Ashe is Telling Her Own Story

If Ashe isn’t on your music radar, she certainly should be. The Californian sweetheart has been writing music since she was 10-years-old, and has been releasing music under the name Ashe since the mid-2010s. With her angelic voice and raw lyrics, Ashe is well on her way to musical greatness. 

Ashe released her first EP, The Rabbit Hole, in 2018, after being featured on a handful of singles by artists like Whethan, Louis the Child, and Ben Phipps. Her double-EP, Moral of the Story: Chapters 1 and 2, released in April and August 2019, respectively. Her single, “Can’t Hide,” with Whethan went to #2 on the both US and Global Spotify Viral Charts—her fifth single to do so. Her breakthrough single “Moral of the Story,” which appeared in the Netflix movie To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before: P.S. I Still Love You, reached over 12 million streams on Spotify.

Ashe talked to L’Officiel USA about her debut album, working with FINNEAS, and her Instagram series, Q(aurantine)&A(she).

Talk a little bit about your music background.

Lord, it's been so long. I started taking piano lessons when I was eight. I was a competitive gymnast and that was my world, but I slowly started figuring out that I could die doing what I was doing, so I was like maybe I'll make a pivot to music. I kind of hated my piano lessons themselves, but I wanted to write my own music. As soon as I can figure out my hands on the keys, I started writing. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that music was going to be a big part of it and little by little, figured it out. I went to Berklee College of Music in Boston and then after school, moved to Nashville for songwriting. 

What is your creative process and has it changed since you first started making music?

It's changed a lot. When I first started as Ashe I was doing a lot of feature work, so I was top-lining on other people's tracks. I'd get a track or an instrumental and then I'd write something on top of it. Now, I hardly ever start a song without me sitting on a piano first and just kind of dig into music that way. It's probably going to change year by year, little by little, but right now it's pretty piano heavy.

Tell me about your double EP Moral of the Story, Chapters 1 and 2?

With the EPs, I was coming out of my marriage and really knew, not even intentionally, that the record I was going to write was going to be essentially about the impending doom of my failed marriage. We started writing and it just kind of fell out. I needed to write records about me sort of finding myself again and obviously "Moral of the Story" being the biggest of that learning how to leave and learning from the situation. My friend FINNEAS, was the first person I called when I filed for divorce, so it made sense that he would be a part of the whole project. He became the executive producer on it.

What was it like working with FINNEAS?

It's the best, he's one of my favorite people in the whole world. We've been really close for three years, so it didn't feel like this professional working relationship, it felt like I was having my family work on my music. It was a super smooth process. We got coffee one day and I took him to my car afterwards and showed him some of the songs that I thought were going to make up the EP Moral of the Story and he immediately had some ideas for it so I was like, 'why don't you just do this? Why don't you just fuckin'...takeover?' And he was like, 'Okay, cool. I will.'

You're working on a debut album. How has that been, given the limitations that you're working with right now?

Lord, in quarantine it's definitely an interesting process. A bulk, I'd say maybe 60% of the album, was written before quarantine started. Finishing up those records is a lot easier of a process. Starting new songs and collaborating with other people is definitely more of a challenge. But luckily the executive producer on this project, Leroy Clampitt (or Big Taste), produced a song on Moral of the Story Chapter 1 called "In Disguise" and he so understands the sound we're both really in love with—The Beach Boys album Pet Sounds. That's our guiding light for the entire album. I by no means am Brian Wilson, but it's a cool challenge to accept. Since we're already kind of in the headspace and we know the sound, it's been a little bit easier to sort of keep writing and going back and forth with lyrics and melodies and chord progressions and things like that. It's tough. We can knock out like a song per day when we're in the room together, but this way it's like we're knocking out a song per a week, maybe.

Tell me a bit about your Instagram series, Q(uarantine) + A(she).

I wanted to do something with my friends and people that I respect and look up to you. I think quarantine can be really isolating and it can make you feel really alone. If I can bring my friends on and literally ask for their advice, not only for me but for other people, then that might make me and hopefully other people feel a little less alone. That was the start of it and then Finneas was obviously the first one and kicked it off. We did two the first week and then doing one every week since then. It's so fun for me, it's like a mini-podcast, but with no editing. If I sound like an idiot, I can't fix it, so that's a little bit of an unfortunate piece of it, but otherwise, it's been pretty hilarious and fun and insightful. I love it.