Interview: Role Model on Rx, Coachella and click-bait song titles

Role Model is the Pittsburg-native turning up heat and making the internet frisky with his debut album Rx – a sexually charged collection featuring songs with titles like ‘masturbation song’, ‘stripclub music’ and ‘die for my bitch’.

“In the simplest terms, the album is about the power of a woman and how it healed me the past couple years,” Role Model said in the album’s press release. “As much as it’s telling a story, it also shows the crazy shift in my life. A woman saved me and brought me out of a hole. Lyrically, I wanted to put her on a pedestal, like a higher power.”

In talking with the 24-year-old, we had to ask if his parents had said anything about tracks such as ‘masturbation song’.

“My mum loves the album. There’s random songs that she picks to like… ‘save a seat’, she loves ‘save a seat’. I knew she would. That was kind of like an old soul type. It’s cool. But she doesn’t mention [masturbation] song, which I think is smart. I don’t want to have that conversation with her, but I mean, when I like announced the album, she saw it and was like, ‘What is going on?’,” said Role Model of their conversation.

He’s just come off the back of a huge couple of weeks including two weekends of Coachella performances amidst his TOURx 2022 World Tour, while also sandwiching in his debut album’s release. To top it all off, he also got to met his very own role model Matty Healy of The 1975 at the world renowned music and arts festival.

“I’m waiting to post the picture cause I just need to hold on to it for a little bit longer. But like anyone who knows me knows how important that dude is to me. It’s like the one artist that I can say I look up to and inspires me and pushes me,” he began. “I watch all of his sets, his festival sets, before my shows, like just to get me in to whatever. And meeting him… It was insane. I’ve never been truly star stuck to the point where I can’t talk and it was like embarrassing, ’cause I was with my friends and they’re like, ‘What are you doing?'”

The world is only going to get bigger for Role Model as he tours his album through the States and Europe with no Australian dates announced just yet.

Catch the full conversation below:

Rx is OUT NOW.

Main image credit: Vince Myo M. Aung

Tait McGregor

@taitmcgregor