Chappell Roanis opening up about her brand-new track “The Giver” — and about how her first foray into country music is allowing her to explore in ways that pop music hasn’t.
On Thursday, March 13’s episode ofAmazon Music’sCountry Heat Weeklypodcast, the “Hot to Go!” singer, 27, spoke with hosts Kelly Sutton and Amber Anderson about “The Giver” and her decision to write a lesbian country song, following all of her pop hits from her debut album,The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
“Well, I can’t call myself the Midwest princess and not acknowledge country music, straight up,” the singer — born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in Missouri — tells Sutton and Anderson.
Chappell Roan.Amazon Music/YouTube
Amazon Music/YouTube
For Roan, “The Giver” wasn’t about “invading” country music with a song about her identity, but it was a chance to capture the essence of the genre.
“I wrote a country song not to invade country music, but to really capture what I think, the essence of country music is, for me, which is nostalgia, and fun in the summertime, and the fiddle, and the banjo feeling like country queen,” she says. “It makes me feel a certain type of freedom that pop music doesn’t let me feel.”
Her pivot from pop to country was something she simply “had to do,” she tells Sutton and Anderson.
“I think it’s interesting and I had to do it. I had to do it for myself to know what is it actually like to write a country song and perform it next to’Casual' or next to ‘My Kink Is Karma’or next to ‘Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl’ I just had to do myself justice.”
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The star has previously been candid about her love for queer culture, and even booked all drag queens as her opening acts during her 2023 Naked in North America tour.
“It’s just a great way to engage the local queer community to that city,“she told PEOPLE at the time. “I encourage people to tip the queens, that’s redistributing funds within the community there, and also it just gives a platform for the drag queens. Some of these queens have never performed in front of a crowd that big before, and it’s just fun.”
Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” hits streaming platforms on Friday, March 14.
source: people.com
