With Guns N' Roses cover, Natalie Nootenboom is NJ's 'Rocket Queen'

There’s no stopping Natalie Nootenboom.

The Bergen County native is unleashing her second single, an incendiary cover of the Guns N’ Roses classic “Rocket Queen,” on Friday, Feb. 10.

Nootenboom is already taking the fashion world by storm, gracing the cover of Teen Vogue in 2022 and serving as the face of a Maybelline campaign in January. Her first single, a hard-hitting take on Selena Gomez’s “Feel Me,” arrived in September.

Also working as the director of her steamy, adults-only “Rocket Queen” music video, Nootenboom is revealing herself as a force to be reckoned with behind the microphone and on both sides of the camera.

“It’s really exciting because I think as humans we tend to me like, ‘Well, I’m this’ and ‘I’m that’ and kind of label ourselves,” said the Englewood native. “But when you can try out multiple things and express yourself through multiple avenues, that’s even more exciting than just sticking to one.”

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“Rocket Queen” is a big swing for a sophomore single — it’s the closing track from Guns’ blockbuster 1987 “Appetite for Destruction” LP — and Nootenboom makes the song her own. She doesn’t bother trying to replicate the singular work of Axl Rose, but her vocals are rich and commanding. Axl’s “Rocket Queen” yowls, Natalie’s rumbles.

“Cover songs are really good as a developing artist to do because you learn how to be more original through copying someone else’s song,” Nootenboom said. “You realize, ‘I can’t copy the original,’ so you’re kind of forced to do your own rendition of it, and that’s when it becomes really fun and creative.”

'We've got to catch up with the times'

Nootenboom, a queer artist of mixed Japanese and Dutch descent, isn’t asking for anyone’s permission to be herself.

While hard rock has not historically been the most welcoming space for women or LGBTQ individuals, she’s entering the genre guns blazing, expressing herself in uncompromising fashion.

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“Anything that’s different that comes through, it’s not going to be immediately liked or loved, of course, because you’re opening a door that hasn’t been opened yet,” she said. “People are like, ‘Wait, what the hell is this? This is not what I’m used to.’ And we’ve got to catch up with the times. It’s like with the whole pronouns thing coming out, people are having a hard time accepting that."

In other words, cultural evolution is ineviatble.

"It’s like we have to adapt or we won’t survive ... socially," Nootenboom said. "So it’s really about time that a queer woman has come through the rock space because it just means that if there isn’t (then) we’re not evolving.”

Nootenboom is used to breaking barriers. In September 2017, she made history at the age of 16 as the first plus-size model to walk in the Anna Sui show during New York Fashion Week, according to a report by Elle at the time.

“I’m prepared for any backlash,” she told the Asbury Park Press. “Because my first career was modeling, and there were pioneers who were plus models before me. Before, it was the industry standard to be super-skinny and somebody had to be like, ‘No, I’m fat and I’m here to stay,’ and created a way for plus models. Now it’s like there are plus models everywhere.”

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Nootenboom seems fated to make headlines. She’s the granddaughter of wrestler and Benihana founder Hiroaki “Rocky” Aoki; her uncle is DJ and producer Steve Aoki; her aunt is supermodel Devon Aoki; and her sister is fellow model Yumi Nu.

Her journey to the realm of heavy metal, Nootenboom said, started years ago during a family trip to North Carolina over the holidays, as her father played songs such as Ozzy Osbourne’s “I Don’t Wanna Stop” and “The Diary of Jane” by Breaking Benjamin.

“I just fell in love with it and just was like, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool,’ ” she said. “And then, throughout the years, I always knew I wanted to sing and make music but I couldn’t pick a genre. And then I was like, ‘What’s the common denominator? What’s the thing that makes electricity in my soul?’ And then I thought, ‘The sound of an electric guitar is basically the sound of my soul.’ ”

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Natalie Nootenboom, the 'Rocket Queen' of NJ, covers Guns N' Roses