British chanteuse Ellie Goulding is riding high. She’s had a No. 1 album in her native Britain and is set to make her biggest U.S. television appearance ever this weekend on “Saturday Night Live.” But even with “SNL” host Tina Fey on board, it might be a little tough to top AccessHollywood.com’s newest Rising Star’s rather Royal gig last week.

“We did like quite a big set… and it was just like a kind of a gig really — forgetting who it was for,” the powerfully-piped Ellie told Access Hollywood of performing for Prince William and his bride, Catherine, the new Duchess of Cambridge, at the Royal Wedding reception, last Friday night. “We did some covers and we did some original material and just had a really amazing time. Me and my band just keep sort of talking, going, ‘Did we really do that? Really?’ I kind of feel like there are so many singers out there, so I’m in a happy place because of it.”

Plenty of singers, yes, but not many of them with Ellie’s diversity and crossover power.

“When I was younger, I was really just into pop music… [I was] obsessed with [the] Spice Girls, Take That, so I got a real pop sensibility… And as I was getting older, through my teenage years, I became a bit kind of angst-y and I started listening to grunge bands. So, my voice can be quite scratchy and sort of powerful and that kind of comes from listening to those kinds of bands, like Pearl Jam,” Ellie explained of her trademark voice. “Then I discovered kind of female vocalists – Imogen Heap, Bjork, Ani DeFranco… Then, when I got to [college], I discovered electronic music. … that’s when I really started writing and when I really found who I was.”