For nearly two years, singer-songwriter Elle King battled what she called her “pandemic depression” by diving deeper into her craft. Now, King said she’s done with virtual performances and writing in isolation, and she is ready to hit the road on the Drunk and I Don’t Wanna Go Home Tour.
“I feel that I’ve been put on this Earth to perform; it just does something for me and my spirit,” King said during a recent phone interview from her new home on Rhode Island. The tour, which gets its title from her fiery Grammy-nominated duet, “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home),” with country star Miranda Lambert, kicks off on Feb. 15 at House of Blues San Diego and wraps up near King’s native Los Angeles with shows on at House of Blues Anaheim March 26 and The Fonda in Los Angeles March 28.
“I love my son and he will always take precedent and be numero uno, but a close second is being on that stage,” she continued. “Just singing these songs and being with people. Music is the soundtrack to life and I love it so much. So, thank God because for some miraculous reason I’m still in this as a career.”
The 32-year-old daughter of actor and comedian Rob Schneider and model London King welcomed her first child, Lucky Levi, with partner Dan Tooker back in September. She often posts videos of herself singing children’s songs she made up to her son, but she insists the new album she wrote while in quarantine and pregnant doesn’t have all that much to do with babies.
“I’m so excited to tease some new music on the tour and see what the fans think,” she said without revealing much else. Fans will also get to hear the songs King wrote and released in Los Angeles during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, which made up her 2020 “In Isolation” EP, including the single “The Let Go.”
“Music has been such an amazing cathartic tool for me to release emotions,” she said. “There were a lot of really emotional and important and close-to-my-heart songs on the first record and I connected a lot with fans over that. I try to continue to do that because when I’m going through something or losing my mind, I used to have bad things I’d turn to, but now it’s music … there was always music.”
King first gained mainstream attention in 2015 with her debut album, “Love Stuff,” which featured the singles “Ex’s & Oh’s” and “America’s Sweetheart.” The record had elements of rock, pop, punk, blues and alternative country music, which made it easy for King to fit on a variety of festival bills including the KROQ (106.7 FM) Almost Acoustic Christmas in Inglewood and the three-day Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio. In 2016, she was featured on country star Dierks Bentley’s chart topping, CMA Award-winning song “Different For Girls,” and she went from dipping her toe into country music to diving in headfirst.
“I just continue to have these opportunities fall into my lap and nobody said, ‘No, you can’t do that,’” she said of working in multiple genres and opening up for artists from Dropkick Murphys and Heart to The Chicks and Chris Stapleton. “It’s helped me to stop judging myself and not worry so much about what other people are going to think about me doing something different. I just do what makes me happy now, and that has opened up my life in so many ways.”
King’s second album, “Shake The Spirit,” came out in 2018 and candidly chronicled the lows King was experiencing at the time. She had gone through a divorce, her mind was full of self-doubt and she was drinking heavily, all of which she so openly addressed in songs like “Shame,” “Man’s Man” and “Sober.”
The new music, she said, finds her in a much more peaceful space, though she’s still not done raising hell, which is evident in her duet with Lambert.
“So, that wasn’t well-planned,” she said about being pregnant and out promoting a barnburner drinking song last year. “It’s probably the best thing that could have happened, because I’m not going to shy away from my reputation. I’m very rowdy and fun and I like to let my hair down. My dad was laughing and he was like, ‘Thank God you were pregnant, or that music video would have been a very different thing.’ The pregnancy probably saved me and allowed me to be very present and sweet, so that’s a good thing.”
Though she may raise a glass on this tour, King said she’s just as happy if fans are out there sippin’ on lemonade.
“It took me 32 years and being pregnant to learn that you don’t have to be drunk-hammered to have fun,” she said with a laugh. “It’s important for me to also celebrate people who choose sobriety. I want everyone to know that they are accepted and welcome here. It’s not about getting hammered, it’s about the music and being together. If you’re sober, you can get drunk on music and I know that’s the truth. Music can make you feel something and you don’t have to be drunk or high to feel it.”
As King preps to hit the road with her first headlining tour since 2018, she’s also been reflecting. She recently posted on Instagram a sweet tribute to singer Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes who died in January. The pair had crossed paths a few times and even recorded a Christmas song, “Under the Mistletoe!,” together in 2019.
“She was a massive, massive influence for me and I think a lot of people heard that in ‘Ex’s & Oh’s,’ there’s that kind of throwback sound to it,” she said while recalling the time Spector asked her to perform with her at the Glastonbury Festival in England in 2016. “She invited me on her bus and she’s got that raspy voice and she was like, ‘You wanna sing? You wanna come up and sing back-up?’ Because I told her one of my all-time dreams was to be a backup singer in a doo-wop group. She was so sweet and so lovely and I got to sing backup with her singers and they taught me the dance moves and it was one of the greatest moments of my life. Then I walked off the stage and Billy Gibbons [of ZZ Top] was standing there and it was one of those insane moments I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.”
Elle King’s Drunk and I Don’t Wanna Go Home Tour
With: Lola Kirke
When: 7 p.m. Saturday, March 26
Where: House of Blues Anaheim, 400 Disney Way #337, Anaheim
Tickets: $30 at LiveNation.com
Also: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15 at House of Blues, 1055 Fifth Ave., San Diego. $30-$50 at LiveNation.com; 9 p.m. Monday, March 28 at The Fonda, 6126 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. $35 at AXS.com.
