Photo by Dennis Leupold, courtesy RCA
By Tom Lanham for Paste –
It’s a moral conundrum particular to our media-savvy era—what happens when your public, online-enhanced persona begins to outshine, even commandeer your private life? What happens when your avatar takes over, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in the process? Grammy-nominated old-school rocker Elle King can clearly describe that surreal transition, which overtook her last year, at the height her breaking-artist success. As she releases her hard-won—and boldly confessional sophomore set Shake the Spirit, she shivers recalling her condition only a year ago while struggling to complete it. “I was pretty down and out then,” she sighs. “My skin was gray, I’d lost 70 pounds, I was doing hard drugs by myself, I was just a fucking lost person. So truly, this record and its whole process saved my life and made me a much better person. And—as uncomfortable as it all is—it’s important for me to be open about everything.”
The signs were all there from Day One for King, 29, the charismatic daughter of comedian Rob Schneider and model London King. In the same way a small forest animal puffs up its fur to appear larger to potential predators, she had carefully crafted a swashbuckling, larger-than-life profile for herself that was equal parts come-hither Mae West, hard-partying Janis Joplin, and Sigourney Weaver’s take-no-prisoners Ripley protagonist from those Alien movies, with a little Bell Starr firepower sparking just beneath the surface. Her first eponymous 2012 EP for RCA, for instance, featured a risqué concert-culled ode to cunnilingus called “My Neck, My Back” that she announces with the caveat, “If you don’t want to hear a filthy song, get the fuck out please.” She found out early that trashy double-entendre wordplay really suits her scratchy, Bessie Smith-evocative singing voice, and her rollicking 2015 debut Love Stuff wasted no time in doubling down on that sketchy image, much to fans’ delight.
