When They Popped - A Y2K Pop Culture Podcast · Kelsey and Mary

Cheyenne Kimball on Growing Up on MTV, Gloriana, & What’s Next

·49 min·2 clips

Cheyenne Kimball taught herself guitar at 8 and played it flat because she was too small to wrap her arm around it.

1. When They Popped talks with Cheyenne Kimball about her early-2000s run from child songwriter to MTV face and country-band member. 2. Hosts Kelsey and Mary interview Cheyenne Kimball, who won America's Most Talented Kid at 12, signed with Sony at 13, fronted the MTV series Cheyenne at 15, and later joined Gloriana. 3. The episode asks how a Dallas kid who taught herself guitar became a teen pop figure, a country band member, and a songwriter with credits on 'Hanging On' and 'Four Walls.' 4. Cheyenne says she taught herself guitar at eight and played it flat because she was too small to wrap her arm around it. 5. She describes trying to book shows in Deep Ellum, Dallas, at 10 and begging her dad to take her to America's Most Talented Kid at 12. 6. She says she sang an original song, got callbacks, was flown to Los Angeles, and then was crowned America's Most Talented Kid. 7. She recalls being on the Today Show after the contest, where a Sony Records executive says he spotted her on a treadmill and wanted to find out who she was. 8. Cheyenne says that led to a Sony record deal at 13 and to MTV asking for a pilot after an initial meeting in which they said they had no open slots. 9. She describes filming the pilot on her 15th birthday, moving from Dallas to a house in Tarzana, and leaving a sister who did not want to go. 10. She says fame also made school difficult, so she left in seventh grade and asked to be homeschooled after classmates thought she was making everything up. 11. Cheyenne says she wanted to play arenas, wear leather pants like Axl Rose, and write her own songs instead of taking someone else's material. 12. She says 'Since You've Been Gone' was offered to her and turned down, because she wanted her first single to come from her own writing. 13. She describes writing 'Hanging On' with Chantel and Rain Maida after starting from a chord progression and feeling relieved when the label finally accepted it. 14. She says the song came from her own struggles with depression, and that hearing it later makes her proud of her younger self. 15. On The Day Has Come, she says she wrote with Max Martin, The Matrix, Blind Melon musicians, and Dave Kruzan, who later toured with her on drums. 16. She names 'Everything to Lose' and 'Good Go Bad' as favorites because of the live, in-the-room recording process at Wishbone in Los Angeles. 17. Cheyenne describes Gloriana as a relief after solo touring because it meant sharing the work, and she says she learned mandolin upside down in two weeks for the band. 18. The interview stays conversational and reflective, with Kelsey and Mary interrupting for reactions while Cheyenne answers with detailed career memories. 19. Good fit for listeners who followed 2000s teen pop and country crossover stories. 20. Probably skip if you want only current music news or short answers.

As heard by us

A brisk look at early fame, label pressure, and a move from solo pop to Nashville.

The piece traces Cheyenne Kimball's rise with enough detail to make the arc easy to follow: winning America's Most Talented Kid at 12, signing at 13, and landing an MTV reality show by 16 around The Day Has Come.

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Why you'd press play

You want the fast, glittery story of Cheyenne Kimball's child-star to Nashville pivot.

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