Few things give a budding pop star their bona fides quite like proving their major label wrong. And that’s exactly what Chappel Roan did with “Pink Pony Club,” the 2020 single she fought to release, which has become one of the hits fueling her massive 2024 rise.
In her new Roling Stone cover story, Roan spoke about the saga behind the song, which she co-wrote with producer Dan Nigro. Both were enthusiastic about the track and believed it could reach a wide audience, but Roan revealed that Atlantic tried to discourage her from even releasing it.
“I was so devastated,” Roan recalled. “It made me second-guess myself.”
Eventually, Atlantic acquiesced and released “Pink Pony Club,” and the initial reactions were even positive. But not long after, as the entire industry floundered during the pandemic, the label dropped Roan from their roster.
Over the next few years, Roan moved back to her hometown in Missouri, took stock of her life and career, spent time with her family, and eventually returned to Los Angeles to start working on music again. In the interim, “Pink Pony Club” was accumulating streams organically, and a devoted fanbase was growing. By the end of 2022, Roan had piqued label interest again, but she was determined not to wind up in another bad situation.
“I put the labels through hell,” she said. “Hell. I was like, ‘Give me a [pitch] deck on how you would market me. Give me a deck on what you would do with my career. What do you see in five years? If you can’t even do it in a hypothetical situation, you don’t know how to figure it out. I’m definitely not signing to your ass.”
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Eventually, Roan inked a deal with Island via Nigro’s imprint, Amusement Records, gaining all the creative freedom and resources she needed to launch the next phase of her career. Since then, she’s been able to embrace a variety of styles and create the kind of brilliantly chaotic and weird image she always dreamed of — two things, she said, Atlantic also warned her against.
“It feels so good to prove them wrong because they weren’t just a little wrong,” Roan said of her old label. “They were really, really, really wrong. To know that my gut instinct was right is the best feeling in the world. Purposeful revenge does not feel good, but revenge by accident feels awesome.” (Atlantic declined to comment on the cover story.)
