Carter Vail Is a Lovesick Cowboy for the Digital Age
When Carter Vail walked down the streets of New York City earlier this spring, he loved how many people shouted at him as he passed. His friends, however, were pretty confused. “The people around me would go ‘Why is everyone shouting “Dirt Man!” at this poor guy?’” Vail says.
If that moniker sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen the video that cemented Vail’s reputation as a beloved TikTok creator known for his absurdist take on musical comedy. First posted in April, the “Dirt Man” video showed Vail paying tribute to a mythical creature: “We’re guys. We keep a little dirt under our pillow for the Dirt Man in case he comes to town/Keep a little dirt under my pillow for the Dirt Man so he won’t drag me down.” The song hints at continued lore of the Dirt Man, mentioning a lair he lives in under an unnamed mountain where he keeps all that dirt he collects. The combination of Vail’s clever camera moves and the catchy bossa nova tune helped turn the short musical sketch into a hit online. With a runtime of less than 35 seconds, the first “Dirt Man” video has more than 18 million views and thousands of comments and shares — and that’s not counting the thousands of other videos the song spawned, including fan-submitted versions with personalized second verses. In less than a month, the Dirt Man transformed from a one-time internet bit into an extensive digital icon, with group-sourced backstory, imagery, merch, and more.
“I can never really tell what’s gonna pop off, but a lot of the time it’s the dumbest thing I had that day,” Vail explains. “With [Dirt Man] I woke up and thought, this is the dumbest idea I’ve had. So then people loved it. It’s been a blast.”
Now, with well over half a million followers on TikTok, Vail still finds it terribly amusing that his “Dirt Man” video was his first — and longest-lasting — viral success, mostly because it took him a long time to get comfortable in the music world. After graduating from the University of Miami with a degree in audio engineering, he worked for exactly two weeks at a factory that manufactured guitar pedals before deciding enough was enough. “I was, like, this is the worst fucking thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “And I quit.” He and his friends opened a studio in Nashville, where Vail was able to grow and develop his personal style. He was happy to be there — but the money just wasn’t coming. “No one would hire us because we were not that good,” Vail says, laughing. “It was rough out there.”
Editor’s picks
Convinced he needed to work on his production skills, Vail began playing around with short comedy songs to practice. When he posted his songs to TikTok and Instagram, people began to respond and interact. Taking inspiration from bands like Vampire Weekend and the National, Vail put a Western, cowboy twist on his work, making skits and short songs that showcased outlaw themes and an absurdist bent. He’s written about not listening to traffic laws, movie studios giving Godzilla a BBL for promo, kidnapping aliens in the back of his Toyota Corolla, and using “physical violence” at J.K Rowling’s magical school of witchcraft and wizardry. While the songs’ premises may sound ridiculous, Vail’s airtight instrumentation and sharp melodies have given him the reputation of creating bops out of thin air. How else could you get millions of people to sing about handing dirt over to a strange being?
Musical comedy isn’t the only skill at Vail’s disposal — and it certainly isn’t the only thing on his mind right now. Vail is intimately aware that modern musicians feel caught under the need for self-promotion online. It’s a fight everyone from the smallest creators to mainstream artists like Charli XCX and Halsey have spoken about, and has led to disdain for content creation as a necessary evil. Except Vail has a leg up — he’s already really, really good at it. “I just think it’s so much fun to make this stuff,’ he says. “I mean, yeah, if I was posting stuff like ‘Did I just make the song of the summer?’ I’d probably really not like it. But I get to make songs about aliens and Godzilla. And five-year-old me would be so excited about that.”
So instead of separating his videos from his growing music career, Vail brought that Western-influenced sound to his new LP, 100 Cowboys. Released in July via Detroit label Assemble Sound, the album charts Vail’s journey through a devastating breakup with a long-term partner. “I wrote 100 Cowboys after being brutally dumped quite by surprise,” he says. “Instead of actually dealing with the feelings of being broken up with, I was like ‘Let’s make a record.’ Me and one of my closest friends went into the studio for an entire month. Every day we’d write a song, and it would just be whatever was bubbling up for me that day. It was a cathartic experience for me.” Vail’s spaghetti-Western instincts are ever present in 100 Cowboys, but beyond the uptempo pop-rock sound is an aching, earnest excavation of love gone wrong.
Following the release of 100 Cowboys — and after reaching 500,000 monthly listeners on Spotify — Vail was invited to open for Yung Gravy on a tour that runs through November. Vail calls the experience “so cool. I think the concern with big artists like him is ‘Oh, I wonder if he’s not going to talk to us at all when we come in.’ But he’s been so nice, and his crowds are so receptive. The whole audience feels like they’re there to have a really good time, and being a part of that kind of a show is a lot of fun.” Now, Vail has had a viral moment, played a sold-out headline show at Los Angeles’ El Cid, and embarked on his first major tour. And he’s already thinking about his next album.
Don’t get him wrong. He’d love it if every fan of “Dirt Man” gave his album the same fantastic devotion. But Vail isn’t ashamed of his claim to internet fame. It’s made him a better artist, and pushed him to grow, learn, and home in on the alien-snatching, love-seeking cowboy he wants to be. So when asked how he responds to those real-life fans recognizing him in the street for his TikTok ditty, his response is easy, breezy.
“Fuckin’ A — right, I’m the Dirt Man guy.”