Opening up the third day of Hinterland is a pretty tough gig. Everyone’s tired, but everyone’s also really excited for the big finale of the festival. This year, there were festival goers lined up outside the gates for hours before they opened, hoping to snag a good spot for Lana Del Rey’s performance, scheduled to happen a good 12 hours later. In this situation, you need a performer who’s going to fully command the stage and show everyone why they should line up to see their act.
In short, you need Sam Austins, who understood the assignment. Austins and his band gave a high energy performance that had the crowd going immediately, leading him to later tell me that “Iowa rocked!” A native of Detroit, it was his first time attending our fair state, and it’s great that we made a good impression.
Like many of the artists at this year’s Hinterland, Austins came straight from Lollapalooza a day earlier, and he had a lot to say about the differences between the two events. Specifically, he seems to feel that Hinterland’s single stage setup is a boon for up-and-coming artists.
“Lollapalooza is such a massive campus, where it's like eight different stages and there's so many different artists and so many different places to catch your favorite artists, or catch artists you may never have seen,” said Austins. “But a place like Hinterland, it's one stage. It's one beautiful field with a bunch of people that don't even know each other, that are coming together to discover music and come to hear their favorite artists for the first time ever.”
“It's really cool to be in a situation where a lot of these people may have only heard one or two songs, or none of my music, and be here for, maybe, a Lana Del Rey. But they're camping out and they see you, (and) they might have found their new favorite artist.”
Austins’ set included “Hot Like You” (which we’ve been playing on Studio One) and “Seasons,” which became a viral hit last year. It was an exciting moment for Austins that came after ten years of performing and recording music, and it took him a while to realize what was happening.
“When I made the song, it was for a cathartic reason of just releasing and writing music, and I didn't even know if I would release (it),” said Austins. “And one day, I previewed it on the Internet and I saw people take to it really early, almost a year before it blew up. I was like ‘ohh well, I guess this is something I should take into account, and I kept pushing it and kept promoting it, like 8 months before the release.”
Austins officially released “Seasons” in May 2024, and it “sat quiet” for several months, with about 3,000 plays a day for months. “(After that) I was just like ‘OK, well, I'm gonna do other things to keep pushing and promoting the song and promoting other music,” said Austins. “And then one day it just started ticking up like crazy. Like literally a full year after the first time I previewed it to a niche audience.” As of this writing, “Seasons” is at over 65 million streams on Spotify.
“I feel like it was a good lesson to keep trying things, and to know that there's no real timeline,” said Austins. “You just never know when things can happen, especially now.”
Austins was also one of just a few mainly Midwest-based artists on the Hinterland lineup. He’s from Detroit, a city with a rich musical history. In fact, Austins’ father is Harold “Spike” Bonhart, a one-time member of the Four Tops. He mentioned his Detroit upbringing a couple of times during his Hinterland set.
“All my music is inspired by Detroit,” said Austins. “A lot of my upbringing was in the city and I feel such a duty to represent where I'm from, especially when going to places also from the Midwest. I gotta show love, and I’ve got to share the love.”
Following his Hinterland appearance, Sam Austins was preparing to head back to Detroit to start writing his next record, saying “It’s all I wanna do.” In the meantime, his music is available on streaming services, and he promises he will “absolutely, without a doubt” be back in Iowa “very soon.” Let’s hope so!
