Neu Class of 2022: Role Model

“Someone came up to me at a meet and greet and said that they’d describe my music as sad and horny,” Role Model beams over Zoom. “I thought that was really beautiful…”

Now at a point in his career where he’s used to hoards of fans lining up for meet and greets, and with his “sad and horny” bops currently gaining more and more universal acclaim, it’s hard to think that at one point Role Model - aka 24-year-old Tucker Pillsbury - didn’t have a plan to make music at all.

Raised in Maine without - he professes - a single “musical bone” in his body, Tucker originally studied film before a chance meeting with two friends at the end of his freshman year would go on to derail his academic plans entirely. Seeing them record music in their dorm, Tucker decided to try his hand at penning songs; when they left him some recording equipment, he soon fell in love with the process. But his route to success wasn’t all smooth sailing.

“[The music] was horrible in the beginning,” he laughs. “I started rapping, and those [songs] are horrible! I’ve made sure they do not exist on the internet anymore. But there was a point where I changed my name to Role Model and I put out my first song under that name called ‘Cocaine Babe’ on SoundCloud, and immediately it did far better than anything I had ever put out. I was like, this is cool, it feels more like me.”

Based around a sample from soul band Penny and the Quarters, ‘Cocaine Babe’ found Role Model taking inspiration from ‘50s and ‘60s pop-rock - alongside his love of rap - to craft sounds that would eventually become the lo-fi, lovelorn pop he’s now known for. However, following the track with 2017 debut EP ‘Arizona In The Summer’ (recorded in his “disgusting” dorm closet), Tucker found that he’d hit upon the right sound but it still wasn’t getting the traction he had hoped for. He was almost about to call it quits, but then came a phone notification that would change everything…

“Out of nowhere, Mac Miller’s manager had DM’d me and said that he and Mac loved the EP,” he recalls. “I screamed. I was in my little apartment at the time and I remember throwing my phone. I remember needing to get out all my excitement, so I went out of my apartment and ran up and down the stairs in my building.”

Tucker pinpoints that moment as changing his life, and he still considers what the late rapper would think every time he sits down to write. “Would he fuck with this song? Would he think that this line is corny? I think that’s just his power: he really is just someone you look up to the second you meet them.”