Bandana Cheyenna Carves Their Own Path Through ‘The Artist’s Pilgrimage’

Songwriter of Billboard-charting song “Austin” performed by Dasha is now writing about their own journey as a gender and genre free artist in their four-part album The Artist’s Pilgrimage.

Life can have a funny way of showing us who we really are, carrying us down rough gravel roads and lugging us into the unknown without much warning. For musician and songwriter Bandana Cheyenna, it took a cross-country move from Nashville, Tennessee to Denver, Colorado and some unexpected news to understand themself both as a person and as a musician. 

PHOTO BY DOMINIC DONNER

In the wide, wild mountains of the Rockies, Cheyenna took to picking up odd jobs as a way to make ends meet while also holding on to any kind of creativity that came to them. They slept in their car and cleaned houses as a way to fund themselves.

“I was broke. I was a janitor in an office building,” Cheyenna tells Pleaser. We sat in their living room over a cup of warm turmeric tea, as the songwriter had invited us into their home for the interview. We sat in vintage furniture amongst a wall of vision boards and homemade collages — Cheyenna’s home is as bright and colorful as their journey as a musician. 

“I was cleaning mansions in Colorado, literally living out of my car. And I was still writing, that’s how I was able to get through it. That’s how I truly found my voice as an artist. And then low and behold, about eight months into living that way in Colorado, that’s when ‘Austin’ started blowing up.” 

Before their time in Denver, the songwriter worked in L.A., writing songs with multiple artists for several different projects. While they were in California, they ended up writing the song “Austin” with Dasha in April of 2023. The song, which became extremely popular on the internet, completely derailed Cheyenna’s current perception of songwriting as a career, and they were able to press forward from the nights sleeping in their car and move back to Nashville. 

“It was unexpected. I was offered my publishing deal, and I moved back to Nashville and started writing for everyone,” Cheyenna says. 

Cheyenna always felt comfortable working in the writer's room with other artists, workshopping songs and writing beautiful crafted lyrics that served as a direct reflection of truly intimate parts in people's lives. As they continued to write for others, they also worked to write for themselves.

So many experiences shaped Cheyenna’s landscape of poetry as a writer, from the Ohio Appalachian foothills they were born and raised in, to the nights sleeping in their car in Colorado. As they navigated life and everything that came with it, their writing kept them grounded, safe and secure. There are only so many things in this world that can deter us from who we are, and for Cheyenna, their challenges only kept them in line with their unwavering need to craft songs. Months of writing in the margins of journals and on paper napkins found in diners, Cheyenna wrote their album The Artist’s Pilgrimage, an homage to their expedition as a creative.

RIGHT: PHOTO BY DOMINIC DONNER, LEFT: PHOTO BY CONNOR ARNSPIGER

The album is being released as acts in EP form, with the first of the EPs releasing at the beginning of 2026. Act 1: “THE DREAM” talks all about Cheyenna’s beginning stages in their career, when they were simply just dreaming of being a real musician. In songs such as “Man Who Moves Mountains” from “THE DREAM,” Cheyenna’s lofty, soul-driven voice questions their place as a songwriter through lyricism like: “Maybe it’s just not in the cards for me this round / Maybe I should just give it up like my mother said and move back to my hometown / Maybe I should listen to all the serious people / Maybe I should have saved my money / Maybe I should have been an office man, yeah that’d be funny” 

“That song was me at my breaking point. I thought to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing?’” Cheyenna says about “Man Who Moves Mountains.”  “I was broke, I felt like I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know I was going to have a hit song. At the time, in my head I thought that I had given up on music, and I didn’t have what it takes. I just felt like this wandering, lost soul and that I’d wasted my potential, so that song is kind of about admitting all my worst fears. Like maybe I wasn’t meant to do music. Maybe it’s not going to happen for me. That song definitely hits me every time I sing it.” 

Although there were doubts about their music career, Cheyenna found light at the end of the tunnel. The entire album carves out a story of light and darkness, and the singer/songwriter tells all about what it meant to dig themselves out of a deep, dark place and find the light of the world again. In songs like “Back to Light,” in Act 1 of the album, they begin to reckon with hope, leaning into the thought that music is still an option because it’s the only thing that makes sense to them. 

Cheyenna describes themself as “gender free and genre free,” in their artist bio, breaking free from societal norms and creating space for genuine presence in an ever-so artificial music industry. They are continuously creating music that is grounding and present, with acts 2, 3 and 4 of The Artist’s Pilgrimage slowly being released throughout 2026. Act 2: “THE DESERT,” will start to release in March and April, but until then, Cheyenna has also started releasing a four song love series throughout the month of February.