Role Model Is Inspired By Music That Makes You “Fall In Love”

In Elite Daily’s series Early Influences, musicians reflect on the songs and albums that left a lasting impression on them in their formative years. Here, Tucker Pillsbury, better known as Role Model, reveals the artists he was inspired by when working on his album Kansas Anymore.

There truly is no place like tour for Role Model. On Oct. 9, the singer-songwriter from Maine wraps up his opening stint for Gracie Abrams on her The Secret of Us Tour — which he affectionately calls the “wholesome version of the Sweat Tour” — and then he’ll hit the road again in November.

Role Model will kick off his No Place Like Tour in Ireland on Nov. 10 before bringing it to the U.S. in February, with shows until April 10. “I had this tour booked for the early fall, and then we got a call from Gracie inviting me on tour,” the 27-year-old says. “It's kind of a dream to tour with a friend.” So Role Model pushed back his headlining gig to spend time with Abrams.

The “Close To You” singer was one of the first people Role Model met when he moved to Los Angeles in 2018 — at the time, she was dating producer Blake Slatkin, who worked with Role Model on his song “Six Speed.” Two years prior, Role Model first started writing songs while attending Point Park University in Pittsburgh. There wasn’t much of a music scene in his hometown, so exposure to rap and hip-hop inspired him to start “messing around” with songwriting.

All of my music taste came from either me plugging my iPod into my brother's computer, or from skate videos.

Even though he had a “Lil Wayne phase” as a kid, becoming a singer-songwriter was a better fit. (“That immediately did much better for me than rapping,” he says.) After releasing his first studio album Rx in 2022, he garnered 53 million Spotify streams on his lead single “Forever & More.” In July, Role Model dropped his sophomore project Kansas Anymore.

The 13-track “heartbreak album” inspired by his breakup with Emma Chamberlain has a folk twang and acoustic vibe. It features songs like “Look At That Woman,” “So Far Gone” with Lizzy McAlpine, and “Writing’s On The Wall” — the song he’s most excited to perform on the No Place Like Tour setlist.

Below, Role Model dishes on how some of his early musical influences have helped inspire the sound on Kansas Anymore.

Matt And Kim

Role Model was first introduced to the indie duo of Matt and Kim around 2009 when they released their electronic hit “Daylight.” The song was used in several commercials and episodes of Community and Entourage, but Role Model first heard it in skateboard vlogs on YouTube.

“All of my music taste came from either me plugging my iPod into my brother's computer, or from skate videos,” he says. “That era was very cool. It was this weird blend of folk, pop, alternative, and they kind of brought hip-hop into it too with drums.” That early aughts indie folk scene inspired the new music Role Model’s been producing lately. While there isn’t one song on Kansas Anymore that is exactly like “Daylight,” he says the album is “acoustic-driven with a folk tint.”

The Lumineers

Role Model considers himself a romantic daydreamer. “I grew up fantasizing at a young age, and loved to create these scenarios in my head,” he says. So when he discovered The Lumineers in 2012, that helped to “skyrocket” his imagination.

It was just that type of music that made you fall in love with people.

“I would listen to The Lumineers and romanticize people that I had not even said a word to,” he says. “It was just that type of music that made you fall in love with people.” He notes songs like “Stubborn Love” and “Dead Sea” as some of his favorites.

“Sonically, their self-titled album sounded like they were just in a bar together, and recorded with a mic in the middle of the room,” he says. That raw, stripped-down sound can be heard in Role Model’s songs “Compromise,” “Something, Somehow, Someday,” and “The Dinner.”

He’s also working on a deluxe version of Kansas Anymore with new tracks recorded in his producer Noah Conrad’s living room. “I'm leaning into The Lumineers more than ever.”

Bon Iver

Bon Iver was another artist Role Model discovered through his brother. The indie folk band fronted by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon reminds Role Model of driving to a mountain on a family trip and going skiing in the winter.

Role Model still listens to the band’s 2007 album For Emma, Forever Ago, as it “doesn’t get old.” While he says he would never compare any of his music to Bon Iver’s, there are similarities between For Emma, Forever Ago and Kansas Anymore — both albums deal with heartbreak.

You can feel the environment, and what he was going through.

Vernon had just broken up with his girlfriend when he recorded the debut album in his family’s Wisconsin cabin by himself. “You can feel the environment, and what he was going through,” Role Model says. That sound is something he’s aiming for with his new music.

The Kansas Anymore singer once had the opportunity to meet Vernon. “I saw him in line at a coffee shop,” he says, but he was too nervous to say anything. What would he have said? “I'd try and play it cool. I’d make sure he didn’t know that I'm an artist, and then just sneakily lie my way into his life by saying I work in finance.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.