Indie-psych-soul band Fast Preacher are no strangers to the struggles of independent music artistry.
The Chicago-via-Orlando project came from humble beginnings as the experimental solo project of singer and guitarist Daniel Hanson. Songs that started as DIY recordings in Hanson’s bedroom progressed into a fiery live outfit with rotating group lineups and interchanging musical roles.
Hanson tells Orlando Weekly that the magic of performing live is the ability to mold and expand the sound of his original songs around the varying influences and styles of the other members of his group. Hanson describes his current bandmates as “crazy-huge Stevie Wonder-heads,” pulling heavily from the spirit of Wonder’s outer-limits soul 1970s peak.
“As time has gone on, it’s been really rewarding to explore where we can take those songs by sort of jamming around and just letting the other guys in the group take it in a direction that they’re influenced by,” says Hanson. “Just using inspiration in the moment to see where we can take it as a group, rather than just playing the song as it was recorded.”
But taking the show on the road and touring requires the endless grind of booking, routing, housing and promotion. Between pay-to-play algorithms and a lack of industry support, Hanson says gaining traction as an independent artist is becoming an increasingly formidable task.
“I think there’s no other platform out there that is tied to the commodification of music more than Spotify is right now,” says Hanson, “it’s just so easy to create the mood for your day from those playlists, or they now have your AI DJs and all this stuff. It’s like you don’t even have to try to seek what it is that you’re interested in, in regards to your basic taste, anymore. It’s just built for you.”
After ultimately making no money from the platform, Hanson joined an insurgent assemblage of other fed-up artists and removed Fast Preacher’s music from Spotify last August. Since then, he says things on the app have “only gotten worse,” with Spotify’s integration of ICE recruitment ads.
Finding himself inspired by artists who are “way more staunchly DIY,” Hanson decided to fully embrace this approach and intentionally cultivate the audience he wants, himself.
Rather than let the barriers of big tech dictate the band’s current reach, Fast Preacher leans on strong local support to book shows in independent venues — like, say, Will’s Pub, where Fast Preacher will be spreading the good word on Tuesday with Über Crunch and Jonas Van den Bossche. Now, he thinks of touring as putting together a party, as opposed to following the rules of an establishment that isn’t willing to collaborate with independent artists.
“I kind of have this mentality, not only with streaming platforms, but in regards to live music as well, of just like forging your own path as an independent musician or artist,” says Hanson. “I think it’s becoming increasingly clear how much of a hold these giant companies have on just controlling the narrative of how music is supposed to be, how you’re supposed to take in your music, how your taste is shaped.”
For Hanson, this makes Fast Preacher’s upcoming tour all the more rewarding. He’s even excited enough to test out a new and unreleased song, “Oh No,” which Hanson describes as “an existential dread song” about moving to a new city in the midst of rising gas prices, forever wars around the world, and genocide.
As the band prepares for this round of renewed activity, Fast Preacher continues to reject “the music game” that has trapped independent artists in a loop of chasing playlists, engagement metrics and any industry table scraps.
“I think the goal, ideally, is to do things ourselves until it makes more sense to work with people who understand the vision and are willing to work with us to continue fulfilling that idea,” Hanson says.
8 p.m. Tuesday, June 9, Will’s Pub, 1042 N. Mills Ave., willspub.org, $21.18.
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This article appears in June 3-9, 2026.
