Noeline Hofmann’s ‘Purple Gas’ Made Zach Bryan a Fan

“Deep down, I always felt that this was my dream, and my true path,” Noeline Hofmann says.

Two years ago, Hofmann was working on a ranch in Western Canada, having just seen her high school years derailed by the pandemic and having brushed aside any hopes of a career in music.

Today, she is in the middle of a breakthrough, on a pace that is torrid even by 2024’s standard of meteoric rises. Not yet three months since her song “Purple Gas” dropped as a duet with Zach Bryan, after the country star uncovered it on social media and introduced her to the world, the 21-year-old Hofmann is set to release her debut EP, also titled Purple Gas, on Oct. 4.

Hofmann plays her shows with a commanding stage presence that blends charisma with confidence, and sings with a commanding voice. Combine that with a real-life approach to songwriting, influenced heavily by the western music of Colter Wall and Charley Crockett, and it’s hard to ignore Hofmann’s potential in country music.

Her EP includes the title track, which references a special type of fuel, dyed purple, that Alberta farmers can use with a significant tax break. Farmers that are approved to use the fuel attach special plates to their vehicles, signifying that they qualify. She wrote it a year ago after spending a summer playing small bars on a regional music circuit. Hofmann says she thought the song was a good one at the time but was unprepared for just how much, and how quickly, it would change her life.

“‘Purple Gas’ is about my experience growing up in rural Southern Alberta,” Hofmann — native to Bow Island, in the southeastern region of the province — says. “Some of the imagery in that song is largely derived from a ranch that I worked on in Western Manitoba. I wrote that song almost exactly a year later to the day from when I left that job. I was just feeling real sentimental and reflecting.”

Hofmann says she is barely connected to social media, so when Bryan took notice of the song in fall 2023, she was largely unaware. While she was having breakfast on the morning of Canadian Thanksgiving, her phone started lighting up.

“’Zach Lane Bryan mentioned you in their story,’” Hofmann recalls. “In that moment, I just dropped my phone.”

To put the impact of that social media tag into perspective, consider that all of these have happened to Hofmann just since the beginning of June: Bryan released “Purple Gas” as a duet with Hofmann and included the song on his album The Great American Bar Scene, which dropped July 4. Hofmann joined Crockett and Wyatt Flores as an opening act on their respective headlining tours, and booked prime support slots on upcoming tours with the Turnpike Troubadours, Colter Wall, and Shane Smith and the Saints.

She released her solo version of “Purple Gas,” along with “Lightning in July (Prairie Fire),” as singles on Aug. 9.

At the end of July, Hofmann celebrated her 21st birthday while on tour with Flores, who serenaded her during their show in Boise, Idaho. It capped a run in which she became fast friends with the in-demand Flores.

“The first time I met Wyatt, we shared a very similar upbringing,” Hofmann says of Flores, who is two years older than her. “Coming from similar places in the world, and experiencing this world of music — we have a lot of shared experiences, and already understand a lot about each other. It chokes me up a little bit to talk much about it, because without knowing Wyatt well, I’m really proud of him.”

Hofmann lists both Wall and Crockett as her biggest influences, and her first tour came with the latter, who enlisted her for his $10 Cowboy tour. “Charley Crockett is a hero of mine. I took it very seriously, and I took it as a huge responsibility, to get to play with him,” she says. “But then there were so many moments — whether it was a one-liner from Charley backstage, or spending time in conversations with Taylor [Grace], his fiancée, or fans against the barrier hoping to get a glimpse of his band on the way out. Over and over again, there were these striking moments where I felt like I was walking through the Charley Crockett documentary.”

The prospect of playing with Crockett brought at least one song to life that made it onto Purple Gas. “Lightning in July (Prairie Fire)” is an up-tempo country jam that fans have already started singing back to Hofmann at her shows. It carries an energetic defiance similar to memorable Martina McBride or Trisha Yearwood songs from the Nineties, but Hofmann’s perspective as a farm girl from western Canada, not yet 21 when she wrote it, shines through and the song fits seamlessly into the wave of emo-country music that is currently blanketing the industry. When she sings, “Ah, they didn’t see me coming, must have happened overnight,” it’s an adrenaline rush, but it’s also on-point to her career so far.

“It’s a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek self-introduction,” Hofmann says. “It’s about knowing you’re walking around with a loaded gun, but being overlooked and underestimated. It’s a ‘can’t stop, won’t stop’ fight song. And I wrote it because I wanted energy. I wanted a country banger in the setlist.”

Regardless of where Hofmann’s career takes her, she is approaching it with caution. She’s learning as she goes — playing out the old adage of taking a leap and building one’s wings on the way down — and doing all she can to savor the feeling it has brought to her life and music.

“The whole year ahead of this, I was grinding it out hard on the regional scene, trying to make my way out there,” Hofmann says. “I was never trying to play the social media game. The fact that this all happened for me is beyond my understanding.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose third book, Red Dirt Unplugged, is set for release on December 13, 2024, via Back Lounge Publishing, and available for pre-order.