinking, ‘Wait a minute. Could this happen? Did I get nominated for a freakin’ Grammy?’ So you expect nothing and hope for the best, and then I got two nominations, which was the craziest thing ever. I’ve been joking, saying that it’s like being a doctor. For the rest of my life I’ll be ‘Grammy nominee Elle King’. But that won’t ever get tiring. It’s the highest accolade you can get as a musician, and for me to get it for my first single, my first album, is insane. So if that gives me some bragging rights, I’ll take them.”

That single, ‘Ex’s & Oh’s’, went on to platinum sales both in the US and here in Australia, and though she missed out on the Grammys, she lost to Alabama Shakes, which makes the loss seem more manageable somehow. More recently she has dropped her third single, ‘America’s Sweetheart’, and it’s pretty damned catchy. It draws out the rough-rock, smoked-vocal blues that are starting to become King’s signature sound, and while she is proud to wear her influences on her sleeve, she would rather break away from any pattern that might be emerging.

“You know, when I was younger, 15 or so, there were three female singers I listened to. They were Wanda Jackson, Aretha Franklin and Dolly Parton. I’d hope that someone can hear what an impact those three women had on me as a singer. Writing and learning to sing, I didn’t have a vocal coach, I had those women. I’d sing along with them, and try to sing like them until my voice matured and I settled into how I sang. So I hope I haven’t been locked down to one genre. I’m happy to be in the rock category, because I love rock’n’roll, but what’s beautiful about rock’n’roll is that it can take so many different forms. Look at Elvis. I mean, look at the fucking Beatles! The Beatles are rock’n’roll, but there’s so many different levels of music, so many different styles they played. I’m pretty happy not having to choose one sound.”

A genuine testament to this can be found in the various acts King has supported in the past. You can draw a rather shaky line between Of Monsters And Men and Modest Mouse, but throw folk like Ed Sheeran, Dropkick Murphys and James Bay into the mix and you’ve got yourself an eclectic CV.

“I’ve been very lucky to have been brought on all the tours I’ve been on, and I’ve also been lucky to not be pigeonholed,” she says. “Because my music changes so much and I can play so many different styles, it’s given me the opportunity to open for so many different types of music. For rock, country, for pop. Every tour is different, and I do like to watch and see how they work – I like to see how the headliners perform, how they react to the audience. I got to sing and spend the day and play guitar with Wanda Jackson while she sang – that was really special to me.

“For me, a lot of it is the travel. I never expected to travel to most of the places that I’ve been to, let alone get to sing there. That’s something that’s very special to me. I was recently told that I will meet my match, that someone will outdrink me in Australia.”

I assure King the prospect is not impossible, though by her own admission she has been learning the hard way that all drunken revelries must eventually stare down the harsh morning light. By the sounds of it, her life is one of constant engagement and excitement, but that can easily turn into a yoke about your neck. Momentum is a remarkable thing, right up to the moment you crash.

“Well, I’ve been learning that drinking is not good,” she chuckles, “so I’ve been trying to stick with just writing music while I’m sad. Music and songwriting have been pretty powerful for me since I first started really writing. It was a very cathartic, therapeutic way for me to find my voice and try and figure things out. It’s been a powerful thing for me as a person to have that outlet, but that’s the only thing that I have. I’m not really good at anything else.”

With appearances at Bluesfest and scattered sideshows, King is keen to experience the colour of Australian audiences, although she’s terrified of the flight. Though she may well find herself inspired by her time here – or at least, find a stalwart drinking buddy – the chances of sitting down to get some writing done are fairly slim. That’s in part due to her writing process, but the expectations of what the future holds can also cast a creative shadow.

“I try to not take a step back and look at everything, because it can be a little overwhelming,” she says. “I haven’t had much time, either. I rarely get even a day off, so I just try and stay focused and think about whatever show I have to play that night. It can be overwhelming, and I hate thinking, I hate emotions. I try to stay away from that and avoid those as much as possible.

“It’s hard, because I’ve been so focused on working and touring this album. It took so long – three years. And I’m so proud of it, but I haven’t really put much thought into writing. Now when you sit down to write and it’s like, ‘OK! Is this for album two?’ and it takes away from why I write music. And so that weird shift happens in my brain, and I have to work on retraining myself on writing. It’s also a very personal thing for me, and I don’t get a lot of time by myself on the road. After this very large amount of touring, I’m hoping to get some time to reflect on everything that’s happened over the past couple of years. For me, it’s heavily about vibe, about what I’m feeling in the moment. You can’t turn it on or off. It just comes.”