When Chance Peña released “In My Room,” in May 2022, he hadn’t nearly the expectations of how well-received it would eventually become. The song went viral and is approaching 80 million in total consumption, including 61 million streams on Spotify, 5 million on Apple, 1.4 million on Amazon and 70,000 on Pandora, with an additional 7 million video views on YouTube and 1 million on TikTok. “In My Room was an accident in the most beautiful way. It’s this story of heartbreak, someone you love leaving you for something better, and you’re just left there picking up the pieces trying to figure out what went wrong,” Peña stated. “When it came out, I honestly didn’t know if it was any good, I had worked on it, producing, recording parts, for hours and hours on end so by the time it was coming out I was numb to it. Looking back, that song changed my life and I love it for what it is. Musically it’s one of my favorites I’ve done, and I got to play my great grandma’s lap steel on it. Lyrically it’s a piece of a moment that never existed yet resonates more than it should.” A native of Tyler, Texas, Peña got on the radar of many in the music industry during 2015 when he appeared on season nine of The Voice as a 15-year-old prodigy. At 17, Peña signed a publishing deal with Secret Road, ultimately culminating in the opportunity to co-write “Conversations in the Dark” with three high-profile writers, including Gregg Wattenberg, which led the song to be pitched to John Legend. It became the lead single on Legend’s 2020 Bigger Love album, which went on to win a Grammy for best R&B album and also earned Peña a gold record. Building on his early EPs ‘Anxiety & Mixed Emotions’ and ‘The Inevitable’, Peña will release a new collection of material in the EP Lovers To Strangers on July 14th. “When my last two projects came out, to be frank, I didn’t know anything – I didn’t know what anxiety truly was,” Peña shared. “After those records, I was ready to grow up, figure this life stuff out. During the last three years, I’ve learned a lot, but there’s so much that I haven’t learned.”
Peña spoke with B-Sides host Pete Mar about performing at Bonnaroo 2023, how “In My Room” was written without any specific personal experience as inspiration, his musical influences and more.
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