Campy, Glittery Pop Star of the Future

Pink plastic cows and fake aqua-blue trucks decorated the lobby of the Wiltern during the last night of Chappell Roan’s U.S. Midwest Princess Tour in November. Her fans — donning sparkly devil horns and bedazzled bralettes decorated with hearts — posed for photos in front of the backdrops as they made their way into the art deco Los Angeles venue, where death-dropping drag queens lip-synced on stage.

“The Wiltern… It doesn’t feel like a gay club, you know what I mean? It’s proper. It’s very fancy,” Roan, 26, says. “That’s why I did so much work to make sure that right as you walk in, you’re immediately in a different world.”

It’s just one example of how the singer born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz — who has described Chappell Roan as “a drag-queen version of myself” — is building her own glittery universe, one song and show at a time. Before she hit the road last fall, she announced themes for each of her concerts: Pink Cowgirl in Chicago and D.C, Slumber Party in Berkeley, Angels vs. Devils in Las Vegas and Orlando. “I wanna see makeup beat, outfits serving cvnt, wigs snatched,” she instructed. And each night, her fans turned out. She also hand-picked a trio of local drag performers to open for her at each show, and selected LGBTQ-friendly bars in each city so her fans could meet and hang before and after every show.

“I was just like, ‘How do we make this an inviting, fun environment immediately?’” she says, bare-faced and messy-haired over Zoom from her L.A. apartment. It’s her first time home after three straight months on the road.

Since dropping 2022’s “Pink Pony Club,” in which she sings about a utopian nightclub “where boys and girls can all be queens every single day,” Roan has put a lot of effort into channeling that sentiment into her own artistic output. By doing so, she’s built a fierce, tightknit, largely queer fanbase that’s rapidly expanding to the general population. (As Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones once said in Sex and the City: “First come the gays, then the girls, then the industry.”)

It’s been a whirlwind two years for Roan. After the success of “Pink Pony Club,” she signed to Island Records, releasing a steady number of singles up through the release of her critically acclaimed debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Over synthy, Eighties-inspired melodies and irreverent lyrics, she grappled with her identity as a queer person growing up in Missouri.

Her music, her drag persona, her DIY, campy aesthetic, and her energy-filled stage presence have connected so much with her fans that she’s quickly become one of the most promising voices in pop music. 

Following the success of her first record, Roan says she’s giving herself some grace as she starts to work with her producer, Dan Nigro — known for working closely with Olivia Rodrigo and Conan Gray — to make a new round of music that she’s proud of.

“I’m just not going to put pressure on myself to try to match that energy, because that’s where you get in a trap where you’re like, ‘How do I recreate this?’” she says. “You have to write 80 bad songs and then you can get 15 good ones.”

Roan feels a lot of gratitude about her newfound fame. Although Midwest Princess marked the singer’s debut, she released a moody, Lorde-esque EP in 2017 when she was signed to Atlantic. After the project underperformed, she was dropped from that label and had to move back to Missouri.

“I needed to get my ass beat,” she says now. “If I had been really successful with my first EP and that version of myself, I think I would be miserable right now.”

When she spoke to Rolling Stone, she had just two songs half-completed for the new project: one that references the Cranberries and another that she says is “Hot To Go!” meets “Naked in Manhattan,” two of the standouts on her debut. In the days before the interview, Roan says she and Nigro had a melody they were struggling to write lyrics to. They decided to shelve it and pulled out an “old song we worked on last year,” which they revived into a new song.

She’s in the “experimenting” stage of her new music, but she’s interested in dabbling with organic Nineties pop-rock in her sound. It’s an era of music she thinks the new generation of pop listeners will connect to.

“Our generation is pissed, and it’s going to be so Nineties — like, ‘Fuck you. We’re going to stand up for what we actually care about,’” she says. “We’re seeing behind the curtain… Our generation is really standing up for what we love and that represents itself in the music.”

Roan says she writes something — a lyric, a poem, a thought, anything — every day, even on tour. “It’s basically working out,” she says. “Building the strength to write again, because it’s such a different mode of my brain.”

She’s also “researching constantly” by going to shows, checking out new music, and reading poems and fiction. Recently, she read Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (“It’s about this depressed girl being insane”), and she’s been addicted to Nineties Bollywood films like DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. 

“I love the campiness and the fact that there’s no shame about the story just making no sense sometimes,” she says. “It’s pure and magical, and that’s really inspiring to me.” Another big visual inspiration? 1995’s Showgirls, “the campiest, most beautiful, unhinged movie.”

This year, she’s been playing arenas as an opener for Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour. She hasn’t had much time to rest, but she’s not about to complain. “This just rocks,” she says. “It’s amazing to be living up my little pop-star life. It’s so slay.”

Pink plastic cows and fake aqua-blue trucks decorated the lobby of the Wiltern during the last night of Chappell Roan’s U.S. Midwest Princess Tour in November. Her fans — donning sparkly devil horns and bedazzled bralettes decorated with hearts — posed for photos in front of the backdrops as they made their way into the art deco Los Angeles venue, where death-dropping drag queens lip-synced on stage.

“The Wiltern… It doesn’t feel like a gay club, you know what I mean? It’s proper. It’s very fancy,” Roan, 26, says. “That’s why I did so much work to make sure that right as you walk in, you’re immediately in a different world.”

It’s just one example of how the singer born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz — who has described Chappell Roan as “a drag-queen version of myself” — is building her own glittery universe, one song and show at a time. Before she hit the road last fall, she announced themes for each of her concerts: Pink Cowgirl in Chicago and D.C, Slumber Party in Berkeley, Angels vs. Devils in Las Vegas and Orlando. “I wanna see makeup beat, outfits serving cvnt, wigs snatched,” she instructed. And each night, her fans turned out. She also hand-picked a trio of local drag performers to open for her at each show, and selected LGBTQ-friendly bars in each city so her fans could meet and hang before and after every show.

“I was just like, ‘How do we make this an inviting, fun environment immediately?’” she says, bare-faced and messy-haired over Zoom from her L.A. apartment. It’s her first time home after three straight months on the road.

Since dropping 2022’s “Pink Pony Club,” in which she sings about a utopian nightclub “where boys and girls can all be queens every single day,” Roan has put a lot of effort into channeling that sentiment into her own artistic output. By doing so, she’s built a fierce, tightknit, largely queer fanbase that’s rapidly expanding to the general population. (As Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones once said in Sex and the City: “First come the gays, then the girls, then the industry.”)

It’s been a whirlwind two years for Roan. After the success of “Pink Pony Club,” she signed to Island Records, releasing a steady number of singles up through the release of her critically acclaimed debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Over synthy, Eighties-inspired melodies and irreverent lyrics, she grappled with her identity as a queer person growing up in Missouri.

Her music, her drag persona, her DIY, campy aesthetic, and her energy-filled stage presence have connected so much with her fans that she’s quickly become one of the most promising voices in pop music. 

Following the success of her first record, Roan says she’s giving herself some grace as she starts to work with her producer, Dan Nigro — known for working closely with Olivia Rodrigo and Conan Gray — to make a new round of music that she’s proud of.

“I’m just not going to put pressure on myself to try to match that energy, because that’s where you get in a trap where you’re like, ‘How do I recreate this?’” she says. “You have to write 80 bad songs and then you can get 15 good ones.”

Roan feels a lot of gratitude about her newfound fame. Although Midwest Princess marked the singer’s debut, she released a moody, Lorde-esque EP in 2017 when she was signed to Atlantic. After the project underperformed, she was dropped from that label and had to move back to Missouri.

“I needed to get my ass beat,” she says now. “If I had been really successful with my first EP and that version of myself, I think I would be miserable right now.”

When she spoke to Rolling Stone, she had just two songs half-completed for the new project: one that references the Cranberries and another that she says is “Hot To Go!” meets “Naked in Manhattan,” two of the standouts on her debut. In the days before the interview, Roan says she and Nigro had a melody they were struggling to write lyrics to. They decided to shelve it and pulled out an “old song we worked on last year,” which they revived into a new song.

She’s in the “experimenting” stage of her new music, but she’s interested in dabbling with organic Nineties pop-rock in her sound. It’s an era of music she thinks the new generation of pop listeners will connect to.

“Our generation is pissed, and it’s going to be so Nineties — like, ‘Fuck you. We’re going to stand up for what we actually care about,’” she says. “We’re seeing behind the curtain… Our generation is really standing up for what we love and that represents itself in the music.”

Roan says she writes something — a lyric, a poem, a thought, anything — every day, even on tour. “It’s basically working out,” she says. “Building the strength to write again, because it’s such a different mode of my brain.”

She’s also “researching constantly” by going to shows, checking out new music, and reading poems and fiction. Recently, she read Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (“It’s about this depressed girl being insane”), and she’s been addicted to Nineties Bollywood films like DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. 

“I love the campiness and the fact that there’s no shame about the story just making no sense sometimes,” she says. “It’s pure and magical, and that’s really inspiring to me.” Another big visual inspiration? 1995’s Showgirls, “the campiest, most beautiful, unhinged movie.”

This year, she’s been playing arenas as an opener for Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour. She hasn’t had much time to rest, but she’s not about to complain. “This just rocks,” she says. “It’s amazing to be living up my little pop-star life. It’s so slay.”