Role Model<\/a> reflects on scaling the pop mountain over the past few years. Opening for Gracie Abrams on \u201cThe Secret of Us\u201d tour was one of them; playing to massive crowds at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles\u2019 Greek Theatre were two others. Then there were the viral moments after performing his breakthrough hit \u201cSally, When the Wine Runs Out\u201d at various shows, inviting a different \u201cSally\u201d to dance with him (Charli xcx, Natalie Portman and Niall Horan to name a few).<\/p>\n\n\tFor the 28-year-old Maine native, born Tucker Pillsbury, it was also proving his chops as a live performer, having learned how to play guitar from YouTube video tutorials, and bringing songs from his two albums to life on his \u201cNo Place Like Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI have a guitar in my hands for 80% of the show now. And for me, that was my goal, because it just makes it so much more fun,\u201d says Pillsbury, chatting from Berlin at the tail end of the tour. \u201cI think it helped people see me as a musician and get a slightly better look into how involved I am in the music and in the studio. It helps solidify myself as a proper musician.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat hasn\u2019t been much of an issue offstage, as his fan base swelled in the wake of his 2024 sophomore album, \u201cKansas Anymore,\u201d and its deluxe version, which was released on Valentine\u2019s Day this year. The project was an evolution of sorts for Pillsbury, once a budding rapper who went by Dillis. He subsequently ventured into light electro-pop as the rechristened Role Model with his 2022 full-length \u201cRx\u201d \u2014 an album that valorized love and his relationship with Emma Chamberlain. But the dissolution of that romance led him to make \u201cKansas Anymore,\u201d an album that paired often upbeat, Americana-tinged tunes with melancholy lyrics.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think it all started with me finding a sound for myself that worked and felt authentic finally, and I felt like I\u2019d settled into the type of music that I wanted to make,\u201d he says. Pillsbury also saw his stock rise on social media, where he leaned into viral memes and collaborated on videos with Renee Rapp and Laufey. The fervor around him caught the attention of Lena Dunham, who cast him in her Netflix rom-com \u201cGood Sex\u201d alongside Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo, and brought him to New York this summer to make his acting debut.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe is truly one of a kind,\u201d he says of Dunham, who gave him a list of rom-coms to watch as homework. (He only watched one, \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally.\u201d) \u201cThey all made me feel extremely like a part of that family, and it was fun. It just felt like a summer camp, and that helps with any nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe even found time to start working on his third album, which he\u2019s been recording with songwriter-producers Mason Stoops and Taylor Mackall. He has a visual mood board on his phone and a playlist of music from the 1970s as inspiration.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI had the world [that the album would exist in], and then as soon as we got in the studio, it was more progress in the first two weeks than I made in a year and a half on the last album,\u201d Pillsbury says. \u201cSo I\u2019m very happy. There\u2019s a weight off the shoulders. There\u2019s no pressure. And it\u2019s already better than the last album. So I\u2019m feeling good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There isn\u2019t only one moment that stands out as Role Model reflects on scaling the pop mountain over the past few years. Opening for Gracie Abrams on \u201cThe Secret of Us\u201d tour was one of them; playing to massive crowds at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles\u2019 Greek Theatre were two others. Then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2188595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[417400,332621],"class_list":["post-2188594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-hitmakers","tag-role-model"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Role-Model-Talks-Breakthrough-Hit-Sally-Working-With-Lena-Dunham.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2188594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2188596,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188594\/revisions\/2188596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2188595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2188594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2188594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2188594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}