Months before Nene Royal became an America’s Got Talent sensation and earned a Golden Buzzer, I first came across a video of her playing guitar at a night market in Phuket. Then I discovered OZONE — and realized the entire band was something special.
The First Time I Saw Nene Royal
Back in March 2026, I was sitting in my home office just outside of Austin, Texas, watching a video on Instagram of a young girl playing guitar at the Naka Night Market in Phuket, Thailand. There wasn't anything particularly spectacular about the setting. It looked like a kid playing for a small crowd at a night market — maybe a dozen or so people, a mix of tourists and locals.
Then she tore into playing the guitar solo from Queen's “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I stopped what I was doing. This kid could play. And sing. Her confidence in both appeared unflappable.
I've been a musician for about 40 years, and I've spent a good portion of that time around the music business, artists and A&R types. I've seen an awful lot of musicians over the years, and every once in a while you run across somebody who makes you immediately think, "There's something different about them." An old friend coined it as "that elusive star quality."
Though she's still young and has a long road ahead of her, Nene Royal is an embodiment of that phrase.
I didn't know her name yet. I didn't know much about her at all. I just knew I was watching a young guitarist in Phuket who had an impressive combination of technical ability, confidence and stage presence. My immediate thought was, "This kid is going to be famous." And then, as I tend to do when I come across an artist I like, I started digging.
Then I Discovered OZONE
That's when things got more interesting.
I discovered that Nene wasn't simply a young guitarist and singer making impressive videos. She was part of a band called OZONE, and the more I watched, the more I realized that Nene wasn't the only talented musician in the room. Her bandmates weren't just rhythm players supporting Nene's solo vocal and guitar talents.
OZONE is a young rock band from Phuket, Thailand, featuring Nene Royal (Praew) on lead vocals and guitar, Chopper on bass, MK on keyboard and vocals, and Boon on drums. At the time, they were playing a mix of classic rock, progressive rock, hard rock and other styles, and their videos showed a group of young musicians who had clearly spent a lot of time playing together.
That impressed me more than their individual talents.
There are plenty of young musicians online who can play a killer guitar solo or blow you away with some difficult instrumental passage. That's great, but it doesn't mean you've found a great band. With OZONE, I kept coming back to how well these kids played together. They listened to each other, they were tight, and there was a sense that they were actually having fun making music together.
Nene was obviously the natural front person. She had the guitar skills, the voice and the kind of stage presence that makes you want to keep watching her. But I didn't come away from those videos thinking I'd stumbled upon one great young musician surrounded by three kids who happened to play instruments.
I felt I'd found a really good young band who just hadn't gotten their big break yet.
So I immediately reached out to Bee Napat, who manages the band and is the mother of one of the members, and asked if I could interview the band for Cupchairs' In The Chair With... series. She said yes.
“Do You Guys Know Brian May Commented?”
There was another part of that initial "Bohemian Rhapsody" post that caught my attention. It was getting comments from some pretty notable musicians! The one that jumped out was everyone's favorite Knight of the British Empire, Brian May, Queen's legendary guitarist. His comment was a simple "Great !! Bri".
The band wasn't even aware of all of it yet! I asked Bee, “Do you guys know Brian May commented?” They had no idea and, needless to say, it blew them away. Can you imagine? That was a pretty fun message for me to convey.
And while that's pretty damn cool, it wasn't just May. The likes of Dweezil Zappa and Live Aid Power Station frontman Michael Des Barres also recognized the up-and-coming greatness.
It was at that point that I knew I had to meet these amazing kids. And hosting Cupchairs' YouTube interview series In The Chair With... would be an ideal medium for this.
7:30 AM in Austin, 7:30 PM in Phuket
The interview eventually took place on March 19, 2026. For me, it was 7:30 in the morning in Texas (I was admittedly still a little bleary-eyed). For OZONE, it was 7:30 that evening in Phuket after a long day at school, followed by rehearsal.
Bee had me send a list of questions ahead of time to account for the language barrier. Nene was the only member of the group who spoke English well enough to really carry the conversation. The rest of the band understood me at about the same level as I grasp fluent Spanish conversations--just good enough to have an idea of what was being said. We ended up having a delightfully fun conversation. Honestly, the whole thing was just adorable.
What stood out most, though, is what I'd noticed in the performance videos: these kids were serious about music. They weren't just kids who happened to be getting attention on social media. They practiced. They played together. They knew what they were doing, and they clearly loved it.
At that point, I had no idea that a few months later, one of those kids would be standing on the America's Got Talent stage in front of millions of people. I just knew I had found a band I wanted Coyote Music readers to know about.
The A&R Instinct
There's another reason the whole Nene story has meant something to me personally.
My former boss, Marc Nathan, was the VP of A&R at Farmclub/Universal, where I worked as an A&R rep. Marc had spent decades in the music business and had a real knack for recognizing artists with something special. Among the artists he helped bring to major labels were 3 Doors Down and Barenaked Ladies, and his career included A&R positions at Universal, Capitol, Sire and other labels and imprints.
Marc passed away recently, and I've thought about him quite a bit while watching Nene's story unfold.
Something you learn when you've been around the music business for a long time is that recognizing talent isn't always about being able to explain exactly what you're seeing. Obviously, musical ability matters. So does songwriting, stage presence, personality and a whole bunch of other things. But sometimes an artist simply grabs your attention in a way that makes you want to know what happens next.
That's what happened to me when I saw Nene and OZONE. There I was in Austin, watching a video of a kid playing guitar to maybe a dozen people at a night market in Phuket, and my immediate reaction was that she was going to be famous.
I think Marc would have understood that. And, honestly, I think Marc would have been proud of my instinct.
And Then Nene Went on America’s Got Talent
Of course, this is where the story gets a little crazy.
A few months after I met Nene and OZONE, Nene got the opportunity to appear on America's Got Talent. And has she ever made the most of that moment!
I didn't catch her initial audition live. I watched the performance afterward, and I wasn't at all surprised by what I saw. I already knew what she could do.
Nene performed The Cranberries' “Zombie” for the AGT judges and received four yes votes and a standing ovation. Then came the Judges' Callbacks, where she performed Muse's “Hysteria.”
By this point, the audience was getting to see what I'd seen in that little video from Phuket: a young musician who was completely comfortable picking up a guitar and taking over a stage with her massive persona.
Then came the quarterfinals.
Nene performed Soundgarden's “Black Hole Sun,” after which former Spice Girl Mel B gave her a Live Golden Buzzer, sending her directly to the Season 21 finale. That part didn't surprise me either. The Golden Buzzer was a no-brainer.
Nene is a star.
The strange part, for me, was watching something I'd first seen on a tiny scale suddenly playing out on one of the biggest stages in the world. The guitar was the same. The voice was the same. The kid was the same. The only thing that had changed was the size of the audience.
Nene Didn’t Leave Phuket Behind
One thing I've really enjoyed watching throughout all of this is how Nene hasn't seemed to leave Phuket behind as she's gained international recognition.
There's a tendency, particularly when a young artist suddenly gets attention from an American television show, for the story to become all about becoming an “international star.” But Nene already had an identity before America's Got Talent came along. She's from Phuket. She learned to play guitar there, performed there, and played with OZONE there.
And I especially loved what she did with her look for her “Black Hole Sun” performance on AGT. She didn't just show up in a generic rock-star outfit. Her stage look was built around a concept called “LET'S ROCK TO THE WORLD,” combining the rock aesthetic with Thai textiles and cultural elements. The outfit incorporated a contemporary leather-and-textile vest, traditional Thai fabrics and gold details, including a silk textile wrapped around her waist. It was also designed to bring elements of Phuket's Baba-Peranakan heritage into the look.
I thought that was really cool. Here's this young guitarist from Phuket, standing on a massive television stage in America, playing Soundgarden and absolutely killing it — while also finding a way to say, This is where I'm from.
Nene doesn't have to choose between being a rock guitarist and being a young Thai woman from Phuket. She can be both. And I think that's part of what makes her so compelling as an up-and-coming artist.
She's not trying to erase where she came from in order to become a rock star. She's bringing it with her.
Don’t Forget OZONE
It's also important to me that we don't lose sight of OZONE in all of this.
Nene's success has obviously put her in the spotlight, and deservedly so. She's a natural front person of the group, and she has the kind of personality and stage presence that can carry a big television performance.
But I discovered OZONE because I thought the whole band was good. That's still how I see them. Chopper, MK and Boon aren't simply the kids standing behind Nene while she gets famous. They're musicians who have been playing together, and the chemistry among them is a big part of what made me pay attention to OZONE in the first place.
Nene is now going to have a much bigger audience, and that naturally means more people are going to discover OZONE, too. Hopefully, they'll go back and watch some of the band's older performances and see what I saw when I first found them: a really good young band from Phuket.