There’s a dark side that comes with the kind of viral success Dasha experienced with her song and line dance “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’).” Not only did the song become a TikTok sensation and a Spotify streaming juggernaut (it’s approaching 1 billion streams), it also opened up the California country singer to some intense criticism. And being a woman in country music made the barbs even sharper.
“It’s more about you’re trashy, you have no class, you’re slutty, you’re a whore, your outfits suck, you’re ugly and you try so hard. And you suck at singing… You should go to hell,” Dasha says on a new episode of Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast.
The 25-year-old admits that the online trolling has a way of zeroing in on exactly the flaws we sometimes perceive in ourselves.
“It digs in on things I have said about myself in my moments of weakness and I think that’s why it cuts so deep. Cause I would look in the mirror and think… ‘Get your shit together,’” she says. “I know that’s not true, but everyone talks about themselves like that sometimes…. It cuts deep.”
On her forthcoming EP Anna — titled after her given name, Anna Dasha Novotny — the songwriter aims to embrace her younger, more innocent self. She’ll preview the EP, due Oct. 10, with its latest track, “Train,” out on Friday.
But instead of ruminating on the criticisms, Dasha says she chooses to harness the power of any online hate and build something positive out of it.
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“People call me ‘Trailer Swift’ online and guess what I’m doing?” she says. “Making merch out of it.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Charley Crockett, Gavin Adcock, Margo Price, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, and Clever.
