This study investigates how the popular culture scene in rural areas and small towns can be interpreted as constructive resistance (Jul Sørensen, 2016) to the urban norm. The city has long been associated with modernity and positive connotations, such as opportunity, social mobility, future, and wealth (Dibazar et al. 2013). This is in contrast to the countryside, which is thought to lack the amenities associated with the urban city. The contemporary debate in Sweden reveals a split between urban and rural communities. The city is associated with positive values like economic growth and cultural development, whereas the countryside is associated with social problems, a declining population, and a lack of opportunities (Stenbacka and Heldt Cassel, 2020). Drawing on interviews with local artists, musicians, and event organizers living in the Swedish countryside (Värmland), I found that they express their choice of living and engagement in local communities in opposition to the urban norm. Both in their choice to not establish themselves in a major city and in how their artistic work contributes to and is dependent on the production of locality (Massey, 1993; Appadurai, 2003). Applying the theoretical framework of constructive resistance identifies how rural artists’ everyday practices become a way to stage a desired community independent of the dominant structures already in place. I thereby bring attention to how the production of locality disrupts the urban norm through the struggles of the rural popular culture scene.