We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cheyenna a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cheyenna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you’ve thought about whether to sign with an agent or manager?
I wrote my first song at age 6. When I was 12 I found out being a songwriter was an actual job one could have & from that moment on knew my heart wouldn’t settle for anything else. Enter my dream of being a signed songwriter to a music publishing company. I had no idea how to get there – all I knew was how to write songs. So that’s what I kept doing!
During the waiting period between graduating high school and becoming a signed, full time songwriter, I received a LOT of pressure from those around me – my peers, my parents, society, etc – to “get real,” “grow up” and “get a big girl job.” But I never could bring myself to be locked into a serious 9 to 5 – or any job that would take brain power and energy away from my creativity and writing. So, over the past 7 years, between constantly writing and networking and hustling in the industry, I’ve worked every odd job in existence in order to financially support myself in ways that kept my schedule flexible for sessions and allowed my main focus to remain on writing. From office work, food delivery, waitressing, retail, bartending, personal assisting, nannying, home organizing, dog walking, housekeeping, home cleaning… it has been SUCH a long journey of doing it all and constantly keeping up hope and faith that one day I would get signed.
Finally this March, around my 25th birthday, I saw the fruits of my labor pay off when a song I had co-written while living in LA, “Austin,” by my Belmont friend and incredible artist Dasha, went massively viral on social media and started racking up millions of streams. I was still living out of my car in Boulder, Colorado with a negative bank account balance at the time, literally cleaning rich peoples mountain mansions as my day job to get me by. Suddenly, though, I began getting noticed and recognized for my songwriting, and was quickly sought out by multiple music publishers interested in signing me. It has been a whirlwind of excitement seeing my world suddenly completely transform and all my dreams coming true in such a short period of time. After meeting the whole team at Bossy Songs, a boutique publisher under Sony Music Publishing, I followed my gut’s good feeling and signed with them, getting the financial and business support I needed. Both A&Rs, David and Sarah, immediately began championing me, opening new doors and setting up amazing writing sessions for me. I am so thankful to be a part of their team and so grateful to Barry Weiss for believing in my writing!
To others seeing it from the outside, my signing may look like a sort of overnight success. But for me, this is something I’ve been working damn hard towards for literally my entire life, especially the last 3 years since graduating college. I am SO proud and excited to finally be able to do what I love full time – and be paid for it for the first time ever! All those years I held out and continued believing in myself paid off. The whole journey has really taught me perseverance and how strong my faith has grown. Staying on this road has been TOUGH as it’s been very unconventional, financially unstable and frowned upon by my family for years. But I always stayed true to myself and what my heart wanted. And now, at age 25, I’m a signed, billboard charting songwriter!
Cheyenna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
As a little girl, I was always writing and singing. I remember the time I wrote my first song – I was around age six and didn’t even know what I was doing. I was on vacation with my family at some Campground, and my dad had brought along this little silver sprint flip phone – the height of technology at the time. One afternoon, I got my hands on the magical thing and discovered it had a voice memo feature! That was the first time I’d ever held something that could record. For the next two hours, I wandered around the forest, singing random melodies into the phone and creating what I would later realize was my first song ever. I still remember some of the lyrics and most of the melody – it was along the lines of, “Don’t care what they think about you / follow your dreams / just follow your dreams and destiny.”
It’s unreal to look back on, but it’s so full circle and mind-blowing that my young self at that age had such a strong inner sense of direction and purpose to be able to sing something that would later become a major theme of my life. Fast forward to second grade, I was learning piano and started writing songs on that. It was also around this time that I decided Nashville was the place I needed to be if I wanted to be a real, successful songwriter someday. I stayed up late at night researching songwriting jobs and quickly learned about being signed to a publishing company. I also learned that most of those opportunities were in Nashville. So, it quickly became my emerald city, my end goal, and guiding light.
For most of high school, I was very deep in the Christian church. In my younger years, I felt a deep resistance and rebellion toward it, but in my high school years, it was in the church that I was able to find a community for the first time ever, as my family moved a ton and I switched schools every year of my life. It was my one stable place – I was able to be in music like never before, and I was able to be recognized for my “maturity” and “wisdom beyond my years,” while in environments like school, I always felt ostracized and misunderstood. But inside, I had always had a deep inner feeling that I would someday break away from Christian music. I knew I wanted to be a songwriter, and I didn’t want to be boxed into only writing Christian music. I hated the feeling of being boxed into anything. I would sneak the one family radio / CD player we had up to my room and put on Columbus Ohio’s mainstream pop station, 97.9 WNCI – the devil’s music, as my mom put it – and our country station, which my mom tolerated, but made me shut off upon hearing any word like “sexy,” “hell,” or “damn.” I was constantly impressed by the catchy melodies and witty hooks of both genres and how Taylor Swift had music on both stations, melding the genres together. I wanted to write like THAT.
The first time I visited Nashville, I had such a spiritual experience – I felt in my soul like it was where I was supposed to be. My family’s financial situation still couldn’t afford college, and Belmont University was extremely expensive. So, I applied to multiple grants and scholarships through as many programs as I could and graduated high school a year early so that my senior year, I could work full time as an office manager to save for tuition. It all paid off, and in Fall 2017, I moved to Nashville to begin my freshman year of songwriting and music business at Belmont.
Here, my story really began. I felt like my whole life I was leading up to this moment, this point of moving away from home and starting my very own life in a brand new city. I started writing with anyone and everyone I could and began playing out around Nashville. I realized I could really be an artist when one of my songs under my pop project, Chey Rose, got added to a big Spotify playlist, “chill hits.” This was the first time I ever made real money from music – so I thought, I just need to keep at it, and soon I’ll be making enough to pay my rent with music!
Aside from the musical growth I was going through in Nashville, I was also able to expand without the influence of my religious family for the first time ever, and I learned so much. When I first got to Belmont as a freshman, I was still a good Christian girl who believed being gay was wrong. By my senior year of college, I had done a 180, gone through a massive spiritual and gay awakening, realized I myself was queer, and had cut off most communication with my homophobic family. It was really tough – but again, music really got me through it.
When I realized my new queer identity, I went through a really transformational period. I stopped releasing music and just began focusing on myself and my inner journey for the first time ever. Ever since arriving in Nashville, I had always been on a constant writing and releasing schedule and became a sort of workaholic with it. I had never really given myself the time or space to just live, process my tumultuous childhood, and explore myself and my sexuality. So, I started digging deep into myself, uncovering layers of religious trauma and internalized homophobia, and I got into my first ever queer relationship, which taught me so much about myself. I started writing queer love songs and music that didn’t really fit in with my old “straight” pop project (no pun intended).
Then, in an effort to keep growing and exploring the queer community and music opportunities, I moved to Los Angeles. That year was really, really tough, being alone in a huge new city at such a vulnerable time when I still didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin and new queer identity. But I met a ton of new writers, producers, and people to work with; I realized I’m non-binary and just grew so much as a person. I took my time and just kept living, working on my inner health and confidence, and wrote for other artists – including Dasha, who I had met at Belmont in songwriting 1 class years earlier. It was during this year in LA that we wrote the song “Austin,” which has now (a year later) become my biggest hit and first billboard charting cut as a writer – it has opened so many doors for me! I also got to help Dasha write “Even Cowboys Cry” on her debut county album.
While in LA I also got the vision for my brand new artist project where honesty, vulnerability, queerness and freedom would be the main focus. It all came to me on a solo mushroom trip I took in my room – it was wild, I got visions of everything I needed to do and what steps to take. These visions – or spiritual downloads, I like to call them – told me I’d release this new music under an old nickname of mine, “Cheyenna.” I released my first single “Here,” in August 2023 and it’s about my own coming out experience and realizing how much freedom there is on the other side of the fear – especially after cutting out family and friends who didn’t support my queerness.
After being in LA for a year, though, I came to terms with the fact that city life isn’t the best for my soul. I kept trying to make it feel right, but something always felt a bit off. I definitely met a ton of great people and am so glad I went through my overall queer transformation in such a lgbtqia+ friendly city – but something in my soul kept tugging me back to the road, to exploration, to something new. So, I spent my last few months in LA working my ass off at two waitressing jobs, writing, and finishing my favorite songs so that they’d be ready for release – and then I hit the road, which is where I am now!
Through my journey leaving LA, I’ve really found peace and clarity within myself, who I am, and what I want. I’ve always loved writing and music, but I’ve always felt most happy and at peace when I’m in nature, exploring new places, and just being the free-spirited soul that I am, not tied down or boxed into one particular place or thing. I began this nomadic journey in August when I gave away everything that didn’t fit into my tiny Toyota car, booked a 2 week house sit in Nevada, and set off with no real solid plan. I just knew that I was growing unhappier by the day in LA and I really felt called to try this life of freedom, simplicity and uncertainty one the road, even though it was super scary at first. I released a song called “Drifter” that really sums up the ups and downs of nomad life, solo traveling and living as an untethered soul. Now, I’ve been living this way for almost 9 months. It weirdly works for me and makes me feel so inspired, free and confident. The whole journey has really grown my faith in myself, my relationship with the universe / source / whatever higher energy is guiding and protecting me on this path, because there’s no way I could’ve lined up every house sit and opportunity on the road I’ve gotten so perfectly. *Cue “god’s plan” by drake* (lol)
My mission and focus as a writer, artist and person is to live my life in the most free, untethered, creative way that I can, and to always be further exploring and pushing the boundaries of what that means. I want my project “Cheyenna” to represent FREEDOM in all aspects and to inspire others to have the courage to liberate themselves and live in freedom from societal expectations (like getting a 9 to 5 job and living in a stable home when all you want to do is travel and make art). Freedom from familial expectations of following someone else’s footsteps or career path or religious beliefs. Freedom from gender constructs and sexuality “norms”. I feel like I have freed myself from so much mentally and spiritually, and learned to make peace with life’s uncertainty thru surrender, and I truly just want others to experience the peace and fulfillment this way of living has brought me. I want my music to be an avenue for people to feel that. I am so thankful to be where I am right now, and I feel more alive and aligned with my true identity than ever before – and SO excited to continue releasing my own meaningful music on my new project, Cheyenna!
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
ABSOLUTELY. I love this question. I was grinding in the industry for years, trying to “make it happen” through “hard work” and the hustle mindset. Don’t get me wrong – hard work on your craft is super important. But what’s even more important, I’ve learned, is working just as hard on YOURSELF: your inner world, your belief system, your mindset. My life began to drastically change when I began intentionally taking steps to rewire my brain from the lack based mentality I was raised in (where you have to struggle and strive and work yourself to the bone to make things happen), and began stuffing my mind full of new positive thoughts in a faith based mindset (where you are allowing the process to flow, surrendering to the experience, allowing yourself to rest when necessary, treating yourself with kindness and gentleness, and basing your self worth in your existence rather than your productivity).
Two books that radically transformed my mind, and as a result began transforming my outer world as well, are “You are a badass” by Jen Sicero, and “The Universe has your Back” by Gabby Bernstein. I stumbled across them in a thrift store when I first began my nomad travels and was feeling super anxious and directionless. These two books forced me out of my victim mentality and helped me see that my success is fully in my hands – but it’s up to me to do the internal work so I can experience actual material success. They really walk you through HOW to do the internal work to see results in your outer experience. The book “Big Magic” is also one of my favorite books on creative philosophy and how to implement creativity into your daily life.
In addition to these books, I implemented certain habits that helped me build a really solid foundation for my positive, abundant, hope based mindset. I replaced old playlists of sad songs with uplifting, inspirational, manifestation music filled with lyrics that made me feel powerful and successful. I began doing gratitude meditations for 5 minutes first thing every morning (now a year later I’m up to 15 minutes a day simply because I love it so much). I also got in the habit of repeating positive affirmations to myself daily in the mirror (Habits of a Goddess podcast is my favorite for this). These habits began slowly overriding the old programs I was raised and influenced to believe by my family environment, religion, society, etc. I really started believing in myself and my own capability to change my life for the first time – but also learned to balance that with TRUST, and knowing that whatever I am seeking will ultimately find me when I am ready for it.
I feel like no one ever talks about this stuff, but as a creative, it’s a rocky industry, and if you want to experience the most inner fulfillment and success in your career and life, I’ve learned it’s absolutely imperative to begin with making your mindset a solid foundation of positivity and strong belief in yourself. Then you can build and expand your creative ideas – and with this strong mindset combined with hard work and perseverance in your craft, you will be unstoppable.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
There are so many rewarding aspects, it’s tough to say. I think the first one that comes to mind is being able to connect with and inspire other people – whenever I share a song or creation that resonates with someone else deeply, and they reach out and tell me that, it makes it feel so worth it and reminds me that we’re all really the same – everybody is part of one interconnected consciousness living different paths of the same experiences. It makes me feel less alone, and also makes me remember how important it is for me to continue sharing my art and push through any insecurities or fears that try to prevent me from doing so.
I think also, in a more selfish sense, being a creative is super rewarding because it allows me to process my life and experiences in such deep, explorative, therapeutic ways. With everything I’ve gone through in life, through childhood and as an adult, I’ve always said to myself – I don’t know how I would survive this life if I didn’t have songwriting. When I’m going through a massive heartbreak or wave or inner pain or terrible memory, writing about it is like a soothing balm on my soul – I am able to transmute the pain by making it into art. I truly can’t fathom how other people get through things if they don’t write through it. (Therapy? I’m in that too, though! lol)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/bandanacheyenna
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bandanacheyenna/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bandanacheyenna
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bandanacheyenna/featured
Image Credits
Photos taken by Sadie Stevens (Fort Collins, CO)