The role model's next move? He will recognize it on stage

The 29-year-old singer, who is currently on a world tour following the release of his third album Chuck Timely & the Hourglass, has embraced his new era with "sunglasses and this weird pathetic drunk guy persona."

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Having her name in lights, being front and center on stage or on screen was never part of the model role plan. Mostly because "I don't like any programming in a show," he admits.

That might sound a bit stressful for someone juggling a new album, a world tour and her upcoming acting debut in Lena Dunham's Good Sex. But the 29-year-old artist, whose real name is Tucker Harrington Pillsbury, does better by just throwing punches.

"People who've been to my shows know that it's not a perfect show, and there's no plan, nothing perfect about it," he admits, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles, a few days before his Chuck It tour kicked off last month. "I think if there were all these moments and planned moments, I'd be nervous because I'm not good at it."

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It seems that the role of the model has always been like this, even going back to her college days. While he first went to Point Park University in Pittsburgh to study film, he didn't foresee what would come next.

"When I was in film school, I stumbled upon kids recording themselves, which I'd never seen before—just a microphone and logic in their dorm rooms," he recalls. "They were like, 'You should just write a song and just try it.'" And I did and fell in love with it.

In 2017, her first single under the name Role Model, "Cocaine Babe," hit SoundCloud and she thought, "Oh, maybe this could be a thing." She released her debut EP, Arizona, in the summer of that year, which later caught the attention of McMiller. The late rapper helped turn his hobby into a full-fledged music career, which later landed him a deal with Interscope Records.

Fast forward nearly a decade, several viral hits (notably "Blind" and "Hello!"), three EPs and two albums later, Role Model released their third studio album, Chuck Timely & the Hourglass, in August.

The concept was several years in the making, as he wanted to work on a secret project and release music under a band called Chuck Timely and the Hourglass Band, without telling his label. "It never happened," says the model. And then I was like, wait, that's a great name for an album.

While the singer could never fully embrace the nickname Chuck, that didn't stop him and his production team from guiding him through the creative process. "Every day in the studio for months, all we did was talk about Chuck and make up stories," he tells THR. "It was something I was talking about on the album and we were showing how it was produced, but it was also just a fun thing to talk about. We'd point to a built-in human in the studio saying, 'Oh, that's Chuck's move or that's Chuck's guitar tone.' And that made it fun."

Below, the role model opens up about how she approached her third album differently, her unique ways of fueling her creativity, preparing for her upcoming acting debut, her biggest pet peeves, and more.

Talk to me about how you approached Chuck Timely & The Hourglass differently than your previous two albums. Did you experiment with new sounds or genres?

[My second album] Kansas Anymore was good to me and it was great. It was inspiring to see young people connecting with music inspired by Tom Petty or Neil Young and the real goats of Americana. So I obviously went into this album, like, “Okay, this is great. Now how can we raise it?

America is a very broad thing. It's just the palette that I used to love live music. And in the '70s there were little pockets of road and yacht rock stuff, and I was obsessed with the way the keys were played in yacht rock music. So I wanted to take that little bit and apply it and also bring in some of these country guitar songs and Dire Straits picking things that almost give it a danceability and bounce.

Do you feel like every album is an opportunity to rebrand yourself, especially since you've started to gravitate towards more rootsy sounds with your recent music?

I think it's kind of a new brand. I guess that's what you have to do to make people feel excited. And it's like, oh my god, it's a new era and all that stuff. I lost the cowboy boots and I lost the hat, and now it's just sunglasses and this weird, pathetic drunk guy character. New beginnings are exciting for me. I think Kansas Anymore was a huge rebrand sonically and everything. This [album] was a little less. It was mostly just pictures and stuff.

Do you have any unique or unusual ways to spark your creativity when writing and creating music?

When you write and release new music, how does your relationship or perspective to your old music change? Do you find yourself looking at it differently?

It's different now because I love Kansas anymore. And I play those songs forever. I love them. Everything between my first EP, Arizona in the Summer, which is just something I made myself in a closet, and then Kansas Anymore, I never play again. I don't identify with that (laughs). Whoever made those songs, I don't identify with them. And I'm quite public about it. I think people have stopped fighting to hear those songs. But as far as Kansas Anymore goes, I'm lucky that I still want to play those songs and I think I always will.

When it comes to performing, you created such a viral moment on your last tour when you brought a celebrity or fan on stage as your Sally for your song "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out." Did you ever expect it to become such a phenomenon?

Sally's beat was not planned at all. It was a happy accident. The first time we did it, we were three shows into the North American tour, and Jake Sheen happened to be in Dallas, and I was like, "Hey, do you want to come out for a song?" And there was another song I wanted him to come on, and then he was like, "Well, what about 'Sally'?" And I was like, 'Sure, you can come for Sally.' And he did, and people loved it. And then we said, "Well, maybe we should do this with a fan every night." And it really was an accident. It taught me that you can't really plan these things. These things happen if they're meant to happen, and if they're not, they don't.

When it comes to social media, you seem to have a playful relationship with it and the TikToks you make. Are you completely open to anything, or would your team like to convince you to build some of these things?

The extent of getting me to do something like, "Hey, you should just post something." Unfortunately, as far as what I put on the internet, it usually comes from my brain, but if I did, I wouldn't post at all. I don't like it (laughs).

Speaking of your acting debut, how excited were you to join Lena Dunham's Good Sex, especially since you originally went to college to study film?

It was cool, I mean it's weird. I went to school to be on the other side of the camera, so it's interesting. I am really excited. The way this opportunity came up for me was truly once in a lifetime, and I'm so grateful that Lena reached out and saw me in the part. I can't think of a better director and actor to work with for the first time. The first day was really nerve wracking for me, but Lena immediately put me at ease. Natalie [Portman] immediately put me at ease. Both of them held my hands the whole time and walked me through it. And all the people on that set were people that Lena was either friends with or worked with on Girls projects or past projects, so it was really family that was already there and then adopted me.

As fans learn more about you, what would people be shocked to learn about you?

I think they would be shocked at how clean and well maintained my house is.

What is the one thing you absolutely cannot live without?

When people talk about you... oh, I have so many. People on the internet pretending to be mad about something, people pretending to care about something they really don't. I feel like I have a list of thousands of people in my head and right now I can't find the list. I guess they are bad drivers too. A gene I got from my father, a little bit of road rage, I'm the guy who says, "What the hell are you doing?"