Before she had a capacity crowd screaming every word at the Mojave Stage, Slayyyter was ready to walk away from music entirely.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old singer, born Catherine Grace Garner in Kirkwood, Missouri, made her Coachella debut in April 2026 \u2014 and the response was so massive it drew comparisons to Chappell Roan\u2019s 2024 set. But rewind just a little, and the story almost had a very different ending.<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s Just Not Working Out\u201d<\/p>\n
Before releasing her third studio album, Worst Girl in America, Slayyyter seriously considered leaving the industry behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings just weren\u2019t going as I\u2019d hoped,\u201d she told Range<\/a>. \u201cI was like, \u2018I\u2019ve put so much into this, I\u2019ve lost so much money, and it\u2019s just not working out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n She stayed. And then Coachella happened.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like such a dream come true. I have always wanted to attend Coachella\u2014let alone play it\u2014since I would see photos on Tumblr when I was in high school. It feels very surreal,\u201d she told Vogue.<\/a><\/p>\n Her set included tracks like \u201cBeat Up Chanels,\u201d \u201cDance\u201d and \u201cCrank\u201d \u2014 and the crowd knew deep cuts, not just the singles.<\/p>\n \u201cI was surprised how many people knew the words to the non-single songs on the album. The crowd response to \u2018Crank\u2019 was maybe my favorite moment of the whole set, though. Everyone was just screaming: It felt like the room was shaking!\u201d<\/p>\n From a Bedroom Closet to Columbia Records<\/p>\n Slayyyter\u2019s path to Coachella didn\u2019t follow any traditional playbook. She attended the University of Missouri for one year before leaving in 2016 to pursue music full time. What followed was a grind that most aspiring pop stars don\u2019t talk about openly.<\/p>\n She started making what she described as \u201c\u201880s lo-fi pop\u201d music, producing and editing songs herself while working from her bedroom closet at her mother\u2019s house. To support herself, she worked service jobs, camming and findomme work.<\/p>\n Her stage name is derived from a variation of the surname of Ron Slater.<\/p>\n She began releasing music independently on SoundCloud. Her debut mixtape, Slayyyter, arrived in 2019. Her debut studio album, Troubled Paradise, followed in June 2021, with Starfucker dropping in September 2023. Worst Girl in America was released in March 2026 on Columbia Records \u2014 a major-label milestone.<\/p>\n Along the way, she completed three solo tours and toured with Charli XCX, Kesha and Tove Lo.<\/p>\n \u2018The Trashy St. Louis Girl\u2019<\/p>\n