The 21-year-old Canadian songwriter had nearly given up on music when she recorded “Purple Gas,” inspired by her experiences growing up in rural Alberta. Hofmann worked on a ranch and performed at local bars until Zach Bryan took notice of the song in 2023; the two covered it as a duet on his 2024 album The Great American Bar Scene, leading to a spike in Shazam volume for Hofmann. Since then, she’s dropped her debut EP (October’s Purple Gas) and opened for a handful of her heroes, Charley Crockett and Wyatt Flores, on their respective headlining tours.