This post was updated Jan. 30 at 10:15 p.m.

Amy Kuney is a supernova of her own.

The artist and lecturer at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is a co-writer on Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova,” a track off her 2023 debut “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.” Roan’s album is up for two Grammy Awards this Sunday – Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album – with Roan also clinching a Best New Artist nomination. Kuney’s credits include writing songs for artists such as Kelly Clarkson, Kali Uchis and Foxes. Beyond collaborations with other artists, the songwriter releases her own music as Ames, delivering tunes with a folky edge that are inspired by her Oklahoman upbringing in a religious family.

Ahead of the 67th Annual Grammy Awards, the Daily Bruin’s Dannela Lagrimas spoke with Kuney about her songwriting influences, reclaiming queerness and her journey co-writing Roan’s synth-pop ode to camp.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[Related: Grammys 2025: Grammy-nominated songwriter, alumnus KOLE discusses genre-spanning works]

Daily Bruin: What is your personal history with music and songwriting?

Amy Kuney: I’m originally from Oklahoma. My parents are incredibly conservative, Southern Baptist, and so I was raised in a really religious environment, and I was homeschooled. I wasn’t really allowed to listen to anything musicwise, other than hymns and classical music.

From a really early age, I did not subscribe to my parents’ model of belief. With the hymns that we would sing in church, I felt like they weren’t for me, so I started rewriting the lyrics to hymns when I was young, keeping the same melody and flow. I would count the syllables out and replace them with words that meant something to me.

I was aware that I was queer at a very early age, and so the pronouns “he and him” – I didn’t feel like they applied to me. Women were my higher power. I would rewrite the hymns to suit my own life. That became a really automatic thing for me – replacing words and being able to count syllables and fill them in with lyrics. That has helped me a lot in my career, being able to write lyrics quickly.

DB: How does your approach toward collaboration influence your pedagogy for your songwriting classes?

AK: I think three is the magic number for collaboration, because there’s three major elements to a song – chord progression, lyrics and melody. I try to pair up my students in groups of three and instruct them, “If your partners have the lyrics handled, try to grab the chord progression and work on that.”

Most songs that are released today, very few of them have just one writer. The idea of an artist sitting alone in their bedroom for years on end – the tortured artists writing everything themselves – isn’t really a thing today. Especially in Los Angeles, you really have to be open to collaborating if you want to finish a project.

DB: Speaking of collaborations, what was the process for writing Chappell Roan’s “Red Wine Supernova?”

AK: We wrote that five years ago. It was a blind session, meaning I didn’t know anyone in the room before showing up. At that time, Kaylee, or Chappell, didn’t really have a lot of stuff out. I didn’t know what she looked like, because her album artwork was all illustrations, but I knew we came from a similar background.

We wanted to be clever. She wanted to do a gay anthem and wanted it to be campy, and that was right up my alley. My first order of business is starting a Google document, sharing it with everyone in the room and then going bonkers on it – getting a sense of how the artist describes things and their vocabulary. There were nine pages of lyrics.

The “red wine supernova” thing was something I’ve had in my phone for a long time. I was a big fan of the Oasis song “Champagne Supernova,” and wanted to write my own take on that. It felt more feminine. The producer, LIXA, threw a track together relatively quickly with acoustic guitar, because we were kind of visualizing a campfire vibe with the guitar. The song was a bit slower when we did it, and then Dan (Nigro) sped it up and recut everything.

I was very happy that the song ended up being released, because, like I said, it was five years ago that we wrote it, and I write 200-plus songs a year. You kind of just let things go once it’s out of your hands.

[Related: Second Take: Chappell Roan is expressing valid concerns regarding celebrity-fan relationships]

DB: You described “Red Wine Supernova” as a queer anthem. What does it mean to you to have been a part of something like that and especially seeing it embraced by so many people over the past year?

AK: I’m so proud, and I’m so proud of Kaylee (Roan). She’s been doing this for so long – playing farmers markets and playing venues where nobody’s showing up and being picked up and dropped by different labels. The fact that she kept going is such a testament to her and her spirit. It’s so hard, especially when you are outspoken, and she doesn’t play it safe – that’s really hard to do, especially as a woman.

It all just hit at the perfect time. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Back in 2004, the world wasn’t ready for queer artists. Amid all of the political unrest and hatred and everything that’s happening in our country and across the world, she really came at the perfect time. The fact that it is providing a warmer climate for the LGBTQIA+ community warms my heart.

Knowing that someone like Chappell Roan can be as big as she is – it’s just a wonderful feeling. Seeing straight-identifying artists covering the song makes me really happy. The fact that it’s crossing over into other people’s playlists that wouldn’t normally listen to “gay” music – it feels really good.