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Elle King Has Always Been Inspired By This Country Outlaw

Elle King has enjoyed musical success in a handful of music genres, including pop and alternative. Still, with her new album Come Get Your Wife out later this month (1/27),…

Elle King Has Always Been Inspired By This Country Outlaw
Mickey Bernal/Getty Images

Elle King has enjoyed musical success in a handful of music genres, including pop and alternative. Still, with her new album Come Get Your Wife out later this month (1/27), she is committed to country music. 

We interviewed Elle this week (1/18), and she told us about the album. "I feel like this whole album is, 'Why is Elle King in country music?' Well, if you'd like to know, you should listen to the record because I'll tell you, I started with 'Ohio,' and I'm from Ohio; I'm not southern, I'm country." King says that when it came to writing songs for the debut country album, her songs reflected who she is and how she grew up, "I've always been a tomboy, and when I was having songs sent to me, I didn't really connect with a lot of the female-written songs. In my own personal songwriting, I have always kind of tended to write in sort of a male perspective."  

"The country music that has always inspired me and made me feel like I was just in awe was... Waylon (Jennings) is my guy. I think that the way that he sings and the way that he spoke and how he told stories really heavily influenced me in any genre that I was writing. I think about that song 'Lonesome, On'ry and Mean,' and he is straight up telling you 'I'm mean,' and you love him, and you accept him for it."  

Come Get Your Wife - Elle King - Track Listing: 

1. Ohio – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

2. Before You Met Me – Written by Tofer Brown, Margaret McRee & Lauren Hungate

3. Try Jesus – Written by Elle King, Geoffrey Warburton, Casey Cathleen Smith, Ashley Gorley & Ben Johnson

4. Drunk (And I Don't Want To Go Home) with Miranda Lambert – Written by Elle King and Martin Johnson

5. Lucky – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

6. Worth A Shot (featuring Dierks Bentley) Written by Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, and Josh Osborne

7. Tulsa – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

8. Crawlin' Mood – Written by Charlie Worsham & Jesse Frasure

9. Bonafide – Written by Elle King, Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

10. Blacked Out – Written by Elle King and Martin Johnson

11. Out Yonder – Written by Bobby Hamrick, Ella Langley & Matt McKinney

12. Love Go By – Written by Elle King, Geoffrey Warburton & Joe Janiak

Nancy Brooks has been working in the country music industry for almost 30 years. She has interviewed pretty much any country star you can think of. In the late 1990s, she started working with Dolly Parton. And yes, Nancy reports that Parton is as sweet as you would think. She loves her life in country music and has been backstage at every CMA Awards show since the late 1990s. Many of her stories are from her one-on-one interviews. She was there at the beginning of the incredible careers of many music superstars today, including Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, and Blake Shelton, and has interviewed them multiple times throughout the years.