Russ Turned the Desert into a Drive-In Album Experience—Literally
Russ is dropping his new album this Friday. To hype things up the artist did something that was never done before.
Over the weekend, Russ pulled off one of his most ambitious stunts to date. In the middle of the desert, he turned a barren stretch of land into a full-blown immersive art exhibit to debut his upcoming album W!LD—dropping this Friday.
But this wasn’t just a listening party with a projector and snacks. 
Russ went all in: buying an FM radio station, rigging it to broadcast his entire album to fans’ car stereos, and dropping $250,000 of his own money to make sure it felt personal.
The pop-up station, 105.7 W!LD FM, broadcast exclusively to fans who had driven out, giving them a first listen to the album the same way Russ has always tested his own music: behind the wheel. “The car test is the truth,” he said. “That’s how I’ve always done it, since the beginning. To do it collectively with fans was just next level.”
But the concept went deeper than just audio. A cage sat at the center of the exhibit—a callback to the visual teaser for W!LD—with what appeared to be Russ inside. Only, it wasn’t him. It was a body double. After the full album aired, Russ emerged himself and “unlocked” the cage, bringing the metaphor full circle: breaking free, stepping into the light, and revealing the real.
The event blurred the lines between performance, installation, and album rollout. No big brand partnerships. No corporate sponsors. Just Russ, his fans, and a raw creative vision. He called it “something special, for the sake of the art and the connection.”
With W!LD dropping Friday, Russ just reminded the industry that sometimes the best promo isn’t about algorithms or billboards—it’s about experience.