Buffalo Traffic Jam is sharing some hope with the world. The Bozeman, Montana, band, which is made up of best buds Frankie Cassidy and Nathan Ross, have released their latest single, “Hanging On Hope.”
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Cassidy penned the track’s chorus one day at home, and was delighted by the positive response it received when he posted it online. The only problem? That’s the only portion of the song that he’d written.
“The hard part is when you have a chorus that goes crazy online,” Cassidy told American Songwriter ahead of Buffalo Traffic Jam’s sold out Nashville show. “Over the course of a month, I tried, like, five different options, and then finally landed on one that I really liked over Christmas.”
The finished project is one Cassidy described as “really cool” and “unique.”
“We’ve never done a slow, kind of finger-picking guitar song like this,” he said. “It’s very dynamic, which also ties back to most of our music being super dynamic. It’s a good blend of what’s coming and what we’ve already done.”
Cassidy and Ross recorded the song in January, and are now ready to share it with the world. Fans at Nashville’s Basement East got an early listen of the track when the guys performed it during their gig, which was their first-ever headlining concert in Music City.
If the crowd’s reaction to the unknown-to-them song is any indication, the fervor around Buffalo Traffic Jam won’t die down any time soon.
Buffalo Traffic Jam’s Origin Story
The band’s Take Me Home Tour is a stark contrast from where the guys were just a few years ago. Cassidy and Ross met by chance as freshman at Montana State University.
Within a couple of years, they started writing, playing, and recording music together. They soon found their sound—a “genre-less” blend of styles.
“Me and Nate are best friends, but we couldn’t be more different people.We’re polar opposites and we listen to the opposite music,” Cassidy said. “I listen to a lot of folk and country, while Nate listens to a lot of indie rock.”
That unique combination “blends in our music,” Cassidy said, offering fans an incredibly listenable mash of styles with country undertones and an indie rock angst.
Fans quickly responded to the resulting music. After the band put out a self-titled EP in 2024 and a few more singles in the year that followed, a major label took notice too.
That prompted their next project, an EP titled Take Me Home, which they put out in October. A sold out tour kicked off a few months later.
Buffalo Traffic Jam Looks Ahead
Now, Cassidy and Ross are trying to wrap their heads around their whirlwind success. That much was clear during their Nashville set as they smiled from the stage, seemingly in awe when the crowd sang their songs back to them.
“It’s been super surreal, having a headline tour,” Cassidy said. “… The last one we went on, it was just me and Nate in my personal truck, and we had a trailer.”
Much of that success is thanks to the fans, who’ve shown up in droves to see Buffalo Traffic Jam live, with many sporting homemade T-shirts in support of the band.
“At the live shows the crowd is so diverse. It’s like this weird place where hipsters are shaking hands with cowboys,” Cassidy said. “We want to keep it to that, because that’s just who me and Nate are. We’re trying to keep the live show as authentic as possible.”
The tour is just the tip of the iceberg for Buffalo Traffic Jam. They’re set to play their debut sets at Bonnaroo and BottleRock this summer, and put out their first-ever LP this year too.
“It’s such a huge adjustment and it’s so much fun,” Ross siad. “It’s just great to get to do it all the time.”
“Playing music and being able to call this work makes my day,” Cassidy agreed. “… I’m looking forward to tomorrow already.”
Photos by Kendall Kelly
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