As a teenager, Elle King began performing in bars around New York City. She decided to go by her mother's last name instead of using her famous father's, insisting that she wanted to make a life for herself independent of the fact that her dad was in "Little Nicky." She later explained to People, "I didn't want to be known as someone's kid. I wanted to be my own person." Still, she confessed that her upbringing probably gave her some advantages that other people didn't have. "I grew up around really funny, talented, creative people," she said. "Of course that's going to leave an imprint on me."

King first received press for her rocked-up cover of Khia's raunchy ode to female pleasure, "My Neck, My Back." She told Billboard that she covered the song to get attention, explaining, "I started singing that song and people kinda turned their head and said, 'What did she just say?' And it just became a thing."

She released the cover on an EP called, fittingly, "The Elle King EP." After years of gigging her way around the music scene, it appeared that things were finally looking up. She played SXSW in 2013, telling The Austin Chronicle that she was excited about where her career was headed. She said, "I'm really not good at anything else, so if I don't make it as a musician, I'll probably just end up living in the woods with a bunch of dogs."