Tom Hanks made a surprise appearance at the 2026 Stagecoach Music Festival in Indio, Calif., on April 25, showing up to support his son Chet Hanks and the band Something Out West. Hanks was seen bopping along to the country song while standing in the back of the Toyota Music Den as Chet Hanks and Drew Arthur performed “You Better Run.”
The moment carried extra weight because the track’s music video was built as an homage to “Forrest Gump,” the 1994 film that made Tom Hanks a global star. In the video, Chet Hanks recreated iconic scenes from the movie, and Tom Hanks even makes a cameo on the bench, a wink to the film that has followed the family for decades.
Chet Hanks had said in June 2025 that bringing his father into the video was first shot down before the idea won him over. “It was our drummer’s idea,” he said. “I was like ‘Absolutely not.’ Then after 10 minutes, I was like, ‘That’s genius.’” He added that people had been talking about Forrest Gump his whole life and that he had been called “Lil Gump.”
That public embrace comes after Chet Hanks said in February that he sees himself as an artist first and that acting and music are different ways of expressing himself. He said he had been working on the music for a long time and wanted to tour and let the world hear it, a goal that got an unmistakable boost with his father watching from the crowd.
The performance also underscored how closely the song, the video and the family story are tied together. The video shows Chet Hanks running in Forrest’s suit, beard and red short shorts, while the band performs on Forrest’s shrimping boat named after Jenny, turning a pop-culture touchstone into a launch pad for the 35-year-old musician’s latest push.
Tom Hanks shares Chet Hanks and Truman Hanks with Rita Wilson, and also has Colin Hanks and Elizabeth Hanks with ex Samantha Lewes. For Chet Hanks, the surprise at Stagecoach was less about nostalgia than arrival: after years of being compared to his father, he is putting his own name on the music and bringing the family story with him.
