Rio Romeo

Rio Romeo is a force of nature whose open-book honesty and unbounded curiosity have made them a 2020s cult hero. They've amassed more than 713,000 followers on TikTok, and their breakthrough single, the longing "Nothing's New," has racked up more than 308 million streams on Spotify. With their new album Good Grief, they're taking stock of their whirlwind last five years, which have included cross-country relocations, a new romance, a horrifying accident that resulted in brain and hip injuries — and the support of a fanbase that's helped them not just survive, but thrive.

Good Grief brings together nine songs from Rio's last five years. A companion piece to their 2022 EP Good God!, which contained "Nothing's New," Good Grief shows how Rio's songwriting and vocal skills have blossomed — their genre-fluid songs possess a musical-theater grandness while also vibrating with punk vitality and the righteousness of queer folk. "I've been waiting forever to put this project out," they say.

"Forever" could mean all the way back to Rio's childhood, when they were a fervent journaler who — because of their religious, homeschooled upbringing in southern California — quickly developed their autodidactic side. "It definitely was an isolating experience, but it was creatively motivating," Rio recalls of those early years. They were exposed to musicals at a very young age ("I now Identify as an escaped theater kid," they note) and eventually enrolled in an art-focused high school in Pomona, where they began focusing on their visual art practice while also realizing that they were "not the same, gender-wise, as other girls." Rio then applied to and was accepted by the scene design program at DePaul University's Theatre School.

"I ended up moving to Chicago at 18 — and mind you, this entire time I've been living in a very conservative Christian environment," they say. "Being gay was simply not an option. I get to Chicago, and I'm like, 'Holy shit, this is so cool. I have independence. For the first time, I really get to figure out who I am and what I want and the people that I want to be friends with.' I had some queer friends growing up, but it's a red bubble within the larger blue California, so, I knew very few queer people."

While Rio's world had blown open in Chicago, they ultimately decided to leave university after a quarter and move home — until their parents found out that Rio was gay and kicked them out. Following a stint of couch-surfing and living in their car, Rio moved back to Chicago. Having lived in California all their life, Rio realized, led them to having "no fucking idea what people do in the winter" in sometimes-frigid Chicago. So Rio spent time back at DePaul, waiting for their friends to finish classes in piano-equipped rehearsal rooms on campus.

"I ended up playing the piano a lot, and coping with this really fucked-up situation — all of this transition and loss — through writing songs," they say. Being able to write on their own and share songs on their own terms was liberating: "There was this secrecy that I could have with my music, where I could only choose to share it with people when I wanted to," they say. "It was really empowering to be able to have choice, after not having any choice." Rio recorded a project in 2018 but ended up not telling anyone about it. "It was there mostly for me to listen to and be like, 'Yeah, I did this.'"

When COVID hit in early 2020, Rio moved back to California and returned to work at their parents' picture frame shop, which meant leaving the queer community that they'd had in Chicago. Their desire for connection led them to TikTok, which was experiencing pandemic-era growth, and posting videos led to them finding an audience. "I would talk about being gay," they say. "For the first time, people seemed to gravitate towards me and really understand me. It felt so good."

At first, Rio wasn't sharing any of their music or art — early videos were "all lesbian vibes," they say. Opening up further led to Rio's audience rallying around them even harder, and in the wake of a second bout of homelessness they accrued enough money to move out and into a place of their own and pursue their creative work full-time. "I was like, 'Okay, this is my opportunity to take some steps and figure out how to make a living as an artist,'" they recall. "That was such a privilege that I've never had."

But shortly after finding that security, Rio got into a skateboarding accident that resulted in multiple injuries to their hip and back, as well as a traumatic brain injury. Rio's community rallied around them and helped them maintain their housing and other expenses through a tumultuous time that included Rio facing medical discrimination. "People were really riding for me and supporting me the best way that they could online, through small donations," they say. "The only reason that I got through that was because my girlfriend and because of all these strangers online — it was literally like God sent them to me."

The aftereffects of Rio's concussion lasted for a year, and it led to their not being able to do much of anything — no screens, no bright lights, no loud noises. While they were offline, their music was gaining even more momentum. Rio had released a demo of "Butch 4 Butch" on TikTok about a week before the accident, and the frenzy for them to record a full version — from fans and record labels — reached a fever pitch while they were still recuperating.

Rio's recovery period had created a "make or break situation" for them and their girlfriend, who had become their full-time caregiver. "There was no option for it to not work," they say. But while dealing with the fallout from their concussion Rio could still play the piano because of the gentler noises it emitted. They released a full version of "Butch 4 Butch" in early 2021, and it caught fire almost as soon as it came out. The witty, knowing chronicle of lesbian infatuation's nearly instant success — it currently has more than 92 million streams on Spotify — gave Rio more time to heal and to, eventually, make art again.

Good Grief shows how Rio has refined their raw talent over the last five years, with songs like the gorgeously wrought ballad "Without You" and the shambolic "God's Got Something Out For Me" possessing the conversational acuity of musical-theatre showstoppers and the insistent hookiness of classic pop. The dreamy yet knife-edged "JOHNNYSCOTT," meanwhile, finds Rio channeling their anger into their work for the first time. "Anger is really not something that women are entitled to feel — I feel like that's pretty drilled into me," they say. "It's really cathartic — it's even gender-affirming — to let myself feel angry and feel entitled to that emotion."

Rio is now well enough to tour, and they'll be taking their piano with them. They own multiple instruments — their apartment is full of them — but their songwriting has taken place on the first piano they obtained, which they got for free after its seller saw how much Rio loved it. It was "out of tune as fuck," Rio says, upon acquiring it — "sounds like shit, but like, in a charming way," they add.

The piano was so out of tune that if it were to be recalibrated, Rio would have had to relearn all of their music — so they've instead decided to not only retune the many pianos around their house so that they're a half-step down, but they've decided to tour with their own piano, bringing it on the road. "The struggle of bringing the piano everywhere is an art form in itself," they grin.

The idea of finding beauty in the hard times — while not sanding those difficulties down — runs through through Good Grief. "Good Grief is very much about the grieving process," they say. "I genuinely have gone through immense grief when it comes to loss in my life, in a lot of different ways," they say.

"Today, more people talk about things," they continue. "Back in 2015, I really could have used somebody saying that it was going to be okay, and that, fundamentally, you lose things in life, and that's okay. I felt like I didn't really have that person, and I want to be able to be that person for the many young queer fans that I have. Shit's fucked up… . That's why I choose to share what I share. I hope that it makes one person feel heard and feel less alone."