When it comes to paying dues on the road to becoming a country superstar, nobody is gonna outwork Hannah Dasher. The country singer, known for her whipsmart lyrics and badass honky-tonk attitude (her friends know her as Hannah "Damn" Dasher, after all), has spent over a decade chasing that neon rainbow in Music City; in her early days, she sold off her guitars to raise money to tour and she even penned a song for Brad Paisley while she was working at a Bass Pro Shop.
Now, Dasher is enjoying the fruits of her labor. She's joining one of her musical heroes, Reba McEntire, on tour for select dates for the Reba: Live in Concert tour, and her irresistible songs like "You're Gonna Love Me," "Girls Call the Shots" and "Leave This Bar" have earned her an ever growing fan base.
Though Dasher is a lifelong fan of country music (she spent her childhood poring over CD liner notes and practicing her CMA speeches in her mirror), she says she went through a period in which listening to the genre was just too painful. Thankfully, Eric Church's "Sinners Like Me" brought her back.
"When my parents divorced my freshman year of college, I quit listening to [most] country music. I couldn't hear a George Strait or a Keith Whitley song without crying — for a couple of years," Dasher tells Wide Open Country. "Then, I heard the Sinners Like Me album... It brought me back to country radio. It set the bar higher for commercial songwriting, and it lit a fire under my ass to write my own music...to say it how I wanted to say it. ('Sinners Like Me') there it was.. Jesus and Jack Daniels, fiddle and rock n' roll guitars... all delivered so honestly and conversationally, you didn't have to live it to love it. This song inspired me to embrace my individuality and to inject it more into my music and my artistry."
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Dasher released The Half Record, an EP featuring the rowdy "You're Gonna Love Me," earlier this year. When she's not touring and making music, Dasher can be found whipping up southern cookin' on her hilarious TikTok series Stand by Your Pan.
