There's a cinematic inevitability to Role Model's rise into the pop pantheon. The singer/songwriter born Tucker Pillsbury launched his musical journey nearly a decade ago — and while he was initially interested in rap, he's since gone on to become a TikTok-adored bedroom pop star.
As would befit someone so superbly cool, Role Model stumbled into a hit-making career almost literally by accident. After breaking his wrist not once but twice in quick succession during college (first in a skiing accident, then skateboarding), he found a deep boredom while recovering for months. During that time, some friends decided to use his college dorm to record some music. When they were done, the gear was left behind for safe-keeping — leading to a life-changing discovery. "I spent two weeks completely obsessed, skipping classes and learning how to use Logic," he told Nylon in 2020.
Pillsbury started using those burgeoning music skills as a rapper, first under the mononym Tucker and then under the name Dillis. But switching to a more pop-friendly sound in early 2017, adopting the Role Model moniker, and singing softly in his closet unlocked a new formula that would help rocket his music to international attention. The debut Role Model EP, 2017's Arizona in the Summer, gained a quick following, leading to a deal with Interscope. In the following years, he's released two beloved albums: 2022's Rx and last year's Kansas Anymore, the latter of which embraces folk influences and light western warmth to further round out his highly personal lyrics.
Each record seemed to expand on the Role Model mythos, his boyish charm and quirky creative approach bringing life to lyrics that refuse to follow expectations. Only Pillsbury can deliver a love song called "die for my b—," or fight against his introversion as the homies try to get him to the strip club on "Going Out." And he does it all with the perfectly messy hair, spray of tattoos, and heartthrob smile.
"I love having very just raw, depressing lyrics and then throwing in things about sex and s— like that, and having the juxtaposition or talking about sex over what should be a piano ballad about how you're dying on the inside," he explained to Ladygunn magazine in 2022.
That approach is on full display on his most recent viral hit "Sally, When the Wine Runs Out." Over choppy acoustics and barroom piano, Pillsbury's deceptively cheery-sounding tale of a lover who wavers when they get a bit tipsy has become the soundtrack to summery TikToks the world over.
As he spends this summer opening for the last stretch of Gracie Abrams' world tour, more and more fans will get to experience that swanky idiosyncrasy themselves. With Role Model continuing to bring new color into his palette, GRAMMY.com rounded up everything you need to know about the pop provocateur, from his film school origin story to the iconic rapper who inspired his rise.
He's Role Model, But Not Yours
Releasing music under the name Role Model should either come across as someone with a massive ego or someone obnoxiously ironic. While Pillsbury is certainly in on the satire of having his slick songs about love, depression and sex under that moniker, the knowing smile is far more charming than it has any right to be. And it might have something to do with how much that choice seemed to have come on a whim.
After multiple name changes in his rap life, he decided to try a new name out as he uploaded a track with woozy singing instead of his usual bars. "I changed it to Role Model because at the time, I just thought it was ironic to me and funny, and I was kind of a trash human being," he told Ladygunn. When that song, the hazy and lush "Cocaine Babe," outpaced anything he'd done previously, he knew the name had stuck.
He Could've Been A Director
Without falling into a music career, Pillsbury may have been well on his way to superstardom in film instead. The Maine native started studying film at Point Park University in Pittsburgh in 2016, imagining that his future might lead to Hollywood.
"I always loved film and my parents wanted me to go to school, so I was like, this is the only thing I like," Pillsbury told Ladygunn. But in true precocious genius fashion, waiting around and learning the basics wasn't appealing: "I didn't want to start from the beginning and learn every button on the camera." Thankfully, his discovery of music production hit at the precise right moment.
But that's not to say that film has completely faded from the Role Model world. Instead, he infused his vision into music videos, where songs like "neverletyougo" gain an even more intimate excitement via immaculately shot and choreographed clips. What's more, Pillsubry is set to make his own film debut when he appears in the upcoming Good Sex, a romantic-comedy from Girls' Lena Dunham also starring Natalie Portman, Rashida Jones, and Mark Ruffalo.
Mac Miller Thought He Was Pretty GO:OD
As Role Model was first starting out, he benefited majorly from a Pittsburgh legend who was on the lookout to support his community. Just one year into making music and still in Pittsburgh himself, Pillsbury released his debut EP as Role Model, Arizona in the Summer. It got some listens from internet buzz, but he wasn't sure how long he could keep trying to make a music career happen. Then social media did its magic.
"I was like, give it two months, a month and a half, and if nothing happens, if nothing great happens, then I need to move on," he told the Zach Sang Show in 2023. And in the middle of that stretch, he happened across his own music on an Instagram story from Quentin "Q" Cuff, longtime friend and manager of Mac Miller. As it turned out, Mac dug Arizona highlight "stolen car," and invited Pillsbury out to Los Angeles to meet and work on music. Not long later, Role Model landed a major label deal, and has since remained inspired by his Pittsburgh mentor: "Not to be corny, [he] saved my life."
He's Experienced The Highs And Lows Of Love In The Limelight
By the time Role Model released his debut album, Rx, in 2022, the rumor mill had been running at high voltage for a while. And as fans dug into the dizzying songs of love and lust on the record, they eagerly dissected on the hunt for details of his then-still-theorized relationship with influencer/model/host Emma Chamberlain. Eventually they shared a GQ photoshoot, and she would appear center-frame (though back turned) in the video for Rx highlight "neverletyougo."
But as with most celebrity relationships, the rocky end winds up being as much creative fodder as the giddy start. While the lyrics for Kansas Anymore remain intimate and compelling, they hint at the outline of heartbreak — one that was otherwise reported, though not in the same emotional depth as songs like "Oh, Gemini": "And, oh, we're hanging on by threads/ And I can't hold it any harder on my end, no/ Oh, I'm something to regret."
And as always, Pillsbury somehow pulls off self-awareness and the direct emotional hit. "Artists are just annoying … We capitalize off of trauma and tragedy, and we're like, 'Yes! A breakup, finally! That's what I needed!'," he quipped to InStyle Australia last year.
@saintlaurentcowboy
He Has An Alter Ego On TikTok
Being an artist in 2025 means being chronically online — and at this point, Pillsbury is doubling down on that assertion. In addition to mostly posting short clips of himself and celebrity friends dancing along to Role Model tracks on his artist TikTok, Pillsbury's alter ego Saint Laurent Cowboy lives a life of his own on the platform.
That character takes constant potshots at Role Model as if he were another person, but also crediting Role Model songs and actions as if they were his own — and oh yeah, they're often riddled with a sleepy approximation of youth slang. "There is an account on here called Saint Laurent Cowboy, and he's impersonating me, or trying to be me, and I don't love it. And I also don't get it," he deadpans on his Role Model account.
Cut to the Cowboy account, and he's saying "Role Model is having a little moment again" and that his fame is running out so he "better start putting them fries in ze bag." Whatever the game is, Pillsbury seems to be having a blast playing it — and it makes for two wonderful TikTok follows.
He Expanded His Collaborative Circle To Reach New Heights
Despite Kansas Anymore's place as a breakup album — the story of some of his darkest feelings — Role Model delivers an album of intimate passion rather than mere pain. Instead of presenting a simple story of good and evil, he plays more true to humanity, inspired in part perhaps by his choice of collaborators.
Throughout this third record, Pillsbury runs his ideas through a diverse collaborative team, including more women than he's previously worked with. "Growing up, I would always go to my mom and my sister for anything, whether it was talking about a girl or crying to them," he told Nylon. "I try to surround myself with people that feel like that, and I'm just comfortable with them." Songwriter Annika Bennett lends some folksy depth to tracks like "Look at the Woman," while singer/songwriter Lizzy McAlpine provides the perfect vocal counterpoint on "So Far Gone."
Pillsbury's characters and stories have always felt fully fleshed out. But processing his real relationships alongside this team have helped Role Model boldly engage his pain and unleash his most passionate delivery yet — and it's all helping him become a pop music mainstay.