Chappell Roan Calls Country Music “Incredibly Camp” After Releasing Single “The Giver”

Chappell Roan is embracing her country roots and flipping the genre on its head by releasing a country queer anthem. After months of teasing her new single, the Grammy winner finally released “The Giver” on March 13, reminding fans that she is indeed a country girl at heart.

Roan first debuted the fiddle-heavy song during her performance on Saturday Night Live in November 2024 but made fans wait several months for its release. After a long campaign of fun billboards and cosplaying as male-dominated jobs, Roan’s “The Giver” finally came out. In a recent interview with Apple Music’s The Kelleigh Bannen Show, Roan broke down her process of creating the song and explained how “incredibly camp” country can actually be.

Both Roan and Bannen spoke about how queer country music can be — right down to the chaps — despite the genre often being dominated by cis white men and women. But despite the underrepresentation for openly-queer country stars, Roan pointed out that those making the music and many fans are often part of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Even if it’s not the artist that’s gay singing — girl, those backup singers, those girls on tour, the people playing banjo — there are gay people making the music,” Roan said. “There are a lot of drag queens who do country music all over the world. Name a girl who hasn’t done ‘Before He Cheats’ [by Carrie Underwood].”

She continued: “Let’s not cut off the fans that are gay and love country.”

Roan said she found inspiration for the single through artists including Shania Twain, Alan Jackson, Miranda Lambert, George Strait, and others. She also said she used Nashville singers and musicians to create the sound.

While the lyrics poke fun at the stereotypical “country boy” in the song, Roan also expresses gratitude for those she grew up with for many reasons — including teaching her to stand up for herself. “It’s different where we grew up,” Roan says of her upbringing in southwest Missouri, where she says she was surrounded by boys who often talked down to women and girls.

“I had to unlearn that, you are not going to make me feel inferior just because I’m a girl,” she said. “I was not just born with that.”

Roan also said that she once felt she “left everything behind” in Missouri after she moved to Los Angeles and had a “revelation” about her queer identity, but now realizes now that country music never left her: “It’s in my blood.”

“I don’t 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,” she said.

“I’m not mad at myself for doing that, it’s all I knew what to do.”

Chappell Roan said that she took a “pretty painful” part of her upbringing in the Midwest and turned it into a “song of joy.”