It’s been two years since Chappell Roan dropped her debut LP, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, and she’s kept her fans satiated since that time with the singles “Good Luck, Babe!,” “The Giver,” and “The Subway.” But in a new interview with Vogue, Roan revealed that her long-awaited second album isn’t even close to ready.
“The second project doesn’t exist yet,” she said. “There is no album. There is no collection of songs…It took me five years to write the first one, and it’s probably going to take at least five to write the next.”
She understands that some fans are frustrated, but she needs them to understand that she has to work at her own pace. “I’m not that type of writer that can pump it out,” she said. “I don’t think I make good music whenever I force myself to do anything. I see some comments sometimes, like, ‘She’s everywhere except that damn studio.’ Even if I was in the studio 12 hours a day, every single day, that does not mean that you would get an album any faster.”
Roan didn’t create videos for “Good Luck, Babe!” or “The Giver.” But for “The Subway,” she shot an elaborate one where she parties on a subway train, pursues an odd figure with green hair, and gets dragged around New York City in a series of long, tangled, Cousin Itt-like wigs. It’s been viewed nearly 4.5 million times in just two days.
“I didn’t want it to be super serious,” she says. “It is a serious song, but at the same time it’s not, because I say, ‘Fuck this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan.’ It’s not that serious.”
Roan fans frustrated by the potential long wait for her next album at least have numerous opportunities to see her live over the next few months. She’s in the middle of an extensive run of European festivals right now, and she heads back to the United States in America where she’ll play four nights at Forest Hills Stadium in New York City, two nights at Museum and Memorial Park in Kansas City, Missouri, and two nights at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
“This pace is good right now,” Roan said. “This feels good and manageable. I feel like, for the first time in over a year, I can finally be excited about going to work and doing my job.”
