“I Am the Queer Community”: Chappell Roan on Making Pop Music and Giving Back

Chappell Roan's full-length album debut, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, is out September 22 .

At 17 , Roan signed with Atlantic Records after being discovered on YouTube .

She moved to Los Angeles where she lived until the record label dropped her when her 2020 single, “Pink Pony Club,” didn’t hit the numbers the label had hoped for.

Roan returned to the midwest , where she continued to write songs between gigs.

A lot of the songs are just enhanced versions of what happened or maybe they never happened at all.

With “Pink Pony Club,” I was inspired by a gay club, but obviously I'm not from Tennessee and I've never danced on stage at a club.

The first six months of this year I didn't wear color [offstage] because I couldn't handle it.

The song and dance remind me a little of Miley Cyrus’s “ Hoedown Throwdown ” I wanted a cheer song. So literally what I did was google classic cheerleading cheers. And I just picked Hot to Go.

I think there's value in admitting a sort of sadness, or a feeling of missing out, in being transparent about that.