Rolling Stone held its first Morning Sessions during ACL Fest 2018 on Saturday, October 6th, at Wanderlust Yoga in Austin, Texas. Americana bad-ass Elle King and her band The Brethren took Austin City Limits by storm this past weekend, making a pit stop at the Morning Sessions to chat with Music Editor Suzy Exposito. The Country Music Award-winning singer-songwriter is just as much of a firebrand in real life as she is in her songs. But her upcoming album, Shake the Spirit isn’t all piss and vinegar; it’s a whole lot of heart and soul.
In our latest interview, King talks about the making of Shake the Spirit — during which she picked up the bass guitar. Although many know King as the guitarist-slash-banjo extraordinaire behind 2015 chart-topper “Ex’s and Oh’s” — or her 2016 Dierks Bentley collaboration “Different for Girls” — she sought out to emulate the rock and roll queens of the Nineties. One of them became somewhat of a real-life mentor — the Grammy-nominated bassist of Nashville Pussy, Corey Parks.
“I always thought chick bassists were the coolest people in the world,” she says. “I idolize Kim Deal. The first song I ever learned was ‘Gigantic.’ I play a lot of instruments, [but] anytime I’d ever see a female bass player at a show, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her.”
King also talked about recording amid paranormal activity in Denton, Texas’ Echolab Studios; as well as hanging out with her dad, actor-director Rob Schneider. “My dad has a beautiful singing voice. My dad was an Elvis impersonator, they called him Tiny Elvis. He’s shorter than me!”
Shake the Spirit is out October 19th via RCA Records.
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