Before they formed the folk band Buffalo Traffic Jam, Frankie Cassidy, 23, and Nathan Ross, 22, were introduced on a hunch as freshmen at Montana State University. “I was DoorDashing and my girlfriend’s roommate at the time called me and was like, ‘I have this dude over that you should meet, I think you guys would be friends,’” Cassidy recalls. After a few games of Mario Kart together, he and Ross started to walk home — only to realize that they lived in the same dorm, on the same floor, just two doors down from one another.
Forming a band, however, was a slower process for the duo. They moved into an off-campus apartment sophomore year and would jam occasionally — Cassidy was studying architecture and Ross mechanical engineering, but they both brought their guitars to college. It wasn’t until the end of their junior year in 2024 that they started working on original music (with influences including Tyler Childers, Zach Bryan, The Districts and Punch Brothers) and later opened for a local act in their college town of Bozeman, Mont.
That summer, while Cassidy was interning in his hometown of Baltimore, he and Ross started sending files back and forth in GarageBand. They continued the process while Cassidy studied abroad in Scotland the first semester of senior year. Despite the quality of the files getting “encrypted so bad,” says Cassidy, he and Ross managed to self-release a pair of tracks remotely: the jangly “Rescue Me” and aching “Forgot Your Roots,” both of which showcase Cassidy’s warm rasp and put Buffalo Traffic Jam on the map.
“We made a TikTok carousel for ‘Rescue Me,’ and that was our first glimpse of success — kind of,” says Cassidy. “A lot of people were DMing our Instagram account. We didn’t think any of it was real until we got one official offer, and we didn’t know how the music industry worked at all.” He and Ross hired a traffic-ticket attorney to help them read the offer, and after two hours they asked, “If we were your children, would you want us to sign this?” The attorney told them not to.
That left the door open for Arista Records, which signed the act in May 2025. A management deal with Playdate’s Mason Romm and Nate Fenningdorf followed. “We came across Buffalo Traffic Jam when they had less than 100 followers on Instagram and TikTok,” says Fenningdorf. Off the bat, their unwavering commitment to be nothing but themselves had us [buy] in.”
By last October, Buffalo Traffic Jam was positioned for its big break — which came with the release of its debut EP, Take Me Home. The six-track project included standout single “Fool’s Gold,” a raspy folk-pop hit that has reaches a new No. 5 high on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart dated March 14. “My dad called me three weeks ago, freaking out: ‘You’re not going to believe it. [Your song] was on [SiriusXM station] The Spectrum!’” recalls Cassidy with a laugh. The hit also became a staple in their setlist while opening on tour for Dylan Gossett late last year.
Again, the song’s inspiration struck while the members were apart. After graduating in May 2025, Ross — who still lives with Cassidy in Bozeman — went home to Seattle for a weekend. “There’s one line in ‘Fool’s Gold’ where I say: ‘Hate being left alone/ It reminds me no one’s home,’” says Cassidy. “That week I was struggling a lot, because all of our friends left town after they graduated. I was like, ‘I’m going crazy in this house.’”
Even so, Ross returned home to new material from his bandmate. “There were a few different songs, and ‘Fool’s Gold’ was the one that really stood out to me,” he says. “The day after, we built it out.” Ross says the support from Arista led to new opportunities, like working with local producer Joe Becker and Seattle-based producer Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Zach Bryan). “That was pretty scary at first,” says Ross. “There was a Lumineers platinum record right next to where we were recording.”
The two cite their sessions with Hadlock as the initial time everything felt different. “He’s got the classic studio board with all the buttons on it,” jokes Cassidy. They spent hours focused on the minutiae of tracks, with Cassidy recalling 30 takes of guitar alone for “Fool’s Gold.” But that precision helped the song become a hit.
Soon after its October release, Cassidy and Ross started hearing “Fool’s Gold” in downtown Bozeman at stores and restaurants. They even note that the bartender at one of their favorite spots is a big fan. “Hearing it on someone’s playlist or on radio — never thought that that was going to happen,” says Cassidy. “A year ago we were still in school. It’s so weird being in the same bar, but now we hear our music.”
“Sometimes I’ll see old friends that will post on social media [using] ‘Fool’s Gold’ and I don’t even know if they know I’m helping with that,” adds Ross.
Fenningdorf credits the team’s “exhaustive digital strategy” for the hit’s success, pointing to the band’s quality over quantity approach online: “Every piece of content is heavily vetted prior to going live.” However, on other team-run accounts, the approach is just the opposite. “Throw a ton of s–t at the wall and see what sticks,” Fenningdorf says. “This has led to tens of millions of views within the past four months, with a majority for ‘Fool’s Gold.’”
While Cassidy and Ross would love to see a remix featuring Marcus Mumford, Hozier or Noah Kahan, for now, Buffalo Traffic Jam is set on consistency. The group believes that reliability, plus authenticity, is what has made “Fool’s Gold” such a success — and don’t want to switch up that formula now while preparing new music. Single “I Don’t Care” arrived in January, and another titled “Hanging on Hope” arrives March 13 as the two continue to work on a debut album.
“We’re trying to keep doing exactly what we always do,” says Cassidy. “We’re still in Bozeman. People have been encouraging us to move to L.A., New York or Nashville — I just don’t think we’re going to be creative in those places.
“I like living like a degenerate in Montana,” he continues, seated next to Ross on their couch below a Coors Light mirror, which hangs below a painting of Bigfoot spooning a raccoon. “Writing ‘Fool’s Gold,’ it was a true song about how I was feeling at that moment. I think it goes hand-in-hand with our music, trying to stay as true as possible. We never write a song that we haven’t lived.”
A version of this story appears in the March 7, 2026, issue of Billboard.
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