Kat Hasty in OKC
The year was 2021. An upside down time in history that had the world worked up on vaccines, masks, and a quarantine lifestyle that kept everyone social distanced. My friend and I decided to take advantage of the fear and take a ski trip to Breckenridge right before Christmas. While doing some shopping on Main Street we found ourselves in a small boutique store, mindlessly shopping the sales when my ears perked up at the sound of a heart broken voice and the simple sound of the acoustic guitar to compliment. The artist, Kat Hasty, the song, “The Highway song”. Fast forward to 2025, I now live a mere 15 minutes away from Breckenridge and have listened to Hasty non stop. I have been trying to catch her in concert since ‘21 and for one reason or another was never able to make it.
Recently she started a new tour that began on February 20th in Oklahoma City at the Beer City Music Hall. With not much going on in my life, I told myself that I’d make this one. Since I am more of an established music photographer I decided I might as well reach out and see if I could cover this show. Not only was I granted access but also an opportunity to sit down with Hasty and have a conversation about her start, finding her sound, and influences.
Hasty, who was living in Midland, Texas, always had a dream of being a musician and song writer. While driving for uber, her dream festered into a reality when she decided to finally take the plunge and record her first album with Shay Upshire in his apartment bathroom. The set up? A 2003 Mac book, logic, and a microphone. “I didn’t have any money but I always wanted to make music. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” said Hasty. Once the album was recorded and released, it gained instant success.
“Pretty Things” was the her first song to catch fire. “I wrote it in that apartment”, Hasty recalls, “in like 10 minutes. It was wild. I cant believe how much that song changed my life.” The thought of blowing up or the album having any success never crossed her mind. “I didn’t think anyone was gonna listen to it,” says Hasty as she remines of a simpler time.
It has been 5 years since that recording, and though she has released a few singles here and there, It is those songs off the Drowning in Dreams album that she primarily plays when performing live. However, this show was a little different. With a new album dropping in May, she gave her fans a sneak peak of what is to come. “This new album, Time of Your Life, it is more upbeat, a lot of happy songs, and very country.” When played live, the fans were very receptive of the new material.
Over the years, Hasty has been known for her raw acoustic sound, and now seems to be focused on reinventing that. Though that raw sound has it’s advantages like really showing off her voice and song writing abilities, “I don’t really feel like it fully represents the sound of what I want to be,” explains Hasty. With some of her current influences being Chappell Roan, Lana Del Ray, and Sierra Ferrell, it is exciting to see how Hasty will establish herself with her own sound and original story telling. Each one of those musicians has this unique thing about them and I think Hasty’s unique thing is the ability to make you feel a story. Since Hasty still lives in West Texas, she feels that she is able to avoid influences from the industry or other outside sources to keep her writing true. Although this may be a perk, growing up in that area posed other challenges such as not having a music community to learn and grow with. “I didn’t grow up getting to be around music,” Hasty remembers. “There wasn’t really any bands, so a lot of it was just me sitting sad writing in my room, where as I would have liked to have been around more musicians.”
I think this lack of community is what has given Hasty her own voice in an industry and time where we are being bombarded with new music through social media or even traditional methods. For her to be able to capture an audience with an album recorded in a bathroom five years ago, speaks to the raw talent Hasty has as a singer/songwriter. Drowning in Dreams is already proving it has the legs to stand up to the test of time. An album about living in an oil town where the people are the same but the faces are constantly changing can be relatable to anyone who has worked in a boom industry or work seasonally. Tales of love, heart ache, and road trips litter this album like wildflowers on a hillside.
