Keeping country’s tradition of exposed emotional nerve endings alive – with a raw new sound of his own design – River House Artists/Warner Music Nashville’s Austin Snell is a rising singer-songwriter whose work presents anguish and ecstasy in harrowing high definition. With his dashboard-pounding “Pray All the Way Home,” the emerging “grunge country” hitmaker boasts 382+ million global career streams, 1M+ Spotify monthly listeners, and an exponentially growing fanbase, with a series of digital hits and a debut album to his credit.
Born in Georgia and a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, hard rock and country radio formed the bedrock of Snell’s musical education, with artists like Nickelback and Alan Jackson in heavy rotation. Breaking out through a series of deeply personal self-written songs posted online during COVID-19, Snell’s first hit, “Excuse the Mess,” featured heavily distorted dark-energy guitars, thundering drums, and a wounded vocal at the end of its rope – and after a series of attention-grabbing early EPs, his introspective songcraft has now reached the level of an emotional x-ray.
Dropping his full-length album debut Still Bleeding in 2024, Snell matches his country foundation with hard-rocking guitars, hip-hop beats, and the warm metallic buzz of a rip-saw vocal, as songs filled with inner conflict reveal a cycle of blackouts, breakdowns, and redemption – classic themes wrapped in new school sonics. All but one song was co-written by the cutting-edge country artist himself, and along with accolades as a SiriusXM Highway Find and inclusion on the network’s Artist Accelerator program, Snell toured with Jason Aldean on Aldean’s 2024 Highway Desperado tour and Brantley Gilbert in early 2025. So far this year, he’s released a trio of new tracks — “Heavy Metal,” (2/28) “I Mean It,” (4/11) and “Miles” (5/30) — with a new project on the way later this year, further expanding his reputation as one of country’s most emotionally raw and genre-pushing voices.
