“Did your boots cease working? Did your truck break down?”
Dasha Novotny, who merely goes by Dasha, says as quickly as she sang these lyrics for the primary time, she knew she had a success on her palms.
After she improvised the refrain, the studio went quiet, and that recording session, when she created “Austin,” is when she realized the music would put her “on the map.”
Dasha launched “Austin” in November 2023. She then dropped her second album, “What Occurs Now?” in February, and now, she carried out her viral hit on the CMT Music Awards on Sunday, April 7.
For the second yr in a row, the CMT Awards have been hosted in Austin, Texas, which introduced a stunning revelation.
“That is my first time ever coming to Austin,” she tells TODAY.com.
Regardless of by no means earlier than visiting town featured in her viral music, which has garnered over 3 billion views on TikTok and 75 million streams on Spotify, Dasha says the feelings and storyline are “so actual.”
“However I made up the place simply because it didn’t actually matter,” she says. “I used to be fabricating a really enjoyable story about what was occurring.”
“What Occurs Now?” marks Dasha’s nation debut and comprises eight tracks written by Dasha herself, together with one which she says she considers the sequel to “Austin”: “King of California.”
Dasha provides that, although tough to decide on, her different favourite tracks from the work embody titular music “What Occurs Now?,” which she calls a “stadium banger banjo anthem,” in addition to “42.” She says the latter music is the “most weak” she’s ever been with followers.
Here is the whole lot to learn about rising nation star Dasha.
She grew up making music together with her household in San Luis Obispo, California
Dasha says her love of performing began in her hometown of San Luis Obispo, California.
“I discovered my love of performing and entertaining individuals at a really younger age,” she says. “I used to be 5 once I began doing musical theater productions, after which I used to be dancing — ballet and hip hop and stuff rising up.”
The singer-songwriter says she gained nationwide poetry competitions in class, which helped after she determined to choose up guitar and piano and begin writing songs.
Music is in her blood, although. Dasha says her dad was her first supervisor and began reserving gigs in espresso outlets and wineries to begin. Then, she started working together with her older brother, who’s a music producer.
“I launched my first music once I was 13 and it was my birthday current for my dad,” she says. “He gave me a small price range and goes ‘OK, go document your music.’ Then we document a bit of music video and that’s once I say that I caught the bug for being an artist.”
How ‘Austin’ got here to be
In a recording session in Los Angeles, Dasha says her staff was engaged on a “fully totally different music” when she lastly mentioned: “It’s not me.”
“I needed to write down my scorned lady music like my ‘Earlier than He Cheats,’ my ‘Mama’s Damaged Coronary heart’ by Miranda Lambert, that sort of vibe,” she says.
After a break mid-session, Dasha says she started freestyling the now-viral refrain and the room went “silent.”
“Everybody’s like, ‘Wait, what did you simply say?’ And it was the best factor ever. I imply, we wrote the music in lower than an hour,” she says.
“I simply at all times knew in my intestine that it was gonna be the music that put me on the map,” she provides.
Choreographing the viral ‘Austin’ line dance
Together with the favored nation music, a corresponding line dance has now change into a TikTok development — and the strikes have been choreographed by Dasha and her supervisor.
“We had the thought of creating a line dance as a result of I assumed it will be so unbelievable to have individuals at my exhibits bringing again the tradition of line dancing and the enjoyable of it, and everybody understanding the steps and dancing collectively,” Dasha says. “It’s such a neighborhood constructing factor.”
Dasha, who did ballet for 15 years, says she goes line dancing on a weekly foundation, so she pieced the dance collectively from varied strikes she’s picked up.
“I needed to make it easy sufficient so anyone may do it, however I needed to make it form of enjoyable, a bit of attractive and I feel we killed it,” Dasha says.
Accompanied by influencer Zoey Aune, Dasha filmed the dance and posted it on-line, the place she’s acquired over 50 million views.
“(Zoey and I) went to American Legion, the place I’m going line dancing each Tuesday, and we had a few drinks and we’re having a superb time and are like, ‘OK let’s do that line dance’ And we shot the video after which it simply went loopy viral.”
In February, she posted one other video of herself doing the dance at a barn she says she works at in Franklin, Tennessee, writing, “me cuz my album dropped final evening and my whole fyp is individuals doing my line dance,” with the crying and orange coronary heart emoji.
What’s subsequent for Dasha?
Along with selling her newly launched songs and acting at one of many greatest nights in nation music, Dasha says a deluxe model of her album is coming quickly.
“I don’t have a date but, however it’s occurring. The writing is occurring,” she says. “Oh, I’m so, so excited to share all these superb songs with the audiences that love ‘What Occurs Now?’”
“It’s going to be superior,” she provides.
