Over the past three months, San Luis Obispo native and SLO High School graduate Dasha has been living a dream — up to 23 million monthly listeners on Spotify, the 24-year-old star is known worldwide.
“Growing up in SLO and playing all the wineries and playing all the coffee shops, just working at it and finally seeing it actually work and pay off, it's just the most amazing feeling in the world,” she said.
Her hit song “Austin (Boots Stop Workin')” has reached 296 million streams on Spotify with performances on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, the CMT Awards and the biggest country music festival in Nashville. Last week, she had the honor of performing at country music’s most esteemed and historical venue, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
“To be there, it was a momentous moment," Dasha Novotny's father, PJ, explained. "It's subjective, for sure, but you feel it in the room.”
“You know, I played my first stadium the other night, Nissen Stadium, and then ran over and played with Keith Urban and then the week after I played the Grand Ole Opry and my debut. I've wanted this since I was a kid,” Dasha said.
It was a moment reminiscent of her youth, learning to perform in front of crowds at the Live Oak Festival or even Selland Arena in Fresno where Dasha’s father remembers the confidence she had in herself even then.
“She's stepping up and I'm out there supporting her and she comes back, she goes,'Dad, I got this'," Novotny recalled.
Next up for Dasha is her first headlining tour which begins at the end of the month. It's an opportunity for San Luis Obispo to be represented on the international stage.
“There's just been this succession of things that have been like really cool things that have been happening,” Novotny said.
Dasha's older brother, Bardo, is also in the music industry. He lives in Los Angeles and is a guitarist for Beauty School Dropout.
According to Dasha’s father, her performance at SLO Brew Rock on October 18 is already sold out and was the fastest sellout show in the establishment's history. Her first album, "What Happens Now?," was released in February with the deluxe album set to release in August.
