“I just didn't know how to process it, and sometimes I still don't know how to process it! I was 17 when I got signed, and it just felt like a whirlwind. “I just had no idea what was going on,” she says, reflecting on the speed that things picked up for her at such a young age. Just six months later, she was signed to Atlantic Records, and her School Nights EP was released in September 2017. Taking up the piano aged 12, by age 16 Roan had written a melancholy song called Die Young, accompanied by a video she created on her own. However, pining for her hometown and struggling to adjust to the supposed glitz and glamour of Hollywood did inspire her single, California, which took her three years to write a stark contrast to how quickly things have come together for her before. I feel like I’m a little too country, but I'm not country! In California I missed the seasons I missed the simplicity of the Midwest.” I feel like I don't really fit into the pop writing industry. “I was having such a hard time finding myself, and I still feel this way. “I did not know what to write about until I moved to California,” Roan admits straight away. However, when she arrived, she wasn’t feeling it. In 2018 Chappell Roan – armed with the hair of a mermaid, the spellbinding voice of an old soul and an Instagram account you’re going to want to follow – packed everything she owned into the back of her car and drove for three days straight from her tiny Missouri hometown to make L.A her home.
