On a humid July afternoon, Chappell Roan stands near the doors of a subway car, her fiery red hair framing her pale face. But the 27-year-old pop star—born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz—isn’t squeezed among New York’s commuters. Instead, she’s turned a decommissioned subway car at the New York Transit Museum into a strobe-lit club to film the music video for her latest single, The Subway.

Since debuting the song last year at Governors Ball, fans have begged for a studio version. Roan initially planned to release The Subway in April, then pushed it to June, then July. When it finally dropped last Thursday, it shot to number one on Spotify’s global chart, becoming the most-streamed debut by a female artist this year.

“I just wasn’t ready to put it out yet,” Roan admits in her trailer. “It was too painful. I was too angry and scared—about my life—to release it.” But now, she’s ready.

The Subway captures the jittery rush of running into an ex. “I couldn’t get over this one person,” Roan says as her glam team braids her hair and dusts her cheeks with pink. “While writing, I kept telling myself, ‘We’re done, we’re done.’ But the feelings were still there.”

Co-written with producer Daniel Nigro, the song was a creative challenge. Roan compares it to her earlier hit Casual—both in theme (wanting someone who won’t commit) and the grueling process. “It took forever to get right,” she says.

The music video was just as demanding. “I haven’t done one in years because they’re so hard—sometimes traumatic,” she admits. After releasing Good Luck, Babe! and The Giver earlier this year, she lacked the energy for visuals. “It’s a labor of love, and I wasn’t sure I had that love to give.”

But The Subway was different. Roan envisioned a campy New York adventure, chasing a green-haired, Cousin It-like heartbreaker through the city. “I didn’t want it too serious,” she says. “The song is emotional, but it’s also not—I literally say, ‘Fuck this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan.’”

The day after filming at the museum, fans spotted Roan on a Manhattan fire escape, her hair tumbling down like Rapunzel’s. Clips of her lip-syncing went viral, along with photos of her being dragged by a taxi—hair first. (“I can’t hide with this hair,” she laughs. “I’ve thought about cutting or dyeing it, but it’s part of my brand.”)

With her Grammy-winning debut The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess still buzzing, fans are already speculating about her next project—noticing her recent obsession with dragons, knights, and medieval themes, even in The Giver’s lyric video.Here’s a rewritten version of the text in fluent, natural English while preserving the original meaning:

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A DVD menu scrolls past tracks titled “To Be Yours” and “Read & Make Out.” But Roan clarifies, “The second project doesn’t exist yet. There’s no album, no collection of songs.”

She continues, “It took me five years to write the first one, and it’ll probably take at least five more for the next. I’m not the kind of writer who can crank things out quickly.” Roan also doesn’t believe in forcing creativity. “I don’t make good music when I push myself,” she says. “Sometimes I see comments like, ‘She’s everywhere except the damn studio.’ But even if I spent 12 hours a day in the studio, that wouldn’t mean an album would come any faster.”

These days, Roan only logs into Instagram to post before immediately deleting the app again. “Social media is terrible for me and my art,” she admits. “I’m done putting myself through that.” She’s curious to see how her work evolves without online influence. “I’ve never written an album without Instagram before,” she says. “This time, the process is entirely mine—no TikTok audience gets a peek.”

Besides, there’s plenty to experience in real life. Recently, Roan has been living in New York with her best friend and creative director, Ramisha Sattar. “I had to see what New York in your 20s is like—everyone talks about it,” she says. She loves exploring the food scene and biking around the city (“my favorite thing ever”), though even pop stars aren’t spared from New York’s tough love. “The city is doing exactly what it does best—kicking my ass,” she jokes, as her team nods in agreement.

Still, Roan feels hopeful about the future, including upcoming pop-up shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Kansas City this fall. “This pace feels right—manageable and good,” she says. “For the first time in over a year, I’m actually excited to go to work and do my job.”

(Photo: Ragan Henderson)