What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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MARCH 13-19, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 37 MUSIC GEORGE VARGA The San Diego Union-Tribune (TNS) U nflinching candor is unusual in most interviews, let alone in response to a deliberately innocuous, breaking-the-ice opening question. But hard-rocking songwriter and band leader Elle King — whose take-it-to-the limit lyrics often reflect her take-no-prisoners approach to life — is an unusually candid exception. The four-time Grammy Award nominee reinforced her reputation for honesty at the start of her late-January phone interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune. Asked why she had recently moved from New Mexico to Rhode Island, she unhesitatingly replied: "Well, I got knocked up!" Later in the interview, King, 32, publicly disclosed for the first time that she had contracted covid-19 during the Christmas holidays and that it had spread to at least one member of her family: her newborn son. She gave birth to her first child — Lucky Levi Tooker — on Sept. 1. Her fiance, Dan Tooker, who is Lucky's father, is a Boston area tattoo artist. The couple announced their engagement in late 2019. "It was still a new relationship [with Dan] and we were doing the cross- country thing," King said, elaborating on her move to Rhode Island. "At the end of the day I travel for my work, and I support my partner. I am very proud of his business and of supporting his tattoo shop. We live near a major airport, so it's easy for me to fly out for concert dates." King's 29-city "Drunk and I Don't Wanna Go Home Tour" — postponed because of the covid-19 pandemic — belatedly kicked off in February at San Diego's House of Blues. The tour takes its name from her chart-topping country hit with Miranda Lambert. Her banjo-playing notwithstanding, King is not a country-music artist, even though she has collaborated on chart- topping country radio hits with Dierks Bentley (2016's "Different for Girls") and Miranda Lambert (2021's "Drunk and I Don't Wanna Go Home"). In addition to her country successes, King has scored No. 1 singles in other formats, including rock (2015's "Ex's and Oh's") and adult alternative (2019's "Shame"). Also equally at home with pop, blues and soul, she is — as Lambert has noted — "one of those artists that can do all of it." Not surprisingly, King is quick to confirm she doesn't make distinctions between different genres. "Music is music to me," she said. "I don't listen to just one type. I have different music for different moods, and I play different instruments. Nobody has ever tried to fit me in a box, and I don't think they could if they tried. "Like, the Strokes' [2001 debut] album, 'Is This It,' is a cohesive record from the first song to the last. I love that about it, and I still listen to that record on road trips, but that's not the kind of artist I am. People are like: 'How will you put all these different things on one record?' Well, there is a thread through it — and it's me. "I don't ever want to just do one thing. No one ever told me I have to, and I don't think I'll start now. As I grow and have these opportunities to branch out and express myself in different ways, it's beautiful. I don't look at it as: 'I am playing different genres.'" King was born Tanner Elle Schneider in 1989. Her father is comedian and "Saturday Night Live" TV alumnus Rob Schneider. Her mother is former model and actress London King. Elle credits her stepfather, Justin Tesa, as the person who mentored her as a musician when she was young. He continues to do so. After busking on street corners as a teenager, King was signed in New York by RCA Records and released her debut single, "Good to Be a Man," in 2012. Her debut album, "Love Stuff," came out in 2015, followed by "Shake the Spirit" in 2018. She plans to debut some songs from her next album during her tour. As befits someone so frank, King has been forthcoming about her past substance abuse problems, depression, and what she described in a social media post as a post-traumatic stress disorder. "I am writing songs because it's my outlet," King said. "I'm not always amazing at communicating, or really knowing or understanding how I truly feel about something. So I write [songs] and it helps me know myself and understand things in a different way. "I had a lot of angst as a kid. And as tough an exterior as I put on, I'm an extremely sensitive and emotional person. So I had to find a way to dig into that. It's taken me all this time, and I'm still learning how to write music." A Tough Exterior Elle King speaks, sings with unflinching candor Dan Tooker and Elle King attend the 55th annual Country Music Association awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., in this 2021 photo. King is out on tour now making up for lost time. (Getty Images/TNS/Jason Kempin)