{"id":1139840,"date":"2026-08-09T14:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T14:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1139840\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T14:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T14:55:15","slug":"role-model-interview-new-album-working-with-dakota-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1139840\/","title":{"rendered":"Role Model Interview: New Album, Working with Dakota Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cMaybe we bring back heartland rock,\u201d Tucker Pillsbury, a.k.a. Role Model<\/a>, muses on a new episode of the Rolling Stone Studio<\/a>. Pillsbury is already well on his way: After getting Gen-Z to embrace Tom Petty vibes with his breakthrough single \u201cSally, When the Wine Runs Out,\u201d he dove deeper into his roots on a strong new album, the just-released Chuck Timely and The Hourglass, nodding to the likes of Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, and John Mellencamp. \u201cBringing these artists that I love\u2026\u00a0 and applying it to pop music is like a fun challenge,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn the episode, Pillsbury talks about not chasing pop stardom, the end of his \u201cSally\u201d stage bit, how his girlfriend, Dakota Johnson, ended up on the album, his upcoming film debut opposite Natalie Portman in Lena Dunham\u2019s\u00a0Good Sex, and much more. Check out the whole video interview above or on YouTube<\/a>; some highlights follow.<\/p>\n

\n\tPillsbury makes pop music, but he doesn\u2019t want to be a pop star.<\/strong> \u201cThere\u2019s just constantly this debate of who\u2019s going to be the pop boy right now or whatever,\u201d he says. \u201cI just don\u2019t want to be in that race, \u2019cause I\u2019m not trying to be a pop star. I think you can hear it in the music and by who I choose to work with, and, I don\u2019t know, how I carry myself. Being a pop star is not interesting to me. I don\u2019t want to do that. But I love pop music and I love making it.\u201d As for the shiny outfits and background dancers that come with the job: \u201cFor some reason, that has always, like, scared me. I like kind of being a little bit whatever\u2019s just under that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe followed through on killing his \u201cSally\u201d stage bit \u2014 and says almost nobody cared, except some very disappointed kids.<\/strong> When Pillsbury first told<\/a> Rolling Stone he was ending the nightly guest-star routine, he predicted fans wouldn\u2019t \u201ceven give a shit.\u201d He was right. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone cared,\u201d he says now. \u201cAside from people, like, coming up to me with their daughter and being like, \u2018Can she be Sally when you play, like, Red Rocks in the fall or whatever?\u2019 And then I have to break the news. I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry.’\u201d The decision came down to faith in the new record: \u201cI just think if I didn\u2019t believe in this album, Chuck, then I probably would\u2019ve kept doing the Sally bit.\u201d He remains his own harshest critic on his biggest song: \u201cThat was like a silly song with lyrically the dumbest bridge I\u2019ve ever written\u2026 Lyrically, I mean, that bridge is like a children\u2019s book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tThe album chronicles the aftermath of a rough break-up.<\/strong> The two-year stretch of singledom behind Chuck Timely & The Hourglass began with Pillsbury\u2019s 2023 split from Emma Chamberlain. Does the album\u2019s narrative track someone slipping into something like a depression? \u201cYeah. I think that\u2019s true,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, two years is a long time\u2026 I just didn\u2019t know what was best for me. Like, I didn\u2019t know, like, do I go straight into another relationship and not figure out all this whatever else is going on? Or do I really hold off and fix myself first and then go do that? And there were all these questions and no therapist at the time to help me figure that out, so it came out in songs and questions in all these songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPillsbury initially resisted putting his girlfriend, Dakota Johnson, on the album<\/strong>. Pillsbury and Johnson had been photographed together since January, but he only publicly confirmed the relationship this week, after fans recognized her voice in the flirtatious spoken-word bridge of the new track \u201cLove I You.\u201d As he explains in the episode, he knew adding her would force exactly that conversation \u2014 he\u2019d originally recorded the bridge\u2019s back-and-forth by himself, and wanted to keep his personal life separate from the music. \u201cWe had a list of ideas for people, and [producer] Mason [Stoops] kept bringing up, you know, \u2018Why doesn\u2019t Dakota do it?’\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I was always like, \u2018Well, I don\u2019t\u2026 I think keeping those things separate is probably good,\u2019 and blah, blah, blah. And then one day he convinced her and I was just like, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s try it,\u2019 and it was amazing. Like, her voice was perfect on it. Obviously, yeah, you know that that\u2019s gonna, like, lead to discussions online, but also, it made the song really special to me, and what a cool cameo to have, too.\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tActing alongside Natalie Portman was nerve-wracking.<\/strong> \u201cI didn\u2019t eat all day,\u201d Pillsbury says. \u201cTruly, I hadn\u2019t been nervous like that in a very long time. My first day was also, like, one of the biggest scenes\u2026 and there\u2019s, like, 100 extras watching you act for the first time.\u201d He only got truly starstruck one time: \u201cThere was one moment where we were doing a scene and she had a monologue, and I really like got lost like staring at her and being like, whoa, Natalie Portman is delivering a monologue to me. That was the one time I got in my head, and it was amazing to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tThe songs he truly hates? Anything by Pitbull or Flo Rida, which depressed him growing up in icy Maine.<\/strong> \u201cIf someone plays, like, a Flo Rida song or, like, a Pitbull song, it makes me sad,\u201d Pillsbury says. \u201cI think anyone who\u2019s from the East Coast, listening to a Pitbull song in a cold car in the dead of winter, driving to school or whatever, it\u2019s like a microtrauma\u2026 It\u2019s Miami pop and you\u2019re listening to it in negative 20 degrees, driving in your little Honda Civic to high school. Like, yeah, no. So, sorry. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s a nice guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe may change his stage name someday.<\/strong> \u201cI would love to,\u201d Pillsbury says of returning to his real name. \u201cI really have a gut feeling that it\u2019s too late. But I think what bothers me the most is, like, no matter what, whenever my name comes up on anything on Twitter, every comment is like, \u2018What parents name their kid Role Model?\u2019 Like, how stupid do you have to be? Like, does Post Malone go through that? Or anyone else with a name, like Lil Wayne\u2014 like, \u201cWho names their kid Lil?\u201d Like, you just use your brain. Think for a second, you know what I mean? Yes, I\u2019ll probably change my name.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMaybe we bring back heartland rock,\u201d Tucker Pillsbury, a.k.a. Role Model, muses on a new episode of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1139841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,42840,239387,382,16,15],"class_list":["post-1139840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-role-model","tag-rolling-stone-studio","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1139841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}