Chanel Yates has moved over from pop into her cowgirl country era. She spoke to Tea with G about her genre transition, her appearance on ITV’s The Voice and who she’s taking inspiration from.
Her new track, ‘Studio Apartment’, was released on the 29th March and was her first launch into the country genre. “I was thinking, why don’t I just put out something that I would have on my playlist, which would be a country playlist.” Yates has, like many country artists, grown up around the genre and found herself gravitating towards singer songwriters for their ability to tell stories through their music. “It’s been cool to be able to put something like that out into the world and have it received really well.”
There is a vulnerability to Yates’ track, depicting a narrative that everyone can relate to. ‘Studio Apartment’ explores the point of view of the ‘one they left behind’ – she gets the roses, ‘cos I picked the thorns – and how painful it is to watch that ex-partner be the person you wanted them to be all along.
“Someone commented on one of my videos and said, ‘I raised them for their forever home’,” we joke about ‘fostering’ boyfriends before they move on and take their learnings to their next relationship – as we all do. With every relationship we grow and we learn (or at least we should) and we go into the next one with a bit more understanding about our own boundaries and how to show up best for the other person. Yates’ song depicts the sting that comes with observing that growth and wishing it had have come at the right time for you.
Taking inspiration from artists like Alanis Morisette as a child – her storytelling, folk sound – to Shania Twain, Kelsea Ballerini and Kacy Musgraves, Yates is trying to emulate the female country powerhouses that are blowing up the genre in America. With country music having its moment in the UK, Yates is also admiring artists like Twinnie, The Shires and Megan Rose – Rose and Yates are supporting Gasoline and Matches at The Bedford in October.
Yates is the Queen of Instagram reels and TikTok videos to promote her single and has also started to give us snippets of her next track which, if you’re a Megan Moroney or Kelsea Ballerini fan, you’ll be in for a treat. “I’ll be teasing them a bit more because there’s no release date set just yet but it’s definitely cooking…”. She also alluded to a potential EP.
Yates broke into the scene after her appearance on The Voice in 2021. She talks to me about when she got that initial call and was filled with the promise of a life changing experience of being on TV. “For me, it was amazing because I got some really amazing fans,” she says about her experience, “and I was lucky to be on Ann-Marie’s team because she was very similar, at the time, to the music I was creating.” The Voice operates on artists singing cover songs, so Yates couldn’t showcase her original music.
“Once the show ended, I was like, right, I’ve got to release a song,” Yates says as she talks about riding the wave of recognition. Soon after finishing The Voice, Yates released an acoustic version of ‘Chocolate’ – a song she keeps in her setlist.
Yates has also written with James Brittain-McVey from The Vamps for her song, ‘20th Century Kids’. “To do a full circle thing and write with somebody you’ve looked up to admired was insane,” she says about the experience, “it was the coolest thing and the irony of it was – we were some cool 20th century kids.”
Yates continued to release music and her song, ‘Summer of 16’ that she sang with friends dreamr. and Ruff has just surpassed nine million streams. “We met through TikTok,” she says about her artist friends, “because I was searching Tom Holland and he came up as a lookalike” (this is Ruff and he does look a bit like Tom Holland…I checked).
We talk about the journey Yates went on, figuring out where she fits in the industry. She’d released an EDM track, a drum and bass track and then bought out ‘House Party’ which was more in line with American teen pop music. Yates took some time to figure out what it was that she wanted to say and bring to the music industry and eventually gave herself the permission to segway fully into what she’s calling her ‘cowgirl era’. “It’s just from a place of me being actually me and not trying to be anything else,” she says about her new voice, “I get to tell stories in a really fun way.”
The response from her latest single, ‘Studio Apartment,’ has reassured Yates that she is where she’s supposed to be. “It’s my healing journey and if anyone’s going through a breakup or anything – or a loss of any kind – then I hope that I can help them as much as it helped me heal writing it.”
Yates has been featured on Spotify’s ‘New Music Friday Country’ playlist and Apple Music’s ‘Today’s Country’ and said that she was ‘blown away’ by the representation.
Follow along with Chanel Yates’ journey here and watch out on her social media for snippets of new music that’s coming out this year.
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