Elle King stops by the house to sit down with Bobby and they really get to know each other during this talk. Elle’s has found success in several different genres. She had her first major success with her song “Ex’s and Oh’s” and then had a big country hit with Dierks Bentley on “Different for Girls”. She reveals how she was nervous to text Dierks to be on her new song “Worth a Shot”. She talks about how she and Miranda Lambert met and she actually wrote “Drunk” (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home) years ago but knew there was something special about it. Elle also talks about growing up in rural Ohio and her relationship with her famous dad Rob Schneider,
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M L. King Is in episode three forty nine. Really
first time we got to hang out with her. We met,
we talked about it, we've briefly met. But it's really
good and at an unfortunate circumstance leading into it, which
you'll hear, but all good and she was totally down
even though that the situation was not pleasant for anybody.
(00:22):
But L is here and just to look back at
L real quick worth a shot is her new song
with her and Dark spent Ley. Here you Go. So
they're back together and I stay back together. They did
different for girls together back into which I can't believe
(00:44):
it's been that long, can you? I mean, it's I
guess pandemic brain? Six years? Is that right? Is that? Yeah?
It's like when we started this podcast. That's been six years,
six years since that song. That can't be right? Yeah,
that song is six years old. Now. Wow, she had
a big old smash. It's her song with Miranda Here
is Drunk and I Don't Want to Go Home and
(01:10):
a couple other number ones here and then I'll let
you look that up, Mike. But x Is and Os
was the number one alternative song and Shame was the
number one alternative song. Yea, so yeah, I looked at
(01:30):
up Mike and I'll talk that's that bizarre, bizarre bizarre.
Uh yeah, so you're gonna like it. We talked about
it all and I just leave it there. We do
talk about it all. I just enjoyed spending some time
with her. She's very honest, and you know, sometimes I
gotta I gotta dig around a little bit to get
people to open up because they don't quite know what
they're getting into and they're sitting fourteen inches from me
(01:53):
and it's just one on one and they're like, what's
happening here? But L was good from the from the
get and so I loved it. Check her out at
L King Eat l l K, I n G check
out a new song and enjoy this hour. All right,
we are here with L King, which the I guess
the worst part about doing a show from your house
is that if things break, you have to fix it yourself.
(02:13):
When I'm at the radio show, so the breaks that
just go. Engineer clapped my hands on the leave and
then I come back and it's fixed. Like ten minutes
before you got here, the air went out, so we
frantically try to call you to go what do you
want to do? And you much more of a chance
than I am. Ready to piece out. I just go sitting.
You said let's do it, and I was like, oh,
she's tougher than I am. I didn't want to she
made me sound okay, well good, Well neither one of
(02:34):
us then no, I actually can't tell. So okay, well
we'll give it. We'll give it about ten minutes or so. Okay.
So it's really good to see you. I think we've
met briefly a couple of times, like on the side
of things. Yeah, right, because I don't know that we've
spent any real time together, but I know it's been
like hey, yeah, I think I like said hi to
you one time at the station, and maybe it's something
(02:57):
like that sounds right, but I just know I haven't
really had that l king like imprint on me. And
people that work with you love you, you know, with
do you mean dorks and I've and friends for a
long long time, and he just speaks just so lovely
of you. And I guess that was my introduction to
you over in this space, because I remember x As
and Os. I think that just when I think about
(03:18):
my introduction to you, this is excess and OS right here.
This is the first song. So would that have been
like You're maybe not first, but like your biggest, most
widely heard song. It's still okay. So that comes out,
it happens. And then that to me was you here?
(03:39):
I was like, Oh she did XS and OS. Now
she's doing this song with Dirks, So how did that
all come together? Just how did you get? Like how
did the alien spacecraft arrive? Because everybody comes on a
different spacecraft? How did you how did Jews arrive? And
and and when? And why? Um? Well, I was riding
next as a nose thing. I mean maybe I still am.
(04:00):
I don't know, but um, I wasn't super It's fair.
The world's are very very separate. Um and I was
so in the alternative kind of rock pop thing because
X's Nose came out as alternative and it crossed over
to pop and became a big song. And then I
(04:21):
got a call and I was asked if I would
want to sing on a country song. And I didn't.
I didn't know who Dirk's Batley was. I just wasn't
in there. You just got a call. Yeah, so someone
basically heard your texture for lack of a better word
there and said that would sound good Onstead Dirks and
(04:42):
Mary his manager who's now my manager. Um, and I
didn't know who he was, so I called my brother. Um,
my family is from southern Ohio, and I said his
name is Noah, but everyone's Bob. And I said, hey, Bob,
this guy named Dirk's Bentley wants wants me Dirks Bentley, Ellie,
you have to do that. You have to do that.
So I was like, well, okay, cool man. Hopefully my
(05:03):
brother will think I'm cool. So I did it. Um,
and they were so accommodating and they said, yeah, yeah,
well we'll meet you. I was in Austin playing show
and um, I didn't know. He flew his own plane
in and he's so not like you, just he's so
lovely and wonderful and um made me feel very like welcome.
(05:26):
And UM, I hadn't done like a whole lot of
collaborations at that point, and it was just really really fun.
You let me play banjo on it and we just
kind of laughed at a lot and the whole thing
was maybe a couple of hours. And so he flew
to Austin and met in a studio there. Yeah, so
you were playing a show. It was like stubs or
somewhere or probably I can't. I couldn't tell you like
(05:46):
before you play that the day before. Yeah, we're going
to go into the studio. Yeah, I have some I
have some buddies that you know. I have run a
beautiful studio Arleans Studios and um. And so they just
got us in there for a couple of hours, and
I mean, I had no idea what that would lead to.
And I mean it changed my life completely exponentially. When
(06:09):
they send you a track or when dark's because I
just went through this, I do. It's nothing like you.
But I have a comedy group and we play some
decently size shows. And I just wrote a song and
I just send it to one of my buddies. And
I'm always weird about not weird. But there's a fine
line in asking a friend to do something professional. It's
a lot, it's a big ask, and if they're your
(06:32):
real friend, it's especially if they're really famous. Uh. And
in my case, when I asked my friends to do
anything with me, they're way more famous than me. And uh,
it's a weird it's a weird thing. It feels, yes,
it feels very weird, and not that it's the same,
but I just reached out to my friends and I
do it in voice memo, so just you couldn't save it.
And I was like, I'll tell you. It was Lanny Wilson,
(06:54):
and I said, hey, Lanny, we did the song and
we we opened up for Garth and we never open
for anybody, but we wrote the song and it went
billion plays on it. Do you want to sing the
verst of this? You can write it. It's a comedy song.
And then I'm like, I end it. I sent it
and I'm like, god, dang it, and then you sweat.
And then I'm like, because I know she doesn't. Then
you're like, I know they don't want to do it,
like I know they do. But but I sent her
(07:16):
the track and it was empty, right, So I sent
her my verse and there's an empty verse on it,
just her. So my question is I get back around
to that, is what did you hear from dirt? Was
it the fully produced track you remember with someone else's
voice in it? I mean, I believe they sent it
to me and Dirk's was singing the full song, and
they said we want you to sing verse two. Okay,
(07:38):
so it was a full Dirk's version. Just imagine yourself
singing verse two. Yeah, when you sing a song, it
was it was already written. Right, Do you take any
liberties because you do sing, speak, communicate in your own style?
Do you take any liberties with when you're singing it
back differently? Well, I was still really green then, and
I mean I'm still very green and all of it.
(08:00):
But it took me years to be able to say,
um oh, I have an idea, and my idea is
worthy of being said, and you know it. I wish
I mean, I recently wrote with this girl named um
L Langley and she's twenty four years old, and she's
she's got the confidence that like I wish I had now,
(08:21):
And I couldn't imagine being so confident in writing rooms
and um to like say ideas and and I like,
I wasted a lot of time being like oh yeah, okay, yeah, sure,
you know that's what we should do, and then not
like being my full self um so, but then I
also was like let me just you know, mind my
bees and cute. I was singing whatever you want me
(08:43):
to do? I only play. I played banjo very poorly,
but I could make it work and I could do this,
and um, I just did what they asked. And uh
then I I mean, I was like shown the country world,
which is a completely different experience than I had ever
seen ever. So I want to play a clip of that.
This is different for girls from here, you go different.
(09:13):
I'm assuming there was no hey, we feel like this
is gonna be a single? Or did they? Um? I
don't remember asking any A lot to remember, and I know,
and it's it's pretty pandemic. I don't remember much either.
I also had a I was in a very different
excuse me, I was in a very different situation, Um,
you know, with people that I worked with. So I
(09:36):
I don't think that I had any control or wasn't
even part of any conversation. I guess I asked that
because it's a whole different ball game if you're if
you know you're about to be on a single with Dirks,
because especially if it's a collaboration, especially if it's a
song that has some substance to it, right like, and
it was all of this. It was a collaboration, it
was a substance song, it was a male female so
(09:59):
You're about to not only be on the radio and
in Nashville, but you're gonna be on every show. You know.
They're gonna be throwing you on a work Yeah. Yeah,
And I think maybe they would have told you that
had they known all that was coming. But it sounds
like you just were baptized by Okay, here's the Nashville Fire,
here's the single You're You're Running, Yeah, which I mean
I like, right. And you talk about banjo, that's such
(10:20):
a natural instrument for a country um. And I say
that as someone who grew up in a rural town
in Arkansas, but also I grew up in the nineties,
so I listened to everything. I worked on hip hop stations,
I worked on pop stations, sports stations. Um like, I
grew up and listen to country me in my whole life.
But that isn't all I am, right, And so you
come from musically a stylistically different world, it seems for
(10:44):
a second, but you also play an instrument that is
very traditional in the country music world, which is the banjo.
So how did you start playing the banjo? If that's
not really You're not growing up in Kentucky around bluegrass.
I actually I'm from southern Ohio. It was just near Kentucky.
Where you go. Yeah, And um, I didn't grow up
playing the banjo. Um. We lived in Columbus. My mom
(11:06):
was a fit model, and so my mom would take
a lot of trips to Hong Kong. And where my
family is from where I call home is um Jackson, Ohio.
Welst in a small small town, and so I spent
a lot of my childhood there, um with my mom.
And Um, I didn't play the banjo there Grandma, grandpa
(11:28):
yeah got him. Yeah, my my mother's parents. So you
you have a Okay, this is this is how I
think a lot of people's mind are twisted about you.
Right now, we just know L King pop alternative. Later
it's L King, daughter of l a comedian, famous guy.
We only know l A. L King. The fact that
you grew up in rural Ohio actually says so much
(11:51):
more about who you actually are these acting there twice
then I think even I had an idea of I
moved to New York City with my mom, met my stepdad, Um,
who I mean basically showed me everything about music, mainly
rock and roll and soul, which is like kind of
everything that fuels me. UM. So he moved to New
York when I was eleven, and then I would go
(12:12):
back and forth and I would see my dad in
l A or San Francisco when when I could. UM.
I didn't start playing the banjo until I moved out
and I UM I saw a guy playing the banjo,
and when I was living in Philadelphia in the park,
and I was like, man, let me try that. I
can kind of play guitar. And I was like, oh,
this is completely different. That guy let me borrow that
(12:33):
banjo that like him and his dad made for a
couple of years. And a couple of years later he
was like, hey, can I have my banjo back? So
I just taught myself how to play. But what people
don't know is that I got um. I got signed
to a publishing company because of a country song. UM
a song I wrote on the banjo called good to
Be a Man, and UM I went and I played
(12:54):
it for I think it's now Sony, but it was
e m I and I went and I just played
my banjo song could be a Man, and he signed
me on the spot and sent that song to Peter Edge,
who's um big guy R. C A and um they
signed me. I got signed because of a country song.
When you were let's say your formative years, Hey, let's
(13:15):
put you at a Yeah, Okay, let's go back to
what were you listening to? Because that was around the
time for me when it was Chili Peppers, Tim mcgrawl.
It was obviously Nirvana had come and they had just
gone mean and Kirk Obaan had died, but their explosion
was just starting. So those formative years for me were
that what were those for you? Around fifteen sixteen? You know,
(13:38):
I grew up um in the house with probably I
don't know, countless records. My stepdad is like, um, he's
kind of a dick about music, like when he they
called good Times as a joke because when he walks
into a party, he like, I take over the music.
So um, he he just always let me fumble through
(13:59):
his records, so everything from UM, A lot of he
played me a lot of soul, but a lot of
like like garage, rock and roll. And then I was,
you know, a teenager living in Brooklyn, so I listened
to a lot of hip hop and like I love
tripical Quest and I love Wu Tang and I love
everything and I like to play everything. I love reggae
(14:21):
so much. My son loves reggae. We listened to reggae
all day long. Um, but I think what moved me
the most is not a genre. It's so like a feeling.
So what really like stuck out to me was emotional singers.
So like I remember listening to Otis Reading when I was,
(14:42):
you know, like fourteen years old, and be like, there's
like I feel like there's pain in there. I what
is that that I feel and connect with? And then
I remember hearing Um, I don't know how, I must
have been fifteen, and um my stepdad justin he gave
me the cat a Cat power record called the Greatest.
It was like the saddest record I've ever heard. And
(15:04):
on the record there's a song called Hate and she's
singing like I hate myself and I want to die.
And I wasn't like turned off by I was like, Wow,
this woman feels something and she puts it into music.
And me as a listener, who's you know, going through
emotions in life? And I'm such a deep, deep feeler,
(15:25):
I like wanted to hug her. And I felt like
hearing all this different type of music, especially something so
raw and vulnerable and real as that gave me the
okay to channel a lot of emotions that I have
into music. Whether it's like I want to party all
the time, or like my heart's been broken, or I'm
sad and blue, or like I'm happy. I don't know,
(15:47):
just any emotion, you know, I now have this cathartic
way to get it out, because otherwise I think I
would explode. So I listened to everything, and um, I
know it's it's funny because now you know people like,
so like, how how do you end up a country?
And I kind of did trip and fall into like
a very cush like landing and country and and I
(16:11):
mean Dirk's brought me into that and but like the
world that I saw of country was so just incredible
and there's a reason why people want to come to country,
and um, but what I saw from it was people
are really happy and people are kind to each other.
And I remember my first I think it was the
(16:32):
c m A experience and I wore like I got
on the Worst dress List or like fringe tassel pants.
They said I look like a Matador person. I was like,
all right, I'm on the list, and I was backstage
and all everyone's doors were open, and someone offered me
a drink and they're like, that person is really famous,
and um. I saw Taylor Swift and she said she
(16:55):
liked a song on my record, and I was like, okay, well,
all right, I can just grow into a cave and
never come again, because this is the greatest experience of
my life. Um. And it was just really different because
you know, I grew up seeing a lot of unhappiness
and um, and in the pop world, I felt like
I had to like claw so hard and work and
(17:17):
fight for this place to be this person that I
had thought I had to be. And it wasn't until
I kind of kept trying to stick around in this
country vibe, which was so fun, and I felt like
I just felt accepted, and um, that's not something that
like a lot of performers feel in a lot of
(17:39):
different ways. So a couple of questions that I don't
want to let slip by because she had said so
much there back to when you're listening to music and
you mentioned Kapower, You mentioned these records that you had
heard that made you realize music was more than just
a melody right or just lyrics. It was actually words
that could make you feel something. Can you remember the
(18:02):
first song or songs that you actually felt were written
not by you before you? And I can give you
an example to let you think that kind of what
I do. I'll ask a question. If you're hearing me,
just start giving my story. It's just because I want
a good answer from you, and I I don't want to
with you to feel rushed. For me, I was probably
early twenties and uh, John Mayor Stopped this Train. That
(18:23):
record came out, and when I heard the song, and
you know, it's like, here's John may I got struggling
with He's in that age of like mid twenties, and
he's like, well, um, the only thing I'm good at is,
you know, staying young. And he'd always been the youngest,
and I was the same way where I was like
this really young in the world of broadcasting, was always
by far the youngest, fifteen years younger than and I
(18:45):
and now I started to catch up and I started
to be and I was like, man, the only thing
I've ever been good at is being young. And so
he but he wrote this song Stopped this Train about
time and parents getting older, and I was like, oh
my god, I feel that, Like I actually feel what
he's saying. And it's the first time in my life
that has ever happened. It's not a song that I
was like made me feel sad or happy. It was
like always speaking for me. When I ask you that question,
can you remember a song that you heard that spoke
(19:05):
for you. There's always been music that, like, I'm the
kind of person that if I like, I love a
song and I connect with something, like I have to
like live in it and like I'm a one song
on repeat until I can't hear it anymore. Um. So
there's been like a lot of those all throughout my life.
I mean, one huge one. Uh gosh, this is gonna
(19:27):
be so bad. I think maybe Barbara Lynn, You're you're
gonna you're gonna need me. Um And it actually wasn't
un till I was older, but like, I listened to
that song so much when I was going through my
divorce because it was just like people are gonna hurt
you and then they'll miss you and they'll they'll realize
that you are good and it's important to hear stuff
(19:49):
like that. I mean, music is such an amazing thing
for the world because at the end of the day,
it's the soundtrack to life and and it's it's our connection,
and that's you know. Even pop songs that like you
might not think are deeply rooted in emotion, they might
be UM another one. I mean, I just can't remember
like all of the ones from my teenage years because
there's probably too many. Right. It's funny you mentioned pop
(20:10):
songs that you may not think are emotional just because
of maybe a tempo. Yeah, a tempo is one example, right.
And one of those songs that I think of when
you say that is and again it's a pop song
and sometimes on eleven o'clock and you should buy the
record of all the greatest hits the Proclaimers and I
would walk five. That is such a love song, like
when I wake up, I Know I'm gonna be I'm
(20:33):
gonna be a man wakes up next to you and
it's like but instead it's presented as such a up
You're like, well, this is kind of goofy. But if
you just kind of extrapolate that, you're like, go, dang,
that is it. That is quite the powerful song. Yeah,
there's um the LSD collaboration. There is a song called
(20:54):
Thunderclouds that was like blew my mind and when I
had a really bad knee injury. And yeah, I'm not
a skier. I'm like a potato on toothday. I'll try anything. Twice,
I've skied twice. I've got three scars on my knee
from it. Um, I'm not like a physical guy. It's
(21:16):
not for me. Um. I like to even sit at concerts.
I don't know I'm great chair dancer. UM. But I
heard that song and I was I was like very immobile.
I'm always hurt, by the way, because I'm just very clumsy,
and I don't pay enough attention, Like I have a
sprain an ankle right now, but I make a chic
(21:37):
And UM, I remember like feeling really crappy in my
body because my weight fluctuates all the time. And UM,
I never wanted to feel like I can't run or
I'm limited by my body. And I heard that song
and I would like I would listen to on repeat
(21:57):
and I would start to exercise. And I have still
be like off of my divorce and a lot of
most of these songs that I feel like we're written
for me or from my divorce. But um, I would
like listen to that pop song and cry while I
worked out. I don't work out anymore, but when I did,
I would listen to that song. I want to play
and take a little side step here. This is l
(22:18):
with dirks. This is worth a shot. Anyone here shot shot?
So does dark So you want I mean, do you
have a free coupon? That's like I would think You're like,
(22:40):
all right, I did that song. It's quite the hit,
like whenever I'm ready, I'm going to cash this in.
No oh come on, no no no, no, no, no, no,
no no. This was um, it was like a it
happened very quickly. Um My, My whole the whole process
of this record was Um, it's just kind of organical,
(23:02):
Like it really did happen super organically. And I'm learning.
I'm still every day I'm continuing to learn, like how
different it is to be in country music. And two, um,
there's there are no fans like country music fans, and
they're like their lifelong fans and you have to kind
(23:22):
of prove it to them and once you do, then
they love you. And um, and so when the whole
thing was you know, Drunk came out and UM, I
got signed to a signed with a second label, Sunny Nashville,
and UM they're like, well, okay, how are you gonna
we'll we'll play it on the radio, Like how are
you going to follow it up? Like why should why
(23:43):
should we play drunk? And UM said, okay, well let's
make any b And then the EP came together and
it was like really really, I mean it's really good.
So they said make a whole record and I was like,
I mean, twist my arm. So it kind of came
up out where Worth a Shot was a song that
was going to make it on Dirk's record, and I'm
(24:04):
I'm making the record with Ross Copperman, and UM, he
just said, well what about this? And we were just
laughing like well what if Dirk's sang on it? And
I also feel like I couldn't make a country record
and not kind of pay my respects of I mean,
not only did he bring me into this, but change
(24:25):
my life in so many ways. And he's a wonderful
friend and we genuinely enjoy being around each other. He's
very funny, and UM, when you do things like this
with a friend, some of these things can feel like work,
and when you do stuff with someone like Dirk's, it's
you know, your stomach herds from laughing and and it's
(24:47):
I don't know, it's just but I had to text
him and ask him. But did you just go hill
and be like, hey, did you have both of them?
I mean that's what I went on. I've been like, hey,
Drks forever. Yeah. She was like, no, you need to
text him. So she takes gonna ask him classic Okay,
that's that is very much on brand for her because
she would still make you do it yes, And what's
the message that you Because even though you know he
(25:08):
os yeah, you don't have to say yes to that.
But even though he does, you have a coop one,
you still have to ask and it's awkward. It is awkward.
What do you say? Do you? Do you text it?
Do you voice memoir like I do? So it won't
stay around. People can keep those, yeah, but they don't.
They forget. They're always keep everyone like two minutes later
like oh I should keep that, and then it's gone.
I pressed keep before. Never So do you just text
(25:29):
andally like, hey have a song you want to be
on it? Um? It's different when you, I mean you
have to. Like when I texted Miranda for a drunk
it was a different text with Dirks, it was still
like I fault mortified because for me, I value like
our our friendship and I have some severe paranoia of
(25:49):
growing up with you know, a famous dad um that
I never want to be a take. I never want
to be a taker. I never want to seem like
I don't like users. I don't want I don't need
any I don't want anything from you. If you're you know,
if I become friends with you, it's like that's enough.
(26:10):
But if you did want to do this, you know, um,
it's always like, hey, I love you. I heard that
you didn't want to like put this song in your
record like Ross gave it to me. Maybe if he'd
be interested, like what you want to sing on it
with me? No pressure, absolutely no, I promise you can
say no. Heck, i'd say no, that's I don't want
to do it. There's no way I'd want to do
(26:31):
this to me. But if you do, yeah, and so
how long until he goes yes? Um? He sent me
a very like a video of him going WHOA, Yeah,
I want to do it. Yeah, I'd love to but
that's Turks, you know. And I guess he had some
familiarity with the song. He knew it, yeah, and we
changed the key so he had and he even did
a higher harmony. I mean, he's just his voice is
(26:52):
very incredible, and I think that we sound good together.
And Dirk's wouldn't do it if he didn't want to.
He's enough going on. I do want to talk about Drunken.
I don't want to go home if you play that one, Mike.
(27:14):
I mean massive, just massive over in this world, and
holy crap, congratulations because it's one of those rare ones
that's so big that it's a unicorn that you see
maybe twice a year, and it's one of those. But
I guess I wonder what your relationship was with Miranda
before this, if you had one, And because that's one
that I would think would be a little more difficult
(27:34):
if you don't have that relationship, or easier because you
don't have the relationship, because you can just avoid the
rest of your life. That's I'll be like, oh, you
said no, I'll never see you again, right, Yeah? Yeah.
I wrote drunk with Martin Johnson when I was twenty four.
That really so years ago wild Yeah, we wrote uh,
I had two days to two session days with him.
We wrote America Sweetheart, which is a song off my
(27:56):
first record that I mean should have I think she
should have been a country song, which, by the way,
that one I know that one too really well. Was
that after or before record? Okay, so because I guess
maybe which was first as a single where America Sweeter
was never single. I thought America Sweeter it was gonna
be single. I thought Drunk was going to make the record. Um,
(28:18):
I just had different I didn't I didn't know that
I had to say um, and it just kind of
takes life to teach you um. And but I'm glad
that it didn't because I had a manager that didn't
want me to be pop and so he really had
no idea kind of I probably shouldn't be thought of this,
(28:39):
but he really tried to bury that. And I was like, man,
that's gotta kick ass song and and so. But I
still hadn't had my confidence in writing rooms yet. So
Drunk that I always thought was like, dang, that's a
massive chorus. But I hated the verses and um, it
took me. I mean, I don't want to age my self.
(29:00):
But I was probably twenty four and then how many
years ago? I know, I'm all over the place right now.
So we were sitting on that song. And then the
last like three or four years, I signed a Red
Light and I've been working with Mary and I was like, Mary,
I've got this song that's like like we have we
got to sell it to a DJ or something. And
Martin and I hadn't spoken in years, and out of
(29:20):
the blue, um, he texted me and he was like, Hey,
would you want to sing on a song on my record?
And I was like, yo, you got it. Funny you
texted me because I think that we should rewrite the
verses for Drunk Now. This is I met Miranda through Dirks.
Dirks brought Miranda to one of my shows, I think
Marathon Works or Marathon Music Works. Yeah, and um, and
(29:42):
I met her and like, I like, I was embarrassed
because I was learning about in years and I felt
like I did a bad job. And um, here's like
the super megastar and I may not know much about
country music, but I know who she is, and um,
she was really cool and really nice and um, and
then I see her kind of like at award shows
because Dirks and I got nominate for Grammy and I
(30:03):
was kind of like, hey, what's up. And then I
was doing nothing in country For two years. I was
opening for like rock rock bands. I was opening I
did like a very long tour with Heart and Joan
Jett and Brandy Carlisle was on it. And then I
Miranda asked me to be direct support for Roadside Bars
and Pink Guitars and um. So we would kind of
(30:25):
hang every night, and then she had, you know, we
did the food round and film left thing and so
every night at the end of the night, we'd all
get up on stage and then she's got Wanda this
like trailer that's a bar and loud music and just
to hang and it's like her tours like the dream,
you know, makes everyone feel welcome, and so we kind
(30:46):
of just became cool. And then you country tours are
so smart because you do like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and
then you wake up on the bus Nashville and Sunday
and you can have a few days with your family.
So I would come back and I was writing with
Martin and we rewrote Drunk in fifteen minutes, and um,
me and Mary were just talking and like, what if
(31:07):
it's a duet? What if we asked Miranda? And I
was like, well, how do we ask Miranda? Girl? You
gotta text her. You need the sender of the song.
You need to just do it. I was like shaking, hey,
just like I love you so much, like I'm already
I missed you from the tour and thank you so
much for everything I have this song. And I said
to her, it's true. I said, you're the only person
(31:28):
I'm asking if if you say no, it's not going
to be a duet. Like I'm so grateful for the tour,
it was so much fun, Like if you would at
all be interested in doing this, like let me know,
and if you don't like it, lie to me. So um,
she didn't tasket me back for a whole day, and
the next day she text me back and she said
that it was really catchy and she heard her husband
singing in the shower and so she said yes. And
(31:50):
neither of us. I knew it was a big chorus,
but we were going to go to pop an alternative
with it. I didn't, neither of us. We still laugh
because we're like we did not think that it was
going to do what it did, um, which is a
beautiful thing. And uh, that song alone taught me so
much about allowing things to have life of their life
(32:11):
of its own, and it's really helped me to like
not put pressure on things and kind of give room
for I don't know, sometimes things to do it themselves.
My wife is she just listened to a lot of
Tipperary countries. She grew up in Oklahoman, listened to a
lot of two thousand's country. Now she's very much into
emo pop type thing. And but she came in the
(32:34):
other day and she was like, hey, you know my
new jam is. I was like, what's that. She goes, well,
it popped up on like my emo pop playlist. I
was like what. She was like drunk and I don't
want to go home. And I was like, that's just
not getting to you. She was, well, I don't listen
what you do, I said, it only it only comes
to me through this way. She was like, that's a
good song, huh. And I was like, yeah, it's a
really good song if you're asking me eight months ago
when I was listening to it, I said, but it's
(32:54):
great that it's still living right, like it's It's it's
the life of it is still new to people because
it is still such a good song. It is growing
now in other places that's not just country, which is
kind of the which is kind of where it started
in a place that didn't really have a home in
a good way, Like it was just art that you
(33:15):
had written and you didn't really have a genre name
or it was it was all for my first record.
I wouldn't bring guitar to these sessions. I brought my banjo.
I was just like a banjo chick. You were the
banjo a chick that is that is wild? You know
my perception. I'll just be honest with my perception. He
is completely different than what I'm experiencing now because this
is what I've felt when you came to town you
(33:36):
did the song with Dirks that you were massive L
a star. You you and I think this is how
a lot of people feel because they don't know you.
So I'm glad that we're actually able to sit down
for and have the extended conversations Massive L a music
star who have heard on pop radio or satellite or
you know, do you know who is probably thinking she
(33:57):
doing country music? Favor is really good at this as
all these massive shows, and you know she'll be here
for a couple of weeks and get her hit and
bail out like that because you came from and it's
not Now you learn it's not even that world. Like
you had your own version of the musical world you
were living in. I was completely wrong about where you
(34:18):
were coming from from. Most people are about me, to
be fair, and I think what is great is now
we get to learn why our understanding was off. First
of all, that you spent a lot of your life
one to eleven and then back and forth in you know,
southern Ohio. I have friends that are from there. That's
(34:39):
as rural as it gets. Like your influenced by everything
country music included in that um. And then again, I
just thought you were a big l a music star
coming to grace this with the presence and then chunk deuces.
But two and I mean this in the best way possible,
but too here and understand that you were in your
own version of finding yourself at the same time time
(35:01):
still am me too write that is a different picture
that I'm read that I'm repainting of you. And I'm
glad I got to hang out and learn that version
because I just thought, well, all right, she's gonna come
do us favor. Hop down here, do a couple of hits,
and get out of town and go back to our
fancy schmancy Los Angeles. No, I live on a farm
(35:21):
in Rhode Island, by the way, So you live on
a farm too. I have no idea who she is.
Like every it's all misconception. King is misconception. At this point,
she had no idea. Um, okay, well that is good
to know. Not that it matters, but I think that
I I think even with your dad being famous, I
(35:43):
think we thought, oh Richard Hollywood kids, A lot of
people think that, yeah, and I don't. Yeah, And I
would understand why because and I saw that. I saw that.
But my childhood had two like, like very big extremes.
I had a dad that was I mean in the
early two thousand's forget even SNL. I mean, yeah, I've
(36:04):
got some memories of being backstages Saturday Night Live. You know, Um,
I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad
and your biological father, yeah, my dad Rob, Yeah, I
didn't spend a lot of time with him and I
would see him, you know, he would get me for
like a little bit of time. But I spent a
lot of time with his mother, my Filipino grandmother recently
passed on, and um so I saw very different lifestyles.
(36:30):
Um Uh. My dad was like a really big movie
star in the early two thousand's and it was interesting
to see. Um. But then my mom's side of the family,
which is why I go by King because that they
raised me. And um, I don't know, I if you,
if you go through southern Ohio, you'll I don't know,
(36:53):
I don't really know how to explain it, but like
that's what home is to me, and um, I appreciate it,
and I love to home my family. My family still
lives there. Um So, I don't know, it's it's it
was an interesting way to grow up to see both extremes.
Um I'm glad that I had it because I saw
(37:14):
what like I saw what can happen with fame, and
I saw what can happen with money. And I I'm
always like a watcher. I like I take everything in
almost to like a paranoid point. Um But I'm glad
that I saw a lot of that. You know, my
quick version of why I'm asking this question is, I don't.
(37:35):
I didn't have a dad. My dad left when us five,
until I was thirty three, until I chased him down myself,
I didn't. I had no relationship and so so we
were estranged for a long time. It doesn't sound like
were you guys are stranged at all through your childhood. No,
so he was still your were able to be a
fan of his work because he didn't resent him. It
was just you would see him at times because I
resent in mind terribly, Um, do I have daddy? Is
(38:00):
he was like not asking as a kid? Did you?
Were you angry? Happy that he was your dad? Like,
what's what's the year old I'll think about her dad
being famous? Yeah, I mean I I still have a
lot of um. I mean I've done a lot of
therapy in my life, UM, which has really helped me,
like unload brick by brick of the crap that we
(38:22):
carryer old lives. Um. But yeah, like I resented him
a lot. I love me and my dad have a
like a good relationship now and I love him a
lot and I appreciate him and um him having young
children really kind of I don't know it helped our
relationship and um, but yeah, I was a very I
(38:44):
was a really really angry teenager. Um, I was. I
was labeled a bad kid. But I think it was
just now that I'm a mother, I can understand like
you just labeled them bad kid instead of thinking like,
well maybe their needs aren't being met or like what
is going on with them, or like what do they
not have that is nurturing them? And um, for me,
a lot of it was like I felt like my
(39:05):
dad didn't like want, like he was like embarrassed of me. Um,
because I was like a chubby teenager and my mom's
this beautiful model and my dad is just like funny,
goofy comedian but cares very much about what he has
to look like on screen because that's his career. And
so it was. It was a weird thing. I was
like the chubby, goofy kid and nobody, no one expected
(39:29):
me to get any level of success at all, um,
because of the I'll do think the bad kid that
you were not even the bad kid, more like the
like the fat kid, like the goofy kid. I went
to a lot of schools. I got kicked out a
lot of schools I was. I wasn't a very good kid,
(39:51):
and uh, I don't know. I just always played music.
And I mean I had residencies in Brooklyn at like
sixteen seventeen years old, and my my mom was supportive.
She'd helped me. She care my guitar and whatever. But
like nobody thought that out of all, Like the kids
in my family, like my dad's brother had three daughters
that were like beautiful ballerinas. They thought they were going
(40:13):
to be like jamous actresses, singers and blu alone um
and I kind of, I don't know, nobody thought that
I was going to do, especially because I didn't want
to use my dad's name. I mean, when I kind
of started to get successful, we didn't. We hadn't been
talking for years. My legal name is Tanner el Schneider.
(40:36):
Oh it is okay, so you purpose okay, got it? Yeah,
I got it. I started using my my mother's last
name like as a teenager, and I just wanted to
do I just wanted to use that name, not because
I mean probably because I was angry and it's cooler,
but also like that was my family and I I
worked very very very very hard to get signed to
(40:57):
get any tour, to play any show ever. And I
never wanted anyone to say, you've got it because your
dad and he knows this now you know. And because
he wasn't he was, he didn't do anything. I worked
my ass off and I didn't want to be connected
to that do This is when my therapist as me
(41:20):
all the time, and I struggle with it. But and
this may be the dumbest question you've heard and can
answer it so easily, but are you proud of yourself
for what you've been able to do? Or do you
struggle with being proud for yourself? Uh? Sometimes I it's
important to be able to kind of like step outside
of the snow globe and see the glory of it,
especially if you know. I'm not like a cookie cutter person.
(41:44):
So I feel like I I feel like I have
to fight less hard now. But I'm very proud of myself.
I'm very proud that my son, uh gets to see
two parents that have very strong drive in their field,
and that I want my son to see that he
is more important in my career. But I want him
(42:05):
to see that I can do this and take I
take him on tour with me, like he comes first,
and I want him to be a part of this.
That's always been my dream. He's nine months, so he's
not doing a lot of communicating yet. He's just taking
a lot of in so far. I mean, yeah, he
talked in his own way, but yeah, he takes it in.
But he's cool man, Yeah, yeah he's cool. Did being
(42:28):
a mom alter a lot of the feelings you had
about being a kid? Um? Yeah it gives. I mean
I have so much empathy. I mean my parents are
very very young, and um, it softens me on them.
(42:49):
I couldn't imagine doing any of this, um in my
early twenties, and my mom had two of us. So, um,
more empathy for my mother than dad, but especially because um,
you know, my my partner is an incredible father and
it is very very present and very hands on. Um.
(43:10):
But I don't know all of it makes me the
mother that I am. And I think I'm a good mother.
I mean, I also think i'm a ship mother. But
I care very very much and I want to be
a good mom and I want to be a very
present person because I also have a career that is
different from my dad. But I am realizing that like
(43:30):
I am in this entertainment industry, but I want to
do it differently. And um, that's a huge thing that
I love about country music is that they come back
and they're with their families and and there's family tours.
I mean, I'm touring like all your with stable tms
and like I bring my son like it's it's I
feel very safe about that, and I don't know, it's
just I'm gonna do it my own way. Though. When
(43:53):
you're you're an artist, you know you're more than a musician.
You're an artist, especially hear when you talk about the
different ways you're affected by by art. Do you have
the other art skills like drawing? Can you? I don't
know what? What else can you do creatively? Because I
just feel like I'm looking at your all your tattoos,
like there's something in you that just wants to always
make an impact on something and through creation. So what
(44:15):
else is it? What? How do you else do you
fulfill yourself doing ours? It's very nerdy, but I I
love I don't I don't know what I love crafting.
I feel that SI I love Oh my gosh, um
it comes out in different ways and I don't always
(44:37):
get to have. Um. I'm never in one place for
very long. So UM. It was weird because during the pandemic,
I got really really into a very specific type of tidy,
which is shibori, which is like a Japanese technique of
folding and then natural indigo die. So it's like really
beautiful and very intricate, and um, in hopes of having
(44:58):
a baby and getting pregnant be we were trying, I
made all these like extremely intricate and beautiful like baby blankets,
and um, I love tie dyeing. I asked for a
sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm like, I'm making everybody
baby blankets like applicates. It's like very nerdy. Um. I
like super intricate things that helps me shut my mind
(45:20):
off if I'm just like busy work. I like to
knit crochet. Um. When I was younger, I went to
art school. I thought I wanted to be an editor.
I wanted to make music videos or short films. Um.
And I got really into illustrations, and I mean, I
don't know if I'm good at that anymore. Worst handwriting
in the world, worst handwriting in the world, Um, like
(45:40):
around the house car. It's different now that I'm a mom.
I'm I'm very neurotic. Um. I I think because it's
so like we're not that we're unstable, but because we
haven't bought a house here yet and we live out
of suitcases. So I have systems, like I'm routine and
(46:00):
systems in our chaos, so like folding techniques and organization
is like a massive thing. Are you control freak? One
hundred percent? But I think that that might come and
stem from a place of not feeling like I had
any control as a kid completely get it same, I'm
such a control freak, but because I was a poverty
(46:21):
kid and had no control of anything else. Yeah, but
everything I could control, control completely and that has I mean,
it still lives in me. And I have a wife,
so I don't control as much, but things away from her.
Like I'm such a control freak that now I can
also see why it's not good sometimes. Finally, Yeah, it
took a long time, but you can only hope that
(46:43):
no matter when it comes, you are able to see it.
You know, some people don't ever want to see it though, well,
because when you when you see it, you have to
acknowledge it, and you have to I didn't want to
acknowledge it right exactly. It was working for me. I
was being rewarded through my career with the things that
got me to that point to be a control freak.
(47:03):
So why would I try to fix that? Heck, I'm
scared to go to therapy. I was like, I don't.
I don't want to come to therapy. If I have fixed,
I'm gonna be a failure. Like my fear was going
to therapy would make me a failure because it was
going to wash away some of the struggle that had
got me to therapy, which is a drive right yes, yeah,
And he's like, chill, yeah, you're good, homie. It will
only deepen your drive. And he was like, I'm gonna
(47:25):
fix you anyway. You can't wait. You can hear you
get fixed like this is You're like a car, not
a carburetor. We can just plug up. But wow, I
see that you are hosting the c M A Fest show.
That is first of all, good for you. That's awesome
(47:47):
for you and Dirk's um I've hosted that show before
it well, yeah one time. This is what you will
love working for Robert Um. I worked with him there
and I do this the CBS New Year's Show and
love Him it is the same clothes for four nights
(48:09):
because love that though. Yes, yes, I agree, Yes, that
part's good. I dressed loud man and if I got
a sick outfit, I'm aware four Here's the good part One.
You only gotta pay for one outfit unless you get
a backup case you spill on it. Right your they
may be like I might have too because performance and hosting,
well I mean hosting outfit right right, it's the same thing.
(48:30):
You may have a second one in case you spill something. Yeah,
So with that, that's good. We didn't get that. Maybe
we should text Tiff. Yeah, So that's that's a good
part of it. But the second thing is about day
two in the same clothure like do I stink? Like
do I. It's a lot of waiting around a whole lot,
and you've got to be there all the time just
in case something goes down. But you're gonna love it.
It's awesome, and you're gonna spend four days and all
(48:52):
these hours doing it and then they're going to show
up for like an hour and a half and be
like that was four days. I just use the twelfth
second clip for Ford, it's awesome. Yeah, but know TV
just weird. It is weird. It's weird. Congratulations, that's really
freaking cold that you're doing that. It's it's very cool
to me because my experience with it was I mean,
it was during different for girls and it's it's funny
(49:15):
that you or like your perception of me was that
I was like some big l a m. Because when
I performed that song with him, that was the biggest
live audience that I'd ever played for. And I walked
off stage and people, I remember people were like grabbing
at me and they put me on the golf cart
and we went like whatever past the stage and I
(49:35):
had them pull over and I put my face in
a corner and I cried because it was like such
a big moment for me. So when they asked me
to host, I was like and there, and they're probably going,
I don't know if we should ask her, She's probably
gonna think this is not nothing. Ask no, No, it's
a huge deal for me. But all of these things,
(49:58):
I mean, I get, I still get very very excited.
Good for you. Yeah, I mean, I mean I I've
lost a lot of that because I just think I'm
gonna screw it up, and so I don't have excitement
I have, So you let the anxiety get oh, fear
of never being able to work again because I screw
up so bad, no one's ever gonna hire me. See,
my thing is I always mess up, so the bar
is low, so you know you're going to mess up.
(50:21):
So part of my charm beb Okay, Well my charm
is that the bar can't. I don't have a whole
lot of talent. Talent so if I if I don't
have I can't really screw up that much. So I
can't allow to screw up because I don't have a
lot of anything else. I can only sing that well
only my only funny. It's just a thing where but
I'm like, well, if this doesn't work and the ratings
(50:42):
are terrible, I'm never never getting hired again. I like
that though, that You're just like, I suck. That's what
I need to do. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know,
it's it's worked for you. All of this stuff is
from our childhood trauma, right, all of it's like, I
don't know, it's not that I don't have confidence in
myself because I actually I don't I And I don't
(51:06):
know how I come off as I don't know if
I I know what I look like and I know
that like I'm allowed as bitch, not in the not
like and and I hope not as much as I
used to be, but like energetically, I hope I'm not.
(51:28):
But like I look loud, you know. Um, But it's
taken me a long time to like be okay in
my body. And so I had to fake a lot
of like really hardcore confidence, which is like very tough exterior,
but like inside I'm like putting, you know. Um. And
so now I'm just trying to kind of like mend
the two of like I'm as softie, I don't have
(51:52):
as much to prove anymore. Um, So maybe I can
like let at like layer by layer, just like let
it kind of chill. I think that's life, right, trying
to mind it, trying to figure out the perfect mind
hopefully hopefully try to heal and like get to a
place of you know what, this is good. I'm happy.
(52:14):
I feel like I'm gonna figure it out, and then
the next day I'm gonna die. Yeah, I figure that
thinks that's what happens, right, where I was like, I'll
finally figure it out. We die. That's it. I think
that's life. It's like, oh, that's what it is. Yeah,
you're dad, and I'm going to share it with you.
Somehow somebody up there pushes the button and it down. Now, Yes, okay,
(52:36):
look we have I'm only mildly sweaty, So I'm going
to count today as a success. I appreciate you sitting
through and being in the sauna here. This is not hot?
Is this hot seat? Because I feel cool? Maybe I'm
just so comforting an interview that it's cool to you
even think about that. Maybe. Yeah, it's a lot lott toast.
(52:57):
I'm gonna lie. Um, let me say this. The new
song which I think you're coming up to the radio
show tomorrow to play, is that true? Yeah? Yes, dang,
we're gonna find out if you can really sing Oh
my gosh. Yeah. I wish they don't give us like
they don't give us anything. Uh so uh l and
Dirk's worth a shot. Now. The entire body of work
(53:17):
that you've been creating that was so good, it's went
from an EP to an LP. No, don't build this
up now, don't you. No? No, no no, I'm only come on,
you said it to me. I'm holding a mirror back
up they Okay, someone found it to be just good enough,
fair enough. If you take take it off me, then
someone else found it to be just good enough to say, hey,
you should make more songs and make a record. When
(53:38):
does that whole thing happening? I would like to know, okay,
so that there's not a date that I don't have. No, no, no, no,
because there I'm soon got it and I don't even
need a date. I just didn't want to miss something
if it's like, yeah, idiot's it's all Friday? Okay, because
so it's not. But the new songs out um dronking,
I don't want to go home massive. Are you guys
still pushing that in places? Another four? No, Well, it's
(54:00):
showing up. That's the crazy part about it still showing
up in places. Count your money, that's that's awesome. Keep
counting it's coming. Congratulations on everything, really, thank you and
the baby, and just thank you. Um. I like to
congratulate myself because I found out a lot about you
that I did not know, and that usually happens here.
But I'm usually not wrong on just general perception. Pretty good,
(54:20):
pretty good at that I've swung a miss big time one. You.
I'll be honest with you, and so I'm really glad
that that you came in and Mike, you just like, yeah,
who knew? Who knew? She's cool? You know? All right?
You guys follow L L King at E L L
E King and I guess I'll see you in the morning. Yeah. Honestly,
I want to say, like, thanks for giving me the
opportunity to share more about myself because a lot of
(54:42):
people probably have um their own perception of me and
I can only be myself, so thanks for having me
I try to be someone other than myself. Yeah, I
like it, That's okay. Yeah, I don't want to be
British sometimes that'd be cool, homelike, all right, el King,
there she is and we'll see you guys. M
M L. King Is in episode three forty nine. Really
first time we got to hang out with her. We met,
we talked about it, we've briefly met. But it's really
good and at an unfortunate circumstance leading into it, which
you'll hear, but all good and she was totally down
even though that the situation was not pleasant for anybody.
(00:22):
But L is here and just to look back at
L real quick worth a shot is her new song
with her and Dark spent Ley. Here you Go. So
they're back together and I stay back together. They did
different for girls together back into which I can't believe
(00:44):
it's been that long, can you? I mean, it's I
guess pandemic brain? Six years? Is that right? Is that? Yeah?
It's like when we started this podcast. That's been six years,
six years since that song. That can't be right? Yeah,
that song is six years old. Now. Wow, she had
a big old smash. It's her song with Miranda Here
is Drunk and I Don't Want to Go Home and
(01:10):
a couple other number ones here and then I'll let
you look that up, Mike. But x Is and Os
was the number one alternative song and Shame was the
number one alternative song. Yea, so yeah, I looked at
(01:30):
up Mike and I'll talk that's that bizarre, bizarre bizarre.
Uh yeah, so you're gonna like it. We talked about
it all and I just leave it there. We do
talk about it all. I just enjoyed spending some time
with her. She's very honest, and you know, sometimes I
gotta I gotta dig around a little bit to get
people to open up because they don't quite know what
they're getting into and they're sitting fourteen inches from me
(01:53):
and it's just one on one and they're like, what's
happening here? But L was good from the from the
get and so I loved it. Check her out at
L King Eat l l K, I n G check
out a new song and enjoy this hour. All right,
we are here with L King, which the I guess
the worst part about doing a show from your house
is that if things break, you have to fix it yourself.
(02:13):
When I'm at the radio show, so the breaks that
just go. Engineer clapped my hands on the leave and
then I come back and it's fixed. Like ten minutes
before you got here, the air went out, so we
frantically try to call you to go what do you
want to do? And you much more of a chance
than I am. Ready to piece out. I just go sitting.
You said let's do it, and I was like, oh,
she's tougher than I am. I didn't want to she
made me sound okay, well good, Well neither one of
(02:34):
us then no, I actually can't tell. So okay, well
we'll give it. We'll give it about ten minutes or so. Okay.
So it's really good to see you. I think we've
met briefly a couple of times, like on the side
of things. Yeah, right, because I don't know that we've
spent any real time together, but I know it's been
like hey, yeah, I think I like said hi to
you one time at the station, and maybe it's something
(02:57):
like that sounds right, but I just know I haven't
really had that l king like imprint on me. And
people that work with you love you, you know, with
do you mean dorks and I've and friends for a
long long time, and he just speaks just so lovely
of you. And I guess that was my introduction to
you over in this space, because I remember x As
and Os. I think that just when I think about
(03:18):
my introduction to you, this is excess and OS right here.
This is the first song. So would that have been
like You're maybe not first, but like your biggest, most
widely heard song. It's still okay. So that comes out,
it happens. And then that to me was you here?
(03:39):
I was like, Oh she did XS and OS. Now
she's doing this song with Dirks, So how did that
all come together? Just how did you get? Like how
did the alien spacecraft arrive? Because everybody comes on a
different spacecraft? How did you how did Jews arrive? And
and and when? And why? Um? Well, I was riding
next as a nose thing. I mean maybe I still am.
(04:00):
I don't know, but um, I wasn't super It's fair.
The world's are very very separate. Um and I was
so in the alternative kind of rock pop thing because
X's Nose came out as alternative and it crossed over
to pop and became a big song. And then I
(04:21):
got a call and I was asked if I would
want to sing on a country song. And I didn't.
I didn't know who Dirk's Batley was. I just wasn't
in there. You just got a call. Yeah, so someone
basically heard your texture for lack of a better word
there and said that would sound good Onstead Dirks and
(04:42):
Mary his manager who's now my manager. Um, and I
didn't know who he was, so I called my brother. Um,
my family is from southern Ohio, and I said his
name is Noah, but everyone's Bob. And I said, hey, Bob,
this guy named Dirk's Bentley wants wants me Dirks Bentley, Ellie,
you have to do that. You have to do that.
So I was like, well, okay, cool man. Hopefully my
(05:03):
brother will think I'm cool. So I did it. Um,
and they were so accommodating and they said, yeah, yeah,
well we'll meet you. I was in Austin playing show
and um, I didn't know. He flew his own plane
in and he's so not like you, just he's so
lovely and wonderful and um made me feel very like welcome.
(05:26):
And UM, I hadn't done like a whole lot of
collaborations at that point, and it was just really really fun.
You let me play banjo on it and we just
kind of laughed at a lot and the whole thing
was maybe a couple of hours. And so he flew
to Austin and met in a studio there. Yeah, so
you were playing a show. It was like stubs or
somewhere or probably I can't. I couldn't tell you like
(05:46):
before you play that the day before. Yeah, we're going
to go into the studio. Yeah, I have some I
have some buddies that you know. I have run a
beautiful studio Arleans Studios and um. And so they just
got us in there for a couple of hours, and
I mean, I had no idea what that would lead to.
And I mean it changed my life completely exponentially. When
(06:09):
they send you a track or when dark's because I
just went through this, I do. It's nothing like you.
But I have a comedy group and we play some
decently size shows. And I just wrote a song and
I just send it to one of my buddies. And
I'm always weird about not weird. But there's a fine
line in asking a friend to do something professional. It's
a lot, it's a big ask, and if they're your
(06:32):
real friend, it's especially if they're really famous. Uh. And
in my case, when I asked my friends to do
anything with me, they're way more famous than me. And uh,
it's a weird it's a weird thing. It feels, yes,
it feels very weird, and not that it's the same,
but I just reached out to my friends and I
do it in voice memo, so just you couldn't save it.
And I was like, I'll tell you. It was Lanny Wilson,
(06:54):
and I said, hey, Lanny, we did the song and
we we opened up for Garth and we never open
for anybody, but we wrote the song and it went
billion plays on it. Do you want to sing the
verst of this? You can write it. It's a comedy song.
And then I'm like, I end it. I sent it
and I'm like, god, dang it, and then you sweat.
And then I'm like, because I know she doesn't. Then
you're like, I know they don't want to do it,
like I know they do. But but I sent her
(07:16):
the track and it was empty, right, So I sent
her my verse and there's an empty verse on it,
just her. So my question is I get back around
to that, is what did you hear from dirt? Was
it the fully produced track you remember with someone else's
voice in it? I mean, I believe they sent it
to me and Dirk's was singing the full song, and
they said we want you to sing verse two. Okay,
(07:38):
so it was a full Dirk's version. Just imagine yourself
singing verse two. Yeah, when you sing a song, it
was it was already written. Right, Do you take any
liberties because you do sing, speak, communicate in your own style?
Do you take any liberties with when you're singing it
back differently? Well, I was still really green then, and
I mean I'm still very green and all of it.
(08:00):
But it took me years to be able to say,
um oh, I have an idea, and my idea is
worthy of being said, and you know it. I wish
I mean, I recently wrote with this girl named um
L Langley and she's twenty four years old, and she's
she's got the confidence that like I wish I had now,
(08:21):
And I couldn't imagine being so confident in writing rooms
and um to like say ideas and and I like,
I wasted a lot of time being like oh yeah, okay, yeah, sure,
you know that's what we should do, and then not
like being my full self um so, but then I
also was like let me just you know, mind my
bees and cute. I was singing whatever you want me
(08:43):
to do? I only play. I played banjo very poorly,
but I could make it work and I could do this,
and um, I just did what they asked. And uh
then I I mean, I was like shown the country world,
which is a completely different experience than I had ever
seen ever. So I want to play a clip of that.
This is different for girls from here, you go different.
(09:13):
I'm assuming there was no hey, we feel like this
is gonna be a single? Or did they? Um? I
don't remember asking any A lot to remember, and I know,
and it's it's pretty pandemic. I don't remember much either.
I also had a I was in a very different
excuse me, I was in a very different situation, Um,
you know, with people that I worked with. So I
(09:36):
I don't think that I had any control or wasn't
even part of any conversation. I guess I asked that
because it's a whole different ball game if you're if
you know you're about to be on a single with Dirks,
because especially if it's a collaboration, especially if it's a
song that has some substance to it, right like, and
it was all of this. It was a collaboration, it
was a substance song, it was a male female so
(09:59):
You're about to not only be on the radio and
in Nashville, but you're gonna be on every show. You know.
They're gonna be throwing you on a work Yeah. Yeah,
And I think maybe they would have told you that
had they known all that was coming. But it sounds
like you just were baptized by Okay, here's the Nashville Fire,
here's the single You're You're Running, Yeah, which I mean
I like, right. And you talk about banjo, that's such
(10:20):
a natural instrument for a country um. And I say
that as someone who grew up in a rural town
in Arkansas, but also I grew up in the nineties,
so I listened to everything. I worked on hip hop stations,
I worked on pop stations, sports stations. Um like, I
grew up and listen to country me in my whole life.
But that isn't all I am, right, And so you
come from musically a stylistically different world, it seems for
(10:44):
a second, but you also play an instrument that is
very traditional in the country music world, which is the banjo.
So how did you start playing the banjo? If that's
not really You're not growing up in Kentucky around bluegrass.
I actually I'm from southern Ohio. It was just near Kentucky.
Where you go. Yeah, And um, I didn't grow up
playing the banjo. Um. We lived in Columbus. My mom
(11:06):
was a fit model, and so my mom would take
a lot of trips to Hong Kong. And where my
family is from where I call home is um Jackson, Ohio.
Welst in a small small town, and so I spent
a lot of my childhood there, um with my mom.
And Um, I didn't play the banjo there Grandma, grandpa
(11:28):
yeah got him. Yeah, my my mother's parents. So you
you have a Okay, this is this is how I
think a lot of people's mind are twisted about you.
Right now, we just know L King pop alternative. Later
it's L King, daughter of l a comedian, famous guy.
We only know l A. L King. The fact that
you grew up in rural Ohio actually says so much
(11:51):
more about who you actually are these acting there twice
then I think even I had an idea of I
moved to New York City with my mom, met my stepdad, Um,
who I mean basically showed me everything about music, mainly
rock and roll and soul, which is like kind of
everything that fuels me. UM. So he moved to New
York when I was eleven, and then I would go
(12:12):
back and forth and I would see my dad in
l A or San Francisco when when I could. UM.
I didn't start playing the banjo until I moved out
and I UM I saw a guy playing the banjo,
and when I was living in Philadelphia in the park,
and I was like, man, let me try that. I
can kind of play guitar. And I was like, oh,
this is completely different. That guy let me borrow that
(12:33):
banjo that like him and his dad made for a
couple of years. And a couple of years later he
was like, hey, can I have my banjo back? So
I just taught myself how to play. But what people
don't know is that I got um. I got signed
to a publishing company because of a country song. UM
a song I wrote on the banjo called good to
Be a Man, and UM I went and I played
(12:54):
it for I think it's now Sony, but it was
e m I and I went and I just played
my banjo song could be a Man, and he signed
me on the spot and sent that song to Peter Edge,
who's um big guy R. C A and um they
signed me. I got signed because of a country song.
When you were let's say your formative years, Hey, let's
(13:15):
put you at a Yeah, Okay, let's go back to
what were you listening to? Because that was around the
time for me when it was Chili Peppers, Tim mcgrawl.
It was obviously Nirvana had come and they had just
gone mean and Kirk Obaan had died, but their explosion
was just starting. So those formative years for me were
that what were those for you? Around fifteen sixteen? You know,
(13:38):
I grew up um in the house with probably I
don't know, countless records. My stepdad is like, um, he's
kind of a dick about music, like when he they
called good Times as a joke because when he walks
into a party, he like, I take over the music.
So um, he he just always let me fumble through
(13:59):
his records, so everything from UM, A lot of he
played me a lot of soul, but a lot of
like like garage, rock and roll. And then I was,
you know, a teenager living in Brooklyn, so I listened
to a lot of hip hop and like I love
tripical Quest and I love Wu Tang and I love
everything and I like to play everything. I love reggae
(14:21):
so much. My son loves reggae. We listened to reggae
all day long. Um, but I think what moved me
the most is not a genre. It's so like a feeling.
So what really like stuck out to me was emotional singers.
So like I remember listening to Otis Reading when I was,
(14:42):
you know, like fourteen years old, and be like, there's
like I feel like there's pain in there. I what
is that that I feel and connect with? And then
I remember hearing Um, I don't know how, I must
have been fifteen, and um my stepdad justin he gave
me the cat a Cat power record called the Greatest.
It was like the saddest record I've ever heard. And
(15:04):
on the record there's a song called Hate and she's
singing like I hate myself and I want to die.
And I wasn't like turned off by I was like, Wow,
this woman feels something and she puts it into music.
And me as a listener, who's you know, going through
emotions in life? And I'm such a deep, deep feeler,
(15:25):
I like wanted to hug her. And I felt like
hearing all this different type of music, especially something so
raw and vulnerable and real as that gave me the
okay to channel a lot of emotions that I have
into music. Whether it's like I want to party all
the time, or like my heart's been broken, or I'm
sad and blue, or like I'm happy. I don't know,
(15:47):
just any emotion, you know, I now have this cathartic
way to get it out, because otherwise I think I
would explode. So I listened to everything, and um, I
know it's it's funny because now you know people like,
so like, how how do you end up a country?
And I kind of did trip and fall into like
a very cush like landing and country and and I
(16:11):
mean Dirk's brought me into that and but like the
world that I saw of country was so just incredible
and there's a reason why people want to come to country,
and um, but what I saw from it was people
are really happy and people are kind to each other.
And I remember my first I think it was the
(16:32):
c m A experience and I wore like I got
on the Worst dress List or like fringe tassel pants.
They said I look like a Matador person. I was like,
all right, I'm on the list, and I was backstage
and all everyone's doors were open, and someone offered me
a drink and they're like, that person is really famous,
and um. I saw Taylor Swift and she said she
(16:55):
liked a song on my record, and I was like, okay, well,
all right, I can just grow into a cave and
never come again, because this is the greatest experience of
my life. Um. And it was just really different because
you know, I grew up seeing a lot of unhappiness
and um, and in the pop world, I felt like
I had to like claw so hard and work and
(17:17):
fight for this place to be this person that I
had thought I had to be. And it wasn't until
I kind of kept trying to stick around in this
country vibe, which was so fun, and I felt like
I just felt accepted, and um, that's not something that
like a lot of performers feel in a lot of
(17:39):
different ways. So a couple of questions that I don't
want to let slip by because she had said so
much there back to when you're listening to music and
you mentioned Kapower, You mentioned these records that you had
heard that made you realize music was more than just
a melody right or just lyrics. It was actually words
that could make you feel something. Can you remember the
(18:02):
first song or songs that you actually felt were written
not by you before you? And I can give you
an example to let you think that kind of what
I do. I'll ask a question. If you're hearing me,
just start giving my story. It's just because I want
a good answer from you, and I I don't want to
with you to feel rushed. For me, I was probably
early twenties and uh, John Mayor Stopped this Train. That
(18:23):
record came out, and when I heard the song, and
you know, it's like, here's John may I got struggling
with He's in that age of like mid twenties, and
he's like, well, um, the only thing I'm good at is,
you know, staying young. And he'd always been the youngest,
and I was the same way where I was like
this really young in the world of broadcasting, was always
by far the youngest, fifteen years younger than and I
(18:45):
and now I started to catch up and I started
to be and I was like, man, the only thing
I've ever been good at is being young. And so
he but he wrote this song Stopped this Train about
time and parents getting older, and I was like, oh
my god, I feel that, Like I actually feel what
he's saying. And it's the first time in my life
that has ever happened. It's not a song that I
was like made me feel sad or happy. It was
like always speaking for me. When I ask you that question,
can you remember a song that you heard that spoke
(19:05):
for you. There's always been music that, like, I'm the
kind of person that if I like, I love a
song and I connect with something, like I have to
like live in it and like I'm a one song
on repeat until I can't hear it anymore. Um. So
there's been like a lot of those all throughout my life.
I mean, one huge one. Uh gosh, this is gonna
(19:27):
be so bad. I think maybe Barbara Lynn, You're you're
gonna you're gonna need me. Um And it actually wasn't
un till I was older, but like, I listened to
that song so much when I was going through my
divorce because it was just like people are gonna hurt
you and then they'll miss you and they'll they'll realize
that you are good and it's important to hear stuff
(19:49):
like that. I mean, music is such an amazing thing
for the world because at the end of the day,
it's the soundtrack to life and and it's it's our connection,
and that's you know. Even pop songs that like you
might not think are deeply rooted in emotion, they might
be UM another one. I mean, I just can't remember
like all of the ones from my teenage years because
there's probably too many. Right. It's funny you mentioned pop
(20:10):
songs that you may not think are emotional just because
of maybe a tempo. Yeah, a tempo is one example, right.
And one of those songs that I think of when
you say that is and again it's a pop song
and sometimes on eleven o'clock and you should buy the
record of all the greatest hits the Proclaimers and I
would walk five. That is such a love song, like
when I wake up, I Know I'm gonna be I'm
(20:33):
gonna be a man wakes up next to you and
it's like but instead it's presented as such a up
You're like, well, this is kind of goofy. But if
you just kind of extrapolate that, you're like, go, dang,
that is it. That is quite the powerful song. Yeah,
there's um the LSD collaboration. There is a song called
(20:54):
Thunderclouds that was like blew my mind and when I
had a really bad knee injury. And yeah, I'm not
a skier. I'm like a potato on toothday. I'll try anything. Twice,
I've skied twice. I've got three scars on my knee
from it. Um, I'm not like a physical guy. It's
(21:16):
not for me. Um. I like to even sit at concerts.
I don't know I'm great chair dancer. UM. But I
heard that song and I was I was like very immobile.
I'm always hurt, by the way, because I'm just very clumsy,
and I don't pay enough attention, Like I have a
sprain an ankle right now, but I make a chic
(21:37):
And UM, I remember like feeling really crappy in my
body because my weight fluctuates all the time. And UM,
I never wanted to feel like I can't run or
I'm limited by my body. And I heard that song
and I would like I would listen to on repeat
(21:57):
and I would start to exercise. And I have still
be like off of my divorce and a lot of
most of these songs that I feel like we're written
for me or from my divorce. But um, I would
like listen to that pop song and cry while I
worked out. I don't work out anymore, but when I did,
I would listen to that song. I want to play
and take a little side step here. This is l
(22:18):
with dirks. This is worth a shot. Anyone here shot shot?
So does dark So you want I mean, do you
have a free coupon? That's like I would think You're like,
(22:40):
all right, I did that song. It's quite the hit,
like whenever I'm ready, I'm going to cash this in.
No oh come on, no no no, no, no, no, no,
no no. This was um, it was like a it
happened very quickly. Um My, My whole the whole process
of this record was Um, it's just kind of organical,
(23:02):
Like it really did happen super organically. And I'm learning.
I'm still every day I'm continuing to learn, like how
different it is to be in country music. And two, um,
there's there are no fans like country music fans, and
they're like their lifelong fans and you have to kind
(23:22):
of prove it to them and once you do, then
they love you. And um, and so when the whole
thing was you know, Drunk came out and UM, I
got signed to a signed with a second label, Sunny Nashville,
and UM they're like, well, okay, how are you gonna
we'll we'll play it on the radio, Like how are
you going to follow it up? Like why should why
(23:43):
should we play drunk? And UM said, okay, well let's
make any b And then the EP came together and
it was like really really, I mean it's really good.
So they said make a whole record and I was like,
I mean, twist my arm. So it kind of came
up out where Worth a Shot was a song that
was going to make it on Dirk's record, and I'm
(24:04):
I'm making the record with Ross Copperman, and UM, he
just said, well what about this? And we were just
laughing like well what if Dirk's sang on it? And
I also feel like I couldn't make a country record
and not kind of pay my respects of I mean,
not only did he bring me into this, but change
(24:25):
my life in so many ways. And he's a wonderful
friend and we genuinely enjoy being around each other. He's
very funny, and UM, when you do things like this
with a friend, some of these things can feel like work,
and when you do stuff with someone like Dirk's, it's
you know, your stomach herds from laughing and and it's
(24:47):
I don't know, it's just but I had to text
him and ask him. But did you just go hill
and be like, hey, did you have both of them?
I mean that's what I went on. I've been like, hey,
Drks forever. Yeah. She was like, no, you need to
text him. So she takes gonna ask him classic Okay,
that's that is very much on brand for her because
she would still make you do it yes, And what's
the message that you Because even though you know he
(25:08):
os yeah, you don't have to say yes to that.
But even though he does, you have a coop one,
you still have to ask and it's awkward. It is awkward.
What do you say? Do you? Do you text it?
Do you voice memoir like I do? So it won't
stay around. People can keep those, yeah, but they don't.
They forget. They're always keep everyone like two minutes later
like oh I should keep that, and then it's gone.
I pressed keep before. Never So do you just text
(25:29):
andally like, hey have a song you want to be
on it? Um? It's different when you, I mean you
have to. Like when I texted Miranda for a drunk
it was a different text with Dirks, it was still
like I fault mortified because for me, I value like
our our friendship and I have some severe paranoia of
(25:49):
growing up with you know, a famous dad um that
I never want to be a take. I never want
to be a taker. I never want to seem like
I don't like users. I don't want I don't need
any I don't want anything from you. If you're you know,
if I become friends with you, it's like that's enough.
(26:10):
But if you did want to do this, you know, um,
it's always like, hey, I love you. I heard that
you didn't want to like put this song in your
record like Ross gave it to me. Maybe if he'd
be interested, like what you want to sing on it
with me? No pressure, absolutely no, I promise you can
say no. Heck, i'd say no, that's I don't want
to do it. There's no way I'd want to do
(26:31):
this to me. But if you do, yeah, and so
how long until he goes yes? Um? He sent me
a very like a video of him going WHOA, Yeah,
I want to do it. Yeah, I'd love to but
that's Turks, you know. And I guess he had some
familiarity with the song. He knew it, yeah, and we
changed the key so he had and he even did
a higher harmony. I mean, he's just his voice is
(26:52):
very incredible, and I think that we sound good together.
And Dirk's wouldn't do it if he didn't want to.
He's enough going on. I do want to talk about Drunken.
I don't want to go home if you play that one, Mike.
(27:14):
I mean massive, just massive over in this world, and
holy crap, congratulations because it's one of those rare ones
that's so big that it's a unicorn that you see
maybe twice a year, and it's one of those. But
I guess I wonder what your relationship was with Miranda
before this, if you had one, And because that's one
that I would think would be a little more difficult
(27:34):
if you don't have that relationship, or easier because you
don't have the relationship, because you can just avoid the
rest of your life. That's I'll be like, oh, you
said no, I'll never see you again, right, Yeah? Yeah.
I wrote drunk with Martin Johnson when I was twenty four.
That really so years ago wild Yeah, we wrote uh,
I had two days to two session days with him.
We wrote America Sweetheart, which is a song off my
(27:56):
first record that I mean should have I think she
should have been a country song, which, by the way,
that one I know that one too really well. Was
that after or before record? Okay, so because I guess
maybe which was first as a single where America Sweeter
was never single. I thought America Sweeter it was gonna
be single. I thought Drunk was going to make the record. Um,
(28:18):
I just had different I didn't I didn't know that
I had to say um, and it just kind of
takes life to teach you um. And but I'm glad
that it didn't because I had a manager that didn't
want me to be pop and so he really had
no idea kind of I probably shouldn't be thought of this,
(28:39):
but he really tried to bury that. And I was like, man,
that's gotta kick ass song and and so. But I
still hadn't had my confidence in writing rooms yet. So
Drunk that I always thought was like, dang, that's a
massive chorus. But I hated the verses and um, it
took me. I mean, I don't want to age my self.
(29:00):
But I was probably twenty four and then how many
years ago? I know, I'm all over the place right now.
So we were sitting on that song. And then the
last like three or four years, I signed a Red
Light and I've been working with Mary and I was like, Mary,
I've got this song that's like like we have we
got to sell it to a DJ or something. And
Martin and I hadn't spoken in years, and out of
(29:20):
the blue, um, he texted me and he was like, Hey,
would you want to sing on a song on my record?
And I was like, yo, you got it. Funny you
texted me because I think that we should rewrite the
verses for Drunk Now. This is I met Miranda through Dirks.
Dirks brought Miranda to one of my shows, I think
Marathon Works or Marathon Music Works. Yeah, and um, and
(29:42):
I met her and like, I like, I was embarrassed
because I was learning about in years and I felt
like I did a bad job. And um, here's like
the super megastar and I may not know much about
country music, but I know who she is, and um,
she was really cool and really nice and um, and
then I see her kind of like at award shows
because Dirks and I got nominate for Grammy and I
(30:03):
was kind of like, hey, what's up. And then I
was doing nothing in country For two years. I was
opening for like rock rock bands. I was opening I
did like a very long tour with Heart and Joan
Jett and Brandy Carlisle was on it. And then I
Miranda asked me to be direct support for Roadside Bars
and Pink Guitars and um. So we would kind of
(30:25):
hang every night, and then she had, you know, we
did the food round and film left thing and so
every night at the end of the night, we'd all
get up on stage and then she's got Wanda this
like trailer that's a bar and loud music and just
to hang and it's like her tours like the dream,
you know, makes everyone feel welcome, and so we kind
(30:46):
of just became cool. And then you country tours are
so smart because you do like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and
then you wake up on the bus Nashville and Sunday
and you can have a few days with your family.
So I would come back and I was writing with
Martin and we rewrote Drunk in fifteen minutes, and um,
me and Mary were just talking and like, what if
(31:07):
it's a duet? What if we asked Miranda? And I
was like, well, how do we ask Miranda? Girl? You
gotta text her. You need the sender of the song.
You need to just do it. I was like shaking, hey,
just like I love you so much, like I'm already
I missed you from the tour and thank you so
much for everything I have this song. And I said
to her, it's true. I said, you're the only person
(31:28):
I'm asking if if you say no, it's not going
to be a duet. Like I'm so grateful for the tour,
it was so much fun, Like if you would at
all be interested in doing this, like let me know,
and if you don't like it, lie to me. So um,
she didn't tasket me back for a whole day, and
the next day she text me back and she said
that it was really catchy and she heard her husband
singing in the shower and so she said yes. And
(31:50):
neither of us. I knew it was a big chorus,
but we were going to go to pop an alternative
with it. I didn't, neither of us. We still laugh
because we're like we did not think that it was
going to do what it did, um, which is a
beautiful thing. And uh, that song alone taught me so
much about allowing things to have life of their life
(32:11):
of its own, and it's really helped me to like
not put pressure on things and kind of give room
for I don't know, sometimes things to do it themselves.
My wife is she just listened to a lot of
Tipperary countries. She grew up in Oklahoman, listened to a
lot of two thousand's country. Now she's very much into
emo pop type thing. And but she came in the
(32:34):
other day and she was like, hey, you know my
new jam is. I was like, what's that. She goes, well,
it popped up on like my emo pop playlist. I
was like what. She was like drunk and I don't
want to go home. And I was like, that's just
not getting to you. She was, well, I don't listen
what you do, I said, it only it only comes
to me through this way. She was like, that's a
good song, huh. And I was like, yeah, it's a
really good song if you're asking me eight months ago
when I was listening to it, I said, but it's
(32:54):
great that it's still living right, like it's It's it's
the life of it is still new to people because
it is still such a good song. It is growing
now in other places that's not just country, which is
kind of the which is kind of where it started
in a place that didn't really have a home in
a good way, Like it was just art that you
(33:15):
had written and you didn't really have a genre name
or it was it was all for my first record.
I wouldn't bring guitar to these sessions. I brought my banjo.
I was just like a banjo chick. You were the
banjo a chick that is that is wild? You know
my perception. I'll just be honest with my perception. He
is completely different than what I'm experiencing now because this
is what I've felt when you came to town you
(33:36):
did the song with Dirks that you were massive L
a star. You you and I think this is how
a lot of people feel because they don't know you.
So I'm glad that we're actually able to sit down
for and have the extended conversations Massive L a music
star who have heard on pop radio or satellite or
you know, do you know who is probably thinking she
(33:57):
doing country music? Favor is really good at this as
all these massive shows, and you know she'll be here
for a couple of weeks and get her hit and
bail out like that because you came from and it's
not Now you learn it's not even that world. Like
you had your own version of the musical world you
were living in. I was completely wrong about where you
(34:18):
were coming from from. Most people are about me, to
be fair, and I think what is great is now
we get to learn why our understanding was off. First
of all, that you spent a lot of your life
one to eleven and then back and forth in you know,
southern Ohio. I have friends that are from there. That's
(34:39):
as rural as it gets. Like your influenced by everything
country music included in that um. And then again, I
just thought you were a big l a music star
coming to grace this with the presence and then chunk deuces.
But two and I mean this in the best way possible,
but too here and understand that you were in your
own version of finding yourself at the same time time
(35:01):
still am me too write that is a different picture
that I'm read that I'm repainting of you. And I'm
glad I got to hang out and learn that version
because I just thought, well, all right, she's gonna come
do us favor. Hop down here, do a couple of hits,
and get out of town and go back to our
fancy schmancy Los Angeles. No, I live on a farm
(35:21):
in Rhode Island, by the way, So you live on
a farm too. I have no idea who she is.
Like every it's all misconception. King is misconception. At this point,
she had no idea. Um, okay, well that is good
to know. Not that it matters, but I think that
I I think even with your dad being famous, I
(35:43):
think we thought, oh Richard Hollywood kids, A lot of
people think that, yeah, and I don't. Yeah, And I
would understand why because and I saw that. I saw that.
But my childhood had two like, like very big extremes.
I had a dad that was I mean in the
early two thousand's forget even SNL. I mean, yeah, I've
(36:04):
got some memories of being backstages Saturday Night Live. You know, Um,
I didn't spend a lot of time with my dad
and your biological father, yeah, my dad Rob, Yeah, I
didn't spend a lot of time with him and I
would see him, you know, he would get me for
like a little bit of time. But I spent a
lot of time with his mother, my Filipino grandmother recently
passed on, and um so I saw very different lifestyles.
(36:30):
Um Uh. My dad was like a really big movie
star in the early two thousand's and it was interesting
to see. Um. But then my mom's side of the family,
which is why I go by King because that they
raised me. And um, I don't know, I if you,
if you go through southern Ohio, you'll I don't know,
(36:53):
I don't really know how to explain it, but like
that's what home is to me, and um, I appreciate it,
and I love to home my family. My family still
lives there. Um So, I don't know, it's it's it
was an interesting way to grow up to see both extremes.
Um I'm glad that I had it because I saw
(37:14):
what like I saw what can happen with fame, and
I saw what can happen with money. And I I'm
always like a watcher. I like I take everything in
almost to like a paranoid point. Um But I'm glad
that I saw a lot of that. You know, my
quick version of why I'm asking this question is, I don't.
(37:35):
I didn't have a dad. My dad left when us five,
until I was thirty three, until I chased him down myself,
I didn't. I had no relationship and so so we
were estranged for a long time. It doesn't sound like
were you guys are stranged at all through your childhood. No,
so he was still your were able to be a
fan of his work because he didn't resent him. It
was just you would see him at times because I
resent in mind terribly, Um, do I have daddy? Is
(38:00):
he was like not asking as a kid? Did you?
Were you angry? Happy that he was your dad? Like,
what's what's the year old I'll think about her dad
being famous? Yeah, I mean I I still have a
lot of um. I mean I've done a lot of
therapy in my life, UM, which has really helped me,
like unload brick by brick of the crap that we
(38:22):
carryer old lives. Um. But yeah, like I resented him
a lot. I love me and my dad have a
like a good relationship now and I love him a
lot and I appreciate him and um him having young
children really kind of I don't know it helped our
relationship and um, but yeah, I was a very I
(38:44):
was a really really angry teenager. Um, I was. I
was labeled a bad kid. But I think it was
just now that I'm a mother, I can understand like
you just labeled them bad kid instead of thinking like,
well maybe their needs aren't being met or like what
is going on with them, or like what do they
not have that is nurturing them? And um, for me,
a lot of it was like I felt like my
(39:05):
dad didn't like want, like he was like embarrassed of me. Um,
because I was like a chubby teenager and my mom's
this beautiful model and my dad is just like funny,
goofy comedian but cares very much about what he has
to look like on screen because that's his career. And
so it was. It was a weird thing. I was
like the chubby, goofy kid and nobody, no one expected
(39:29):
me to get any level of success at all, um,
because of the I'll do think the bad kid that
you were not even the bad kid, more like the
like the fat kid, like the goofy kid. I went
to a lot of schools. I got kicked out a
lot of schools I was. I wasn't a very good kid,
(39:51):
and uh, I don't know. I just always played music.
And I mean I had residencies in Brooklyn at like
sixteen seventeen years old, and my my mom was supportive.
She'd helped me. She care my guitar and whatever. But
like nobody thought that out of all, Like the kids
in my family, like my dad's brother had three daughters
that were like beautiful ballerinas. They thought they were going
(40:13):
to be like jamous actresses, singers and blu alone um
and I kind of, I don't know, nobody thought that
I was going to do, especially because I didn't want
to use my dad's name. I mean, when I kind
of started to get successful, we didn't. We hadn't been
talking for years. My legal name is Tanner el Schneider.
(40:36):
Oh it is okay, so you purpose okay, got it? Yeah,
I got it. I started using my my mother's last
name like as a teenager, and I just wanted to
do I just wanted to use that name, not because
I mean probably because I was angry and it's cooler,
but also like that was my family and I I
worked very very very very hard to get signed to
(40:57):
get any tour, to play any show ever. And I
never wanted anyone to say, you've got it because your
dad and he knows this now you know. And because
he wasn't he was, he didn't do anything. I worked
my ass off and I didn't want to be connected
to that do This is when my therapist as me
(41:20):
all the time, and I struggle with it. But and
this may be the dumbest question you've heard and can
answer it so easily, but are you proud of yourself
for what you've been able to do? Or do you
struggle with being proud for yourself? Uh? Sometimes I it's
important to be able to kind of like step outside
of the snow globe and see the glory of it,
especially if you know. I'm not like a cookie cutter person.
(41:44):
So I feel like I I feel like I have
to fight less hard now. But I'm very proud of myself.
I'm very proud that my son, uh gets to see
two parents that have very strong drive in their field,
and that I want my son to see that he
is more important in my career. But I want him
(42:05):
to see that I can do this and take I
take him on tour with me, like he comes first,
and I want him to be a part of this.
That's always been my dream. He's nine months, so he's
not doing a lot of communicating yet. He's just taking
a lot of in so far. I mean, yeah, he
talked in his own way, but yeah, he takes it in.
But he's cool man, Yeah, yeah he's cool. Did being
(42:28):
a mom alter a lot of the feelings you had
about being a kid? Um? Yeah it gives. I mean
I have so much empathy. I mean my parents are
very very young, and um, it softens me on them.
(42:49):
I couldn't imagine doing any of this, um in my
early twenties, and my mom had two of us. So, um,
more empathy for my mother than dad, but especially because um,
you know, my my partner is an incredible father and
it is very very present and very hands on. Um.
(43:10):
But I don't know all of it makes me the
mother that I am. And I think I'm a good mother.
I mean, I also think i'm a ship mother. But
I care very very much and I want to be
a good mom and I want to be a very
present person because I also have a career that is
different from my dad. But I am realizing that like
(43:30):
I am in this entertainment industry, but I want to
do it differently. And um, that's a huge thing that
I love about country music is that they come back
and they're with their families and and there's family tours.
I mean, I'm touring like all your with stable tms
and like I bring my son like it's it's I
feel very safe about that, and I don't know, it's
just I'm gonna do it my own way. Though. When
(43:53):
you're you're an artist, you know you're more than a musician.
You're an artist, especially hear when you talk about the
different ways you're affected by by art. Do you have
the other art skills like drawing? Can you? I don't
know what? What else can you do creatively? Because I
just feel like I'm looking at your all your tattoos,
like there's something in you that just wants to always
make an impact on something and through creation. So what
(44:15):
else is it? What? How do you else do you
fulfill yourself doing ours? It's very nerdy, but I I
love I don't I don't know what I love crafting.
I feel that SI I love Oh my gosh, um
it comes out in different ways and I don't always
(44:37):
get to have. Um. I'm never in one place for
very long. So UM. It was weird because during the pandemic,
I got really really into a very specific type of tidy,
which is shibori, which is like a Japanese technique of
folding and then natural indigo die. So it's like really
beautiful and very intricate, and um, in hopes of having
(44:58):
a baby and getting pregnant be we were trying, I
made all these like extremely intricate and beautiful like baby blankets,
and um, I love tie dyeing. I asked for a
sewing machine for Christmas, and I'm like, I'm making everybody
baby blankets like applicates. It's like very nerdy. Um. I
like super intricate things that helps me shut my mind
(45:20):
off if I'm just like busy work. I like to
knit crochet. Um. When I was younger, I went to
art school. I thought I wanted to be an editor.
I wanted to make music videos or short films. Um.
And I got really into illustrations, and I mean, I
don't know if I'm good at that anymore. Worst handwriting
in the world, worst handwriting in the world, Um, like
(45:40):
around the house car. It's different now that I'm a mom.
I'm I'm very neurotic. Um. I I think because it's
so like we're not that we're unstable, but because we
haven't bought a house here yet and we live out
of suitcases. So I have systems, like I'm routine and
(46:00):
systems in our chaos, so like folding techniques and organization
is like a massive thing. Are you control freak? One
hundred percent? But I think that that might come and
stem from a place of not feeling like I had
any control as a kid completely get it same, I'm
such a control freak, but because I was a poverty
(46:21):
kid and had no control of anything else. Yeah, but
everything I could control, control completely and that has I mean,
it still lives in me. And I have a wife,
so I don't control as much, but things away from her.
Like I'm such a control freak that now I can
also see why it's not good sometimes. Finally, Yeah, it
took a long time, but you can only hope that
(46:43):
no matter when it comes, you are able to see it.
You know, some people don't ever want to see it though, well,
because when you when you see it, you have to
acknowledge it, and you have to I didn't want to
acknowledge it right exactly. It was working for me. I
was being rewarded through my career with the things that
got me to that point to be a control freak.
(47:03):
So why would I try to fix that? Heck, I'm
scared to go to therapy. I was like, I don't.
I don't want to come to therapy. If I have fixed,
I'm gonna be a failure. Like my fear was going
to therapy would make me a failure because it was
going to wash away some of the struggle that had
got me to therapy, which is a drive right yes, yeah,
And he's like, chill, yeah, you're good, homie. It will
only deepen your drive. And he was like, I'm gonna
(47:25):
fix you anyway. You can't wait. You can hear you
get fixed like this is You're like a car, not
a carburetor. We can just plug up. But wow, I
see that you are hosting the c M A Fest show.
That is first of all, good for you. That's awesome
(47:47):
for you and Dirk's um I've hosted that show before
it well, yeah one time. This is what you will
love working for Robert Um. I worked with him there
and I do this the CBS New Year's Show and
love Him it is the same clothes for four nights
(48:09):
because love that though. Yes, yes, I agree, Yes, that
part's good. I dressed loud man and if I got
a sick outfit, I'm aware four Here's the good part One.
You only gotta pay for one outfit unless you get
a backup case you spill on it. Right your they
may be like I might have too because performance and hosting,
well I mean hosting outfit right right, it's the same thing.
(48:30):
You may have a second one in case you spill something. Yeah,
So with that, that's good. We didn't get that. Maybe
we should text Tiff. Yeah, So that's that's a good
part of it. But the second thing is about day
two in the same clothure like do I stink? Like
do I. It's a lot of waiting around a whole lot,
and you've got to be there all the time just
in case something goes down. But you're gonna love it.
It's awesome, and you're gonna spend four days and all
(48:52):
these hours doing it and then they're going to show
up for like an hour and a half and be
like that was four days. I just use the twelfth
second clip for Ford, it's awesome. Yeah, but know TV
just weird. It is weird. It's weird. Congratulations, that's really
freaking cold that you're doing that. It's it's very cool
to me because my experience with it was I mean,
it was during different for girls and it's it's funny
(49:15):
that you or like your perception of me was that
I was like some big l a m. Because when
I performed that song with him, that was the biggest
live audience that I'd ever played for. And I walked
off stage and people, I remember people were like grabbing
at me and they put me on the golf cart
and we went like whatever past the stage and I
(49:35):
had them pull over and I put my face in
a corner and I cried because it was like such
a big moment for me. So when they asked me
to host, I was like and there, and they're probably going,
I don't know if we should ask her, She's probably
gonna think this is not nothing. Ask no, No, it's
a huge deal for me. But all of these things,
(49:58):
I mean, I get, I still get very very excited.
Good for you. Yeah, I mean, I mean I I've
lost a lot of that because I just think I'm
gonna screw it up, and so I don't have excitement
I have, So you let the anxiety get oh, fear
of never being able to work again because I screw
up so bad, no one's ever gonna hire me. See,
my thing is I always mess up, so the bar
is low, so you know you're going to mess up.
(50:21):
So part of my charm beb Okay, Well my charm
is that the bar can't. I don't have a whole
lot of talent. Talent so if I if I don't
have I can't really screw up that much. So I
can't allow to screw up because I don't have a
lot of anything else. I can only sing that well
only my only funny. It's just a thing where but
I'm like, well, if this doesn't work and the ratings
(50:42):
are terrible, I'm never never getting hired again. I like
that though, that You're just like, I suck. That's what
I need to do. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know,
it's it's worked for you. All of this stuff is
from our childhood trauma, right, all of it's like, I
don't know, it's not that I don't have confidence in
myself because I actually I don't I And I don't
(51:06):
know how I come off as I don't know if
I I know what I look like and I know
that like I'm allowed as bitch, not in the not
like and and I hope not as much as I
used to be, but like energetically, I hope I'm not.
(51:28):
But like I look loud, you know. Um, But it's
taken me a long time to like be okay in
my body. And so I had to fake a lot
of like really hardcore confidence, which is like very tough exterior,
but like inside I'm like putting, you know. Um. And
so now I'm just trying to kind of like mend
the two of like I'm as softie, I don't have
(51:52):
as much to prove anymore. Um, So maybe I can
like let at like layer by layer, just like let
it kind of chill. I think that's life, right, trying
to mind it, trying to figure out the perfect mind
hopefully hopefully try to heal and like get to a
place of you know what, this is good. I'm happy.
(52:14):
I feel like I'm gonna figure it out, and then
the next day I'm gonna die. Yeah, I figure that
thinks that's what happens, right, where I was like, I'll
finally figure it out. We die. That's it. I think
that's life. It's like, oh, that's what it is. Yeah,
you're dad, and I'm going to share it with you.
Somehow somebody up there pushes the button and it down. Now, Yes, okay,
(52:36):
look we have I'm only mildly sweaty, So I'm going
to count today as a success. I appreciate you sitting
through and being in the sauna here. This is not hot?
Is this hot seat? Because I feel cool? Maybe I'm
just so comforting an interview that it's cool to you
even think about that. Maybe. Yeah, it's a lot lott toast.
(52:57):
I'm gonna lie. Um, let me say this. The new
song which I think you're coming up to the radio
show tomorrow to play, is that true? Yeah? Yes, dang,
we're gonna find out if you can really sing Oh
my gosh. Yeah. I wish they don't give us like
they don't give us anything. Uh so uh l and
Dirk's worth a shot. Now. The entire body of work
(53:17):
that you've been creating that was so good, it's went
from an EP to an LP. No, don't build this
up now, don't you. No? No, no no, I'm only come on,
you said it to me. I'm holding a mirror back
up they Okay, someone found it to be just good enough,
fair enough. If you take take it off me, then
someone else found it to be just good enough to say, hey,
you should make more songs and make a record. When
(53:38):
does that whole thing happening? I would like to know, okay,
so that there's not a date that I don't have. No, no, no, no,
because there I'm soon got it and I don't even
need a date. I just didn't want to miss something
if it's like, yeah, idiot's it's all Friday? Okay, because
so it's not. But the new songs out um dronking,
I don't want to go home massive. Are you guys
still pushing that in places? Another four? No, Well, it's
(54:00):
showing up. That's the crazy part about it still showing
up in places. Count your money, that's that's awesome. Keep
counting it's coming. Congratulations on everything, really, thank you and
the baby, and just thank you. Um. I like to
congratulate myself because I found out a lot about you
that I did not know, and that usually happens here.
But I'm usually not wrong on just general perception. Pretty good,
(54:20):
pretty good at that I've swung a miss big time one. You.
I'll be honest with you, and so I'm really glad
that that you came in and Mike, you just like, yeah,
who knew? Who knew? She's cool? You know? All right?
You guys follow L L King at E L L
E King and I guess I'll see you in the morning. Yeah. Honestly,
I want to say, like, thanks for giving me the
opportunity to share more about myself because a lot of
(54:42):
people probably have um their own perception of me and
I can only be myself, so thanks for having me
I try to be someone other than myself. Yeah, I
like it, That's okay. Yeah, I don't want to be
British sometimes that'd be cool, homelike, all right, el King,
there she is and we'll see you guys. M
Host
Bobby Bones
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