Dasha is officially a billionaire – in streams, that is.
The California-raised, Nashville-based hitmaker, 25, tells PEOPLE that her milestone achievement of “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” becoming only the second solo female country song to hit 1 billion streams in two years is still difficult to fully process.
“It kind of feels like I’m being pranked sometimes because this is my first hit song,” she shares. “This is my first moment, and I recognize how rare and f—ing insane this is. You don’t usually get this for your first one.”
The artist further notes that watching the total stream count creep closer to a billion over recent weeks and days has been the “best TV show you could ever imagine. I’ll pull my Spotify up for artists, and you refresh, and it goes up by 50,000 streams. It’s so fun.”
Alex Green
Though Dasha has been interested in music since childhood, her breakout success as an artist on an international scale didn’t hit until “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” blessed listeners’ ears on Nov. 17, 2023. Her success may have happened virtually overnight after sharing the track, but she acknowledges that “you have to build up for this” for years for something like that to just work.
“Then all of a sudden, oh my God, you have this huge song … it’s so satisfying and it’s so scary and it’s just fun. It’s crazy starting off my career with this as the first milestone. So it’s big shoes to fill, but I’m ready. I’m excited for this,” she continues.
As the star recognizes, there’s no surefire way to manufacture a hit. However, Dasha proudly bills herself as a person of instinct: “I’ve always really relied on my gut. I’ve been a big gut sense person my whole life,” a mentality that led to the natural success of “Austin.”
Gut and grit got her to “Austin,” but it was also a key partnership with Version III, which released “Austin” in partnership with the budding artist, that ultimately helped lead to her major-label deal with Warner Records and solidify her status in the spaces of both country and pop music.
“I remember when I wrote ‘Austin,’ I didn’t have a single person on my entire team. I didn’t even have a manager at the time,” Dasha recalls. “But I sent it to my brother, and I remember he and I and now my manager, Alex, we had a meeting and they were like, ‘Dasha, I don’t know how to tell you this, but this is the best song you’ve ever written. And you just have to trust us because as a songwriter and artist, it’s hard to see outside of the music you make sometimes, but we’re sitting you down to tell you, you have to put all your beans in the can for this one.’ ”
Dasha’s closest confidantes may have known she had a hit on her hands with “Austin” at the time, but she was simply looking for an outlet to blow off some steam after a bad relationship.
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“When I wrote it, I was so mad. I was so upset. I was pissed off at this guy. I was so in love with him for years and we never dated, and it was just that one really traumatizing relationship you’re going through in your young 20s where you’re just like, ‘That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,’ and somehow it hurts,” she shares.
Christina Bryson
Dasha continues to highlight that “I was just so heartbroken. And I go into this session and we’re trying to write this sweet song and I was like, ‘Listen, guys, I could punch through a wall right now how mad I am at this guy. We have to write a song that reflects that. I need my…’ I literally said that I need my ‘Before He Cheats’ or ‘Mama’s Broken Heart,’ That is how I’m feeling, I’m fired up.”
However, looking back at the track now two years removed from it being shared with the world, Dasha admits that her perspective regarding it all has shifted immensely.
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“I realized how much this song is about empowerment and turning so much anger and hate into such an incredible, beautiful thing,” she reflects. This song has brought me my entire career and so much incredible fans. And I’ve gotten DMs from fans being like, ‘That song saved my life. It’s the only thing I wanted to listen to when I wanted to hurt myself,’ you know?”
Alex Green
All-in-all, Dasha surmises of the achievement, “It feels good to have something [that sounds] so catchy and just be mad about it. It was just the perfect storm. And it’s funny because I didn’t even try to write a song that was the pop country smash of the year, but that was not my intention at all. It was just, I felt like I finally found my sound as an artist after writing songs for over 15 years, because it takes so long.”
