On the Verge: 'Ex's' marks Elle King's spot

This week in On the Verge, Paste BN's spotlight on breakthrough artists, Brian Mansfield talks to rock singer/songwriter Elle King.

Hugs all around. Elle King has a hard time playing it cool when people recognize her. "I get super-excited, and I give them a big hug," says the singer of the bluesy romp Ex's and Oh's. "It reminds me that people listen to my music." And more people than ever are listening to the 25-year-old singer-songwriter. Ex's and Oh's is a hit on two radio formats: It's No. 5 on Paste BN's AAA airplay chart, No. 13 on the alternative-rock chart and has sold more than 166,000 downloads, according to Nielsen Music. King's album, Love Stuff, came out in February.

Welcome to the Machine. When King was 9, here stepfather gave her a copy of The Donnas' American Teenage Rock 'n' Roll Machine. "That album is still amazing," she says. "I hear the bassist recently found out about me. I hope to get to meet them one day and tell them how much they meant to me."

Finding her identity. King's biological father is actor Rob Schneider, and she has appeared in three of his movies. In 1999's Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo, she played Cookie Girl, listed in the credits as Elle Tanner Schneider. King got a taste for performing her own songs as a teen when she was supposed to sing one at a New York coffeehouse but got such a positive response that she was asked to sing another. "After that, I got my fake ID on St. Mark's Place and started playing bars all over the place," she says.

Strumming on the old banjo. "A lot of of things have come from me having crushes on boys," King says. Take her interest in the banjo, an instrument that has become a familiar part of her sets and on which she often writes. "Honestly, I saw this really babe guy playing one, and I was like, 'Can I hold that?'" she says. "He let me borrow the banjo for over a year. I traveled around the world with it. I took it to Denmark. A year later, he was like, 'Could I get my banjo back? My dad made that.' So I had to get my own."

Finding her sound. After releasing an EP in 2012, King began refining her style by writing with several songwriters, including Dave Bassett, known for co-writing hits for such rock bands as Shinedown, Pop Evil and Adelita's Way. After writing a song called Under the Influence during their first writing session, King told her manager she'd found her sound. "I went back to write with him again, and we wrote Ex's and Oh's," she says. "Those two songs really set the tone for the whole album."

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on. Around the time Mark Ronson was recording part of Uptown Funk across town at Royal Studio, he, King and co-producer Jeff Bhasker got together at Memphis' famed Sun Studio to record a track for her called Last Damn Night. "The piano that's on the song was a piano Jerry Lee Lewis played," King says. "There's a burn on the piano. Jerry Lee said he was putting out his cigar so everyone would know it was the piano Jerry Lee Lewis played."