Chappell Roan

Chappell Roan

Lisa Cox, Radio Austin

RadioAustinTexas.com

Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (born February 19, 1998), known professionally as Chappell Roan, is an American singer and songwriter. Working with collaborator Dan Nigro, the majority of her music is inspired by 1980s synth-pop and early 2000s pop hits. Her aesthetic is heavily influenced by drag queens, and her music and performing style have been described as “campy”.

Chappell Roan: The Actual Rise of This Midwest Princess

School Nights

When Chappell refers to herself as a “Midwest princess,” she’s not kidding! Born just outside of Springfield, Missouri, in February 1998, the artist born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz was a regular church-goer who harbored ambitions that exceeded what her small town could offer. She first tapped into this as a teenager, when she felt compelled to “write the greatest love song of all time” for a crush. Kayleigh’s family sent her to music camps in the summer; speaking to “Vanity Fair” in 2023, she mused that those camps were where she “learned how to write songs” and, for the first time, was around “people who were passionate about writing poems and being emotional. I just didn’t have that growing up. I had friends in theater, but the writing was different.” Going to church camp, though? Roan has definitively described the experience as “not it.”

Die Young

While attending a music summer program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Roan — then going by the stage name “Kayleigh Rose” — wrote “Die Young,” which she uploaded to YouTube in November 2014. The song, as well as Roan’s other YouTube uploads, impressed record label execs at Atlantic; a few short months after the release of “Die Young,” she had a record deal. At this point, Roan was convinced she was on top of the world: speaking to the Guardian, she revealed that, aged 17, she “thought [she] was gonna win a Grammy.” It was around this time that she adopted her now-iconic stage name, a portmanteau of her late grandfather’s surname and “The Strawberry Roan” by Curley Fletcher, which she has said was Dennis Chappell’s favorite song.

Good Hurt

It goes without saying that Roan is beloved for her campy, wildly over-the-top visuals, an aesthetic that spreads to every aspect of her performance style. However, the “original” Chappell Roan, while still poppy, was dark, moody, and atmospheric. This is evidenced by the sound of the 2017 single “Good Hurt,” released while Roan was still signed to Atlantic. Far from an exuberant queer anthem, “Good Hurt” is much more reminiscent of “dark pop” artists like Lorde or Banks than what we now know her sound to be. The following month, Roan released “School Nights,” her debut EP, and toured with Vance Joy later in the year. Despite these achievements, as well as warm critical notices, a significant setback was on the horizon.

Femininomenon

Roan moved to Los Angeles where, for the next few years, she made moves to further her career. It wasn’t exactly the dream life she’d envisioned. Looking back on this period of her life, Roan described the overwhelming isolation she felt, despite being able to truly embrace her queerness for the first time since moving out of Missouri: “You can’t do anything in LA or anywhere if you’re under 21 ’cause everyone just goes out and I was so sad.” 2020 seemed to get off to a promising start, with Roan beginning a creative partnership with Dan Nigro, who would soon score a massive hit with Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License.” Together, Roan and Nigro wrote “Pink Pony Club,” one of the first indications of what was to come creatively. While things were looking up, they didn’t stay that way for long — in August 2020, Atlantic dropped Roan due to her relative lack of mainstream success. Essentially, she was right back where she’d started in 2017.

Naked in Manhattan

Getting dropped by Atlantic was devastating, personally and professionally, to Roan. It was at this point that she returned to Missouri to reassess things. In a 2024 Paper magazine interview with Trixie Mattel, she recalled: “I had moved back in with my parents during the pandemic because I couldn’t get a job in LA, and I was like, “I have to give this a shot, one more year.” With Nigro’s attention diverted after “Driver’s License” blew up, she returned to her roots: “I was working at a donut shop. No money. That’s what I was doing. “My Kink is Karma,” “Naked in Manhattan,” it was all with my friends and for free.” While using her phone’s notes app to write the songs that would eventually appear on “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” Roan plotted her return to Los Angeles.

Red Wine Supernova

Roan landed back in L.A. in October 2020. The Washington Post notes that, while making music independently, “she would sell out shows without label support, sewing her own over-the-top clothes and learning to do drag for sets bursting with energy and call-and-response choruses.” After a year of working part-time jobs on the side, she signed with Sony Music, and shortly thereafter, collaborated with a newly-free Nigro to release the aforementioned “Naked in Manhattan.” At the same time, she was establishing her quirky, idiosyncratic TikTok presence. Juggling all of the above was no cakewalk; Roan recalled that it felt like “hell most of the time trying to get it together as an independent artist and also having a part-time job.” As if that wasn’t enough, Roan was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder at around the same time.

Good Luck, Babe!

Throughout 2023, Roan released singles from the then-forthcoming “Midwest Princess” album. “Midwest Princess” at first seemed to follow a disappointingly familiar pattern for Roan. Although it was critically acclaimed, with The A.V. Club, Time, and Nylon all ranking it within their top 10 albums released in 2023, it failed to chart on the Billboard 200. This changed drastically in early 2024, when she opened for Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts World Tour, and most crucially of all, once she released her breakthrough single, “Good Luck, Babe!” The rousing, unabashedly queer synthpop belter was streamed over 7 million times in the week of its release. Following a Coachella set a few weeks later, Roan had been cemented as a contemporary pop icon, with “Midwest Princess” now having sold over 400,000 units. Already a queer icon for the ages, this princess is almost more akin to a phoenix, rising from the ashes in a fiery red blaze. She’s since spoken about struggling with her sudden rise to fame. However, she’s also talked about the incredible support that she’s received from other women in the industry. With her undeniable talent, and already dedicated community of fans, Chappell Roan’s journey is just beginning.

Chappel Roan

Chappell Roan Website

Last updated 08/16/2024

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