Dipping from sassy rock n’ roll to blues rock and even alternative country, Elle King has been finding her voice. 

You may know her from her smash hit “Ex’s & Oh’s” or the theme song to Mob Wives Chicago, “Playing for Keeps.” 

However you know her, you can find her swinging by The Clyde Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 5, when she kicks off her Baby Daddy’s Weekend Tour with special guest The Band Loula. 

Making her way

King started her musical journey in 2012 with her debut EP, The Elle King EP, which contained the  single “Good To Be a Man” and led her to being named an Artist To Watch by Esquire. 

She toured with a variety of musicians around the world, and her name began spreading like wildfire. 

In 2014, she released her first full-length album, Love Stuff, which contained the crossover hit, “Ex’s & Oh’s.” 

The song reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hit 100, a chart it spent 38 weeks on. It also spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart and No. 5 on the Radio Songs chart.

Throughout the next couple years, she continued touring and released a handful of singles along the way. She also appeared on Dierks Bentley’s hit song “Different for Girls.”

It was not until 2018 that she released her second studio album, Shake the Spirit. 

This album is heavily influenced by events that happened throughout her life, especially in the years leading up to it. 

In 2016, King married Andrew Ferguson after having known him three weeks. The marriage did not last, and by 2017 a divorce petition was filed. Her ex-husband was arrested for domestic violence. 

This album also proved that she has more to her abilities than just pop or alternative pop. She leaned into her creative side and really let her experiences speak for themselves. 

Going country

For her most recent album, 2023’s Come Get Your Wife, King got ahead of the curve of pop stars turning to country.

The album features the hit song “Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home)” with Miranda Lambert, and showed a new direction.

Although she had dabbled in country music before, she explained to People Magazine that she found a passion genre that made her feel free. 

“Now I’m in a place where I have nothing to hide,” she said in the interview. “I’m much more comfortable with being vulnerable. I don’t have to be so defensive, I can just be open. 

“This whole album and everything is revealing a lot more about myself because now I’m much more comfortable because I have nothing.

“It’s not that I don’t have anything to prove, because I’ll always prove it to you. I will. I love to. But I’m being much more revealing about my life and about a part of my life that I’ve been so protective of, which is where my family’s from and where my family still lives in Ohio, and what truly made me who I am and what brought me here.”

Well-known bloodlines

Being a performer is evidently in King’s blood. She is the daughter of the famous comedian and actor Rob Schneider and model London King. 

King said in many interviews that she chose to take her mother’s maiden name so she was not automatically linked to her father.

Although King made headlines recently by speaking out about her strained relationship with her father and some views they do not meet eye to eye on, there is no denying the talent that comes from within her.