Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Elle King may be just 23 years old, but she’s already got quite a story to tell. Born in rural Ohio, she moved to New York City at age 10 — “there was definitely a big difference going from climbing trees barefoot to taking the subway by myself,” she says. After getting kicked out of school, she headed to California, then returned to New York, and then Philadelphia for art college. Since then, King’s home base went from Copenhagen back to LA before finally settling down in New York, where she has recorded one of the most exciting and unique debut projects of recent years.
Already hailed by such outlets as Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Glamour, Perez Hilton, and Vanity Fair — and featuring “Playing for Keeps,” which was chosen as the theme song for VH1’s “Mob Wives Chicago” series — the four-song “THE ELLE KING EP” reveals all of this experience with a sound and style that is distinct and mature beyond King’s young age. In the midst of her far-flung and hell-raising travels, King started playing the guitar at age 13 (“a friend of my stepdad’s taught me, and I learned stuff by, like, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Otis Redding”) and then later picked up a banjo, inspired by the Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs records her family listened to.