Carving a niche for herself in music was important for Lisa Marie Presley. Being known as the only child of the king of rock 'n' roll simply wasn't enough.
"I don't really know what that has to do with me and my own feeling ofworth and value in the world," Presley says in a phone interview from Los Angeles.
"Not to say that I'm not proud of where I come from," she says, "but it doesn't necessarily give me any satisfaction that I'm connected to someone else who was amazing. I want to be able to do my own thing, too. Not tothe degree that he did it, because that's impossible, but sort of make my own path."
Elvis' daughter, 37, has just released her second album, "Now What." Her music is dark and visceral – equal parts Pink, Evanescence and Avril Lavigne – and her lyrics are tough, angst-ridden and occasionally vulnerable.
Although she's been singing and writing songs for years, Presley didn't enter a recording studio until 2002.
"I knew that if I did this I would have to be fully committed, and really back it up, and give it everything I have," she explains. "And prior to that, I simply had other priorities. I had children.
"I was busy building my own foundation, so that I'd have the strength to do whatever it is I have to do in life."
Presley's bloodline, as well as her brief and well-publicized marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage, are the stuff of endless gossip, finger-wagging and rumor-mongering.
(She does not talk about her famous ex-husbands; any mention of Jackson, in particular, brings a quick change of subject.)
Growing up rich and famous, she says, doesn't insulate you from hurt and humiliation – especially when you're trying to launch a singing career.
"There's good with the bad to every aspect of life – you have your privileges and your penalties with everything," Presley says. "The more you're known, the more you're out there, the more you're going to get criticized and your life's going to become everyone else's – everyone's going to judge you, and you're going to have to deal with a hell of a lot more public scrutiny than you would if you didn't have these kinds of privileges."
To do what she's done, she stresses, "You gotta have some thick skin. You can work at a regular job and not be known, be struggling but be relatively happy – but you don't have to work with people openly commentating and judging you all over the place.
"And attacking you," she says. "Ridiculing you."
Reviews of her first album, "To Whom it May Concern," were generally favorable. And "Now What," which includes Presley's cover of the Don Henley song "Dirty Laundry," is selling briskly.
And that makes her feel good.
"Ultimately, I know the music does affect people – the fans," Presley says. "And when I hear that from them, I go, 'OK, that's why I'm doing this. I'm helping people with my music.'"
And that whole Elvis thing?
"Although I'll never break through that entirely, I broke through a good part of it and got a good fan base based on my music," Presley reports.
"That makes it easier this time, because at least I know they're out there," she says. "They're about the music and not anything else."