We interview Ashley McBryde, off the back of a huge 2018. She released her debut album ‘Girl Going Nowhere’ to critical acclaim, earned a Grammy nomination and made two trips across the pond amongst a host of other accomplishments. We sat down with Ashley at C2C 2019 to talk about her epic year and what we can expect from her sophomore album.
Full interview available on the podcast.
You just announced your UK tour. I feel like you never leave the country now – you may as well declare residency at this point…
Yeah I came in March and then October, and then March again and we’ll be back in September, I think twice a year is good.
Do you change it up every time? I mean Shepherd’s Bush is your next one and that’s a huge gig…
Yeah the last time I played there was supporting Luke Combs, so to come back and headline is going to be awesome. We change the show pretty regularly.
Is it just getting crazier and crazier every time?
Yeah the first time we came through we took 9 or 10 photos and then the next day it was not kidding like 200 photos… It’s been nuts and it does seem like it grows and grows every time.
Obviously 2018 was such a huge year for you, but did you think that the UK would play a big part in it?
People told me what the fans would be like over here so I believed them but it was not to scale and I got here and saw what the impact was, then I came back in October and people were queueing at 9 o’clock in the morning and the show’s not till 9 o’clock at night.. This is insane, people are coming to see me? So it’s been awesome.
So it’s coming up on a year since ‘Girl Going Nowhere’ was released, has it just flown by?
It feels like it’s flown by to think it’s just been a year…
And Grammy nomination, did you ever expect that?
We knew the record was special to us, and we hoped it would be special to other people, but I never thought this is probably Grammy special. There were people who said that to me that I love and trust and I thought ‘thanks for saying that’ but then there we were…
And the song from the album you wrote on your own was ‘Andy, I Can’t Live Without You’ which happens to my favourite, what was the inspiration behind that song?
My lead guitar player lived with me for three years, his name was Andrew, and we played together for what wound up being ten years in all. So third year of living together, and on Monday nights we would go to this specific bar and drink and then we would come home and have a drink together and sing songs and play instruments. I would play mandolin, and he would play banjo, so neither of us playing guitar and he didn’t come home one Monday night and I got kind of bent out of shape about it, and I went to pour a whisky and saw that there was less in the bottle than when I left it. So I literally just sat there and sang ‘you drank my whiskey without asking’ and the more I looked around the house, the more I realised that not only my home, but my life was a complete disaster from the second he started getting his mail there. It really was like ‘man, you are infuriating but there’s no way I could ever live without you.’
When you went into ‘Girl Going Nowhere,’ did you ever think back – because songs like ‘Fat and Famous’ were so huge – and think I’d use the old songs again, or did you want to introduce yourself with a clean slate and in a new way?
Yeah to grow, and there’s lots of requests for songs like ‘Fat and Famous’ to go on the record, but I think it’s ok where it was, it served its’ purpose on the EP. Now and then we’ll play it in a live show, but for the next record I think we left ourselves with plenty of room to grow.
Going into album two, have you got an idea of when it’s going to be?
We start in May. We had already collected a bunch of songs and gone through them and then in January we wrote a whole bunch more and put that in the pile, and then in April we’ll write a little bit more and put that in the pile and then we start in May.
There were a whole of host of different writers on the last album, is that similar to this album?
Absolutely, a lot of the same writers will appear on the second record and then a few new ones. After the ‘Girl Going Nowhere’ album came out, I got the opportunity to write with some songwriting heroes of mine. I just wrote a song I adore with Matraca Berg, I got to write with Mary Lachey when we get back from Europe…
So exciting! I know Jay Joyce produced the last one, can we expect him to have a role in the next album?
He’s already on board. Yeah he’s helping us select the type of songs we want. I might hear something one way and when he hears it, he can offer a totally different direction. Whether you go in that direction or not, it’s awesome to have two sets of ears on the project.
Final Few
What record are you playing on repeat at the moment?
Ray Wylie Hubbard – Snake Farm it has been stuck in my head since the second I heard it
What’s your favourite tattoo?
Oh wow, right now my favourite tattoo – it changes every day – but my favourite one is one of my newest ones of my friend Randall Clay and he wrote ‘American Scandal,’ ‘Tired of Being Happy’ and ‘El Dorado’ with me.
What record couldn’t you live without if you were stuck on a desert island?
Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, written in 1998 it’s one of the best records of all time…
Do you have a pre-show ritual?
Several – every band member and I have a – it’s not really a handshake but it’s – something we do with our hands. If I can’t do it with every member of the band, because they’re not with me, then I do all of those with Deanna. I have a little thing I say on loud before I go on stage and I always point up.
Would you rather give up songwriting or performing?
Oh wow, performing, got to write songs.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… the only thing
Country music is… the reason we make music
Ashley McBryde is… very short, very loud but also funny (laughs).
Ashley McBryde has announced UK and Ireland shows for September and October 2019 as follows:
Friday 27 September: LONDON Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Sunday 29 September: MANCHESTER Academy 2
Monday 30 September: GLASGOW Queen Margaret Union
Tuesday 1 October: DUBLIN Academy
Tickets on general sale Friday 8 March: http://www.axs.com/uk/series/8378/ashley-mcbryde-tickets
