Dasha put a ton of work into her single “Austin,” but the reaction to the track and viral TikTok line dance still knocks her back on her heels.
“The pace at which my life is changing is alarming,” she told Us Weekly when we caught up to the California-born Nashville resident. “[‘Austin’] flipped [my life] on its head.”
The former pop singer took a turn toward country music on her 2024 album What Happens Now? She choreographed a line dance to promote the kiss-off anthem, but had no idea how well it would work.
“Did your boots stop workin? / Did your truck break down? / Did you burn through the money? Did your ex find out?/Where there’s a will then there’s a way and I’m damn sure you lost it / Didn’t even say goodbye / Just wish I knew what caused it,” Dasha, 24, sings on the track that was ripe for an energetic bit of boot-scooting. She wanted to make sure the song found its audience.
“The whole, like, North Star of starting the line dance and everything was to get ‘Austin’ played in honky tonks. Into the rotation, you know?” she said. “As long as it gets played in honky tonks, like, that’s all I want out of this whole thing.”
Dasha Mickey Bernal/Getty Images
Dasha got what she wanted and more with billions of views on TikTok and her first single to break the Billboard Top 40. “Austin” currently sits at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, its highest position yet.
“Like three days in, I got hit up by so many DJs with videos of like 30 people doing it,” she said. “So fast. And that’s when I was like, if this is happening in three days…”
Dasha spent the weekend performing for her largest-ever crowd at CMA Fest and collaborating with Keith Urban on a mashup of “Austin” and Johnny Cash’s “Jackson.”
“I’m so giddy about life right now,” she said.
Dasha Ed Rode/Getty Images for Spotify
Even if she’s collaborating with pop-country royalty, Dasha still has a few goals. She told Us that she’d love to collaborate with another pop-turned-country singer: Post Malone. She shared a surreal moment where she ran into the chart-topper, and he complimented her single.
Post Malone is ditching beerbongs and Bentleys for rhinestone suits and pickup trucks. Malone burst onto the scene in 2016 with the trap/hip-hop sounds of “White Iverson,” but he hasn’t stayed in that lane. From the alternative rock sounds of “Circles” to his heavy-metal love on “Take What You Want” (which features Ozzy Osbourne) and […]
“Post is like such an incredible songwriter and artist, and I admire him as a human so much. I would love to be friends with him and write songs with him,” she said. “And so him knowing my song, I was like, wow, that’s such a compliment.”