Dasha Isn’t Here to Be ‘a Little Country Music Star’

Dasha credits this supportive family, including her parents and younger sister, Carmen, for encouraging her to chase the music bug. Dasha’s father, Philip Novotny, is the co-founder of BOB’s Strollers, known for their luxury jogging strollers, but “sold his share of the company so he could be more of a Dad, a Dad-ager.” Once Dasha and her brother were middle school-aged, Philip began booking gigs for them at wineries and coffeeshops and even bought a studio in town for his children to work out of. Her mother, Laura, an architect by trade, also dabbles in the music sphere and hosts a radio show in Central California on which she often plays her kids’ music.

As for Dasha’s younger sister, Carmen, the singer says she’s more of an observer. In fact, the aspiring music journalist will accompany Dasha on the road this summer for Vice magazine. When I ask if Carmen was ever a part of the sibling’s music-making enterprises, she says bluntly, “She can’t sing for shit, and she knows it. It’s a whole meme in our family.”

This bluntness—and the tendency towards crass language—is par for the course for the Novotnys, Dasha says. “We love to share opinions with each other,” she says. “It’s almost like a love language…We’ll just fucking say it, knives out, because we care so much.” But her family’s unrelenting commitment to telling it like it is has posed a bit of a problem for Dasha in the country music scene. Although she’s leaned into her unfiltered persona, going so far as to sell camo hats with “Cuntry” embroidered in neon orange lettering, she’s had to learn how to reel it in at times.

“I’m not trying to come out, guns blazing, with my opinions on everything,” she says. “I know how small and how family oriented the country world is. I recognize that I am new here, and my star is just beginning to rise. I have a lot to learn.”

As a woman in country music, a genre that’s historically been dominated by men, Dasha embarks on an impossible task: As the culture bends further towards conservatism, she may be punished by some for embracing her sexuality so openly and proudly. But that same confidence is also what will help her sell records.

“I kind of push the limits a bit on what I’m talking about, how I say it, what I wear on stage, and how I talk in interviews,” she says. “I just like keeping it very real, because I don’t think women have enough role models that keep it fucking real all the time.”

Plus, there’s still plenty of time for her to move the needle—and Dasha is playing the long game. “I think I’m going to make a lot of changes in this industry when I have enough power and a way to do so,” she says. “I love this industry so much. I respect everybody who’s in it, and I want to be a part of it. It’s almost like making friends on the enemy line—so you can really pounce when you need to pounce.”