She might be one of country music’s brightest new stars, but Dasha<\/span>\u00a0says life on the road isn’t always glamorous.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail backstage at a Nashville show, the Austin hitmaker, born\u00a0Anna Dasha Novotny<\/span>,<\/span> revealed the darker side of her whirlwind rise to fame, admitting the pressures of touring have taken their toll.<\/p>\n ‘The road’s really hard. It’s very tiring, and a lot of people don’t really talk about that side of it,’ she confessed.<\/p>\n ‘There’s not a lot of mental downtime or physical downtime. The toughest part is just finding ways to ground yourself.’<\/p>\n Her secret? Keeping life simple.<\/p>\n ‘Playing pickleball, cooking dinner, talking to my family, reading at night – those things keep me sane. And smoking a joint helps too. It’s nature’s medicine. It helps your brain shut off real fast,’ she admitted.<\/p>\n She might be one of country music’s brightest new stars, but Dasha says life on the road isn’t always glamorous<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail backstage at a Nashville show, the Austin hitmaker revealed the darker side of her whirlwind rise to fame<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Dasha’s new single Oh, Anna! was born out of what she describes as a ‘full mental breakdown.’<\/p>\n ‘I lost sight of that confidence and fearlessness I’ve always had. I was suddenly saying, “I don’t know” to everything, and that wasn’t me,’ she explained.<\/p>\n ‘So I wrote Oh, Anna! as a letter to my younger self. I cried so much in that session – it was like the best therapy ever.’<\/p>\n The song, which has since become a fan favourite, is now the cornerstone of her upcoming project.<\/p>\n ‘It’s about rewinding and reminding people who I really am and where I come from. It’s been so satisfying as an artist and as a girl to just say, hey, this is actually me.’<\/p>\n Now, the American star is set to bring her honest lyrics and high-energy show to Australian audiences as part of the CMC Rocks 2026 line-up in Queensland.<\/p>\n ‘It’s gonna be my first time playing a show down there, and I heard that the crowds are just so involved and dedicated,’ she said.<\/p>\n ‘I really feed off the audience, so having a crowd like that it’s just gonna be magical.’<\/p>\n ‘The road’s really hard. It’s very tiring, and a lot of people don’t really talk about that side of it,’ she confessed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n ‘There’s not a lot of mental downtime or physical downtime. The toughest part is just finding ways to ground yourself’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Dasha promised plenty of surprises on stage, including one Aussie tradition she’s already embraced.<\/p>\n ‘Obviously, we have to do some shoeys – because why would we not?’ she laughed, before\u00a0revealing her first shoey happened spontaneously in Canada.<\/p>\n ‘I saw some girls doing it in the audience and they threw me a beer and I was like, well, I can’t not do it now. Everyone was watching. It wasn’t planned, but it was so fun.’<\/p>\n The festival, which will take place from March 20 to 22 at Willowbank Raceway in Ipswich, Queensland, is set to draw more than 23,000 fans across five days.<\/p>\n Billed as Australia’s largest international country music festival, it has become a pilgrimage for local and international fans alike, with nearly half of the audience travelling from interstate and many returning year after year.<\/p>\n Celebrating its 19th anniversary in 2026, the event first launched as CMC Rocks The Snowys in 2008 before moving to its permanent home at Willowbank in 2015.<\/p>\n This year’s bill is one of the biggest yet, featuring headliners Jordan Davis<\/span><\/span><\/span>, <\/span><\/span>Old Dominion<\/span><\/span><\/span> and<\/span><\/span><\/span> Riley Green<\/span><\/span><\/span>,<\/span> with Old Dominion returning to the stage for the first time since 2018.<\/p>\n They will be joined by an all-star roster of international acts including Carly Pearce, Tucker Wetmore, Gavin Adcock, Tyler Braden<\/span> and Hudson Westbrook<\/span>, alongside local favourites James Johnston, Casey Barnes, Wade Forster a<\/span>nd Sara Berki<\/span>.<\/p>\n Dasha promised plenty of surprises on stage, including one Aussie tradition she’s already embraced. ‘Obviously, we have to do some shoeys – because why would we not?’ she laughed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While her breakout hit Austin exploded thanks to TikTok, Dasha insists she isn’t chasing viral moments.<\/p>\n ‘I think Austin did so well because the song was just really good,’ she said.<\/p>\n ‘The line dance went viral, but it wouldn’t have if the song wasn’t what it was. So I just focus on making music I’m proud of. The rest will work itself out.’<\/p>\n And while her sound crosses into pop, she says her heart will always be in country.<\/p>\n ‘I’m always going to be grounded in country music. I grew up on bluegrass. It’s all about the storytelling – three chords and the truth. But I also love a big hook, so the pop influence comes naturally too.’<\/p>\n Tickets on sale to the general public on Thursday September 4.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.celebrity.land.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She might be one of country music’s brightest new stars, but Dasha\u00a0says life on the road isn’t always glamorous. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail backstage at a Nashville show, the Austin hitmaker, born\u00a0Anna Dasha Novotny, revealed the darker side of her whirlwind rise to fame, admitting the pressures of touring have taken their toll. ‘The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1989244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[25884,358964,27184],"class_list":["post-1989243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-dailymail","tag-queensland","tag-tvshowbiz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/American-country-music-star-Dasha-reveals-dark-side-to-fame.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1989243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1989244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Speaking](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2025\/08\/31\/00\/101698825-15050837-image-a-4_1756595601238.jpg\")
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