Chappell Roan for Apple Music Country. Photo:
Courtesy of Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country
While Chappell Roan may joke that her new track “The Giver” is a “lesbian country song,” she still has some love for country boys.
Speaking with Kelleigh Bannen for Apple Music Country, the singer-songwriter opened up about her love for country and her decision to transition to the a sound for her upcoming single — which she first debuted during her performance on Saturday Night Live in November — after making her debut with pop album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
“I wonder if people are going to revolt against me making a very clearly lesbian song, where I poke fun at country boys… I’ve dated a few,” she jokingly tells Bannen. “I love a country boy. I love them. I love a man who can shovel horse manure. I love that. I love a man who will sit in grass. I’ve dated a farm boy. I’ve dated someone who worked on a dairy farm.”
“But I’ve also dated someone who will literally not sit on grass, and not touch a bug,” Roan, 27, adds. “I appreciate the country way. But also, you will find me making fun of them all… Why do we keep having songs about women not being satisfied?”
Chappell Roan and Kelleigh Bannen. Courtesy of Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country
Born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz in Missouri, Roan has also been candid about how her music and fashion sense has been influenced by drag and by her identity as a queer woman.
“I think I have a special relationship to where I’m from because of country music. And so to kind of honor that part of myself by making a country song where it’s like, ‘You know what? Yes, I am gay and yes, I am ultra pop. Yes, I am a drag queen. You can also perform a country song.'” she says.
“And there’s a lot of drag queens who do country music all over the world. Name a girl who hasn’t done ‘Before He Cheats.’ Name a girl that hasn’t done ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman,'” Roan continues.
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Dating boys before she was exposed to the world of queer culture was still formative, Roan says, and she has learned not to “hate myself for not knowing everything about the queer culture at the time.”
“I don’t hate myself for coming from Missouri and not knowing any lesbians. I don’t hate myself for being closeted and hating myself. Of course, you do,” she says. “Every person in the Midwest and south, especially, these tiny towns, are taught to not only keep it down, but hate it away or pray it away. And I’m not mad at myself for doing that. It’s all I knew what to do. That’s all you’re told to do.”
Before long, though, she realized she needed to “move to LA, have a revelation, and write a country song to wrap it all up and be like, I love myself for loving country music and I love myself that I came around the other side,” she says.
“I love myself so much that I took a leap into a pretty painful part of my past in the Midwest and made a song of joy,” Roan continues.
Despite her poking fun at country boys in the new track, the pop-turned-country credits a lot of her favorite growing up in Missouri to the men in her life that “treated me the best… and the worst.”
“I’m about to say something so controversial, but do you know who has treated me the best and the worst? Country boys. They treated me the nicest and they’ve also treated me the worst because… this is in high school and that’s what I grew up around,” she tells Bannen. “Those are the boys I grew up around and that’s how I learned to stand up for myself, because you’re not going to look at me and be like, ‘Shh, shh, shh.’ That’s how I learned that I am never going to have this done to me ever again.”
‘Yes, I am gay and yes, I am ultra pop. Yes, I am a drag queen. You can also perform a country song,’ Roan says. Courtesy of Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music Country
“I began my confidence in feeling kind of inferior to a lot of the boys around me growing up. And so whenever I pointed out at that photographer on the red carpet at the VMAs, I heard boys at my freaking high school telling girls to shut the…up,” Roan continues. “And I know that’s not exclusive to country. That’s not exclusive to Southern culture. That’s not exclusive to any culture. It’s universal.”
The musician says that not being afraid to share her mind — something she’s been candid about, especially in public confrontations with photographers she’s accused of rude behavior — is something she’s had to unlearn from the culture she was raised in.
“… I don’t care that I was raised to be ladylike. I don’t care. I don’t care about being trashy. I don’t care about looking sexy. These are all things I had to unlearn,” Roan says. “I had to unlearn, like, ‘Actually you are not going to make me feel inferior just because I’m a young girl.’ I had to pull myself up, and that is straight up why I’m here.”
Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” is streaming now. The full conversation on Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen is available on Apple Music Country radio on Friday, March 14 beginning at 10 a.m. ET.
