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Elle King on Being ‘Worst Dressed,’ Meeting Her In-Laws (and Taylor Swift!) — and the Reba Song She’d Name a Child After

Elle King on Life After Divorce: I Pulled Myself Out of a Tough Place

It’s been a whirlwind couple of years for rocker Elle King. Since dropping her debut album Love Stuff in February 2015, the “Ex’s and Oh’s” singer has gone on to earn two Grammy nominations, headline her own tour and open for the Dixie Chicks, get engaged and team up with Dierks Bentley for a country crossover duet — which earned her a CMA Award last month for Musical Event of the Year and a Grammy nomination earlier this week.

On Friday, King, 27, dropped by Samsung 837 in New York City, where she premiered the virtual reality video clip Up Close and Personal before delighting the crowd with an electrifying set.

PEOPLE caught up with the singer ahead of the Samsung event, which will likely serve as a bookend to her first album’s era.

“It’s my first kid, and you raise this baby — and then you send it off to school, and it’s like, ‘It’s in your hands now.’ Not that I would know, because I don’t have a baby, but I imagine this as my first kid, and it’s like, ‘Well, I did my best with it, and I’m gonna go make another kid,'” said King. “So I’m gonna do the holidays and start thinking about making a new record.”

You’re done promoting Love Stuff now: Do you you feel any pressure going into your second album, following all the success you’ve had?

It’s just crazy. There’s definitely pressure — there was pressure making my first album because I never knew how to make an album, and then making a sophomore album is like, “Woah!” My problem is: How do I stay true to my sound and give my fans myself but also show the evolution of how I’ve grown as a musician and as a person? There’s something cool about doing something totally different, but I feel like there has been this evolution of music that me and my band have, we’ve kind of untapped this new different sound that we like, but it’s still us, it’s still me.

On top of all your solo success, you and Dierks Bentley won big at the CMAs.

I won an award! I’ve never won anything in my life.

It looked like you were the belle of the ball that night.

I got “Worst Dressed.” Isn’t that awful? How cool was my outfit? I’m sorry, have you seen any T-shirt or back pocket of any jeans on anyone that’s in country music? It’s like, thread and rhinestones and fringe. for the CMAs! I was upset. It’s really silly, though because people shouldn’t…but then if I got “Best Dressed,” I wouldn’t be like, “People shouldn’t be judged!” But I thought it was silly because I really loved my outfit. I thought it was so fun. I f—ing rocked it. I had so much fun the whole night. And I look at the list of the other people they said , and I thought they looked beautiful. So I think it’s kind of biased. But it doesn’t matter — I didn’t need to win a Best Dressed because I won an award that night, so whatever.

You basically met the entire country music community at the CMAs — Reba McEntire, Billy Ray Cyrus, Taylor Swift

First of all, I need to say, that picture of me and Reba was my most-liked picture on Instagram, ever — because it’s Reba! Honestly, me and Fergie, if we have a daughter, we want to name our daughter “Fancy” after my favorite Reba song.

But yeah, I met Taylor, and she was actually the nicest person ever — just really warm and inviting and not fake at all, and I’m really happy that I got to have that experience, to get to know her a little bit. And I can literally only say really nice things about her. And I met Kelsea Ballerini; that was really fun.

And I love Kacey Musgraves so much, and we always end up finding each other at these silly award things. I feel like she’s the secret bad girl of country: That’s why people love her because a lot of the things that she sings about or talks about aren’t traditional in the cookie-cutter country world. And people love that; that’s why people love me in the pop world.

I wish the best for Dierks. He’s become one of my dearest friends, and I hope the best for him. And I’m just so grateful that he gave me this glimpse into the country world, and I’ll never forget it. I didn’t know him — I’d never met him; we met in the studio — and we were like, “I kinda get along with you! I like you!” I got close to his whole crew and his wife , and I gained a really good friend out of it. So hopefully he’ll do a song with me on my next record. I need a duet on my record.

You met your in-laws on Thanksgiving: How did that go?

I’d never met my in-laws, and I cooked for 18 people, and they loved it. His dad is kind of a fussy eater, but he loved my turkey and he wants the recipe! We got along beautifully. I love my mother-in-law; my father-in-law is just lovely. And honestly, it wasn’t even weird — our families instantly got along.

For our families to be growing — we kind of have a mish-mosh family anyway, and that’s what’s wonderful: They’re so accepting to all these people that I bring in. For in-laws to get along like that, it was a beautiful thing; a first-time for me. I’ve never dated anybody where our parents met or anything — it was just really amazing. I couldn’t be happier.