Chaney Sinclaire: Musical Dreams Beyond the Nine-to-Five

Interview takes place on February 21, 2026 at El Gato Cafe in Houston, TX.

Chaney Sinclaire is a singer-songwriter and artist who started her music journey in late 2023. She is eager to share what motivated her to make her long-lived dream a reality. 

When reflecting on how her love of singing began, she recalls participating in school musicals. “I have always been singing. I was briefly an extra in musicals in school. I never did vocal lessons, but I always loved to sing,” she says. At the time, Chaney wasn’t serious about singing, but the passion was always there. “When it's a creative dream, I feel like it’s common for people to feel shy about saying, ‘That’s what I want to do.’” 

Sinclaire had always dreamed of putting out her own music, though. “I was sitting at a job that I hated, and this song came on, and I thought, ‘This is actually kinda good,’” she tells me. That is when inspiration struck to make songs of her own. "I was like, ‘I don’t know how to make this happen myself.’ I needed the help of a professional,” Sinclaire says. That is when she found the company, Third Coast Recording Studio. She booked a session and started the process of making her first song, “Angel Eyes.” In Aug. 2024, she completed and released the song.

“I’ve always been interested in writing songs. I’ve been writing songs since I was a kid, and I’ve always wanted to pursue music, but I never had the means or the big girl salary, or I felt too shy,” Sinclaire says. “For whatever reason, I felt like I couldn’t.” 

The weight of others’ possible judgments held her back from releasing music, but after letting go of the ‘what if’s,’ she pushed forward with achieving her goals. “I felt inspired by myself. I was like, ‘Why not?’ and that kind of kicked-started me [not fearing] being perceived so much. Not caring as much about what people from my high school would think about me making songs,” Sinclaire explains. “I was like ‘Oh, I actually don’t care,’ and that was something that helped me. It’s liberating.”

After releasing “Angel Eyes,” she filmed a music video for it that she edited herself. “I had this terrible camera and my friends, and I went to my mom’s lake house and played around,” Sinclaire says. The video ended up getting posted the following year. “I get a new idea for a new project that I want to do almost every day, so I’d get distracted by that, so it took a backseat. It was meant to be more of a visual; it gave me a lot of appreciation for videography.”

When asked about her songwriting process, she states, “Normally, I’m sitting at my nine-to-five, and I have a nice poetic thought, and I write that down, and I start to get on a roll, then I pull up Rhyme Zone. Lately, I’ve been trying to get better at recording a rough voice memo of how I want the tune to sound. For the production, I come up with a playlist of inspirational songs and chords.”

Her biggest inspiration for starting to write a song is Kacey Musgraves, but her inspirations for each song vary. “[My song] ‘Backseat’ was Paramore influenced, ‘Devil’s Daughter’ was inspired by ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac, but [the songs] end up having a life of their own,” she says.

Sinclaire’s self-titled EP was released in 2025 and consists of five songs. Her process of choosing the number of songs to release was inspired by popular musicians and how they found success. “I was like, ‘Let me follow these blueprints that have been laid out for me before,’” She says. “The people who have made it are telling you exactly how to do it, just by being there and being successful.”

She states that growing up, adults would just go to work; that’s what they’d focused on, but nowadays, she notices more and more people pursuing their passions outside of their full-time career. “I have a cousin who was always a dancer; she does the silk aerial performances, and she’ll go to dance classes multiple nights a week. She’s pursuing all of this outside of a regular job that pays for you to do the things you love,” she explains. “That’s a cool societal development that we get to have in our adulthood.”  

When thinking about her future goals for her music, she says, “I would love to take it to the distance, just being able to live off of art, like music, or painting.” She explains that when she is at work, she thinks about going home and doing the things she loves, but commuting and working can sometimes drain her energy to do them. Sinclaire’s dream is to eventually live off creating what she loves, spending more time and energy on that.

“I definitely do want to perform one day. I’d love to have a headlining stadium tour, that would be sick, but I could also imagine having a niche Houston fanbase,” she shares. “Houston is cool, I foresee Houston being a third New York or LA. The community is a lot better here once you start looking for it.”

Sinclaire is working on a new Love Island-inspired song to be put out in the summertime. “The goal is to keep doing what I’m doing,” she says. “The biggest goal that I have is to have my [music] on vinyl.”

To see what’s next on Chaney Sinclaire’s music journey, follow her on Instagram @chaneysinclaire and TikTok @2chanes_.

Story and Photos by Megan Eppolito