Kassi Ashton was one of the artists we were most excited to see at C2C 2020. We caught up with her while in lockdown to chat all about her creative mindset, ‘Pretty Shiny Things’ and more. The interview will also be coming to the podcast soon.
Hey Kassi. How are you holding up in these crazy times?
Oh I’m pretty good. How about you?Â
Yeah not too bad. This is either the time for creativity or boredom, so what are you getting into at the moment?Â
I think it’s really been a mix of both for me, because the first few days I was quarantined I made two outfits per day. I was like ‘whoah, I need to slow down.’ I don’t want to make something just to make it, I want to make something really fabulous and I don’t want to make it just to be busy. Yesterday I made a collapsible table for a boat that my boyfriend just bought. It’s kind of been somewhere between creating, reading and just eating and eating and eating.Â
Yep that sounds about right. I’d like to go back and set the scene for people about where you came from. Obviously your first single was that autobiographical setting for your music, was it hard putting out that first single in terms of baring your soul to the world and showing it to your parents? It was such a raw and honest song.
Yeah so, I was nervous to play it for my dad because he was born and raised in California, Missouri. His raising there and his experience there was very different to mine. He always tried to support my outsider point of view and he knew how hard it was for me growing up – getting bullied and so on. I was still nervous because it was so honest. I played it for him and I’m sitting there and he has his arms crossed across his chest. It got done and he was silent for a few minutes and I was like ‘shit, shit, shit.’ Then he looks at me, kind of side-eyed and goes ‘they’re not gonna like that.’ I was like ‘yeah I know, I have to be honest…’ He looks at me and I stop talking and goes ‘fuck ’em.’ I was like ‘oh, thank god.’ He was a trooper with that because he said ‘you’re not trashing them, you’re just being honest that you love it, but you love to leave it at the same time.’ I kind of felt bad for him because I am seven and a half hours away. Anyone from California, Missouri is either going to say it to their neighbours or put it on Facebook, and I’m not exposed to either one of those. My dad still lives there, so people would stop him at the grocery store and tell him their opinion – sometimes it was positive and some wasn’t. Those who didn’t have a positive opinion, he would just be like ‘hey, you should probably listen to the song again, like actually listen to the words.’Â
Well there is that in-between sentiment of you love it but you love to leave it. Did you always know you were going to move from California, Missouri to Nashville?Â
Oh yeah definitely, because I wanted to be a singer as soon as I knew that could be a thing you wanted to do and Nashville being the home for that. It was a given and there was never going to be a Plan B.Â
That’s the only way to be, because if you want to make it in this industry, you have to have that attitude because otherwise there’s so many times where you could easily give up.
Yeah you have to be so relentless, in your pursuit of what you want. If you even sort of waver, it’s not for you.
Completely. I feel like throughout your music, you have such a unique quality – both vocally and your perspective. Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem to view your music much more holistically, through to the design and its’ visual representation. Has it always been like that?
Totally, oh yeah always, I’ve always been a creative human being, again since I was tiny. I’ve always wanted to soak up. Anytime I saw a skill being done where you could transfer what’s in your brain to something that is physically in front of you, I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that. I think if you’re truly creative in one kind of vein then it can apply to everything else, if you just put in a tiny bit of effort. I think it’s really a priceless part of being an artist, because everything that you’re consuming or buying, they know it’s not a bunch of people sitting around a board room table and coming up with what’s me. They’re not planning or plotting. It literally comes from my brain – usually from my kitchen, where I’m on my laptop at the dining room table. It comes from a real person.Â
I mean my favourite song of yours has still got to be ‘Pretty Shiny Things,’ which has got to be one of the ‘real-est’ songs I’ve heard. It must have spoken to so many people. Can you talk a bit about the inspiration behind that song?Â
Yeah totally – actually the other day was the one year anniversary of it being out! I can not believe it’s been a year because it’s gone so fast but it also feels like so long, it’s very strange. I wrote that song, I was a senior in college – I went to Belmont University, here in Nashville – and I was going through a complicated family thing which you can probably infer from the lyrics of the song. I was at the point where I had to make a decision. I was at a crossroads, I was either going to cut this person off, or I was going to learn to just deal with it for the rest of my life. It was greatly impacting my life, and my brain and my coping mechanisms and everything, it was just not healthy. It was really keeping me up at night, because someone that close to you that can be a really hard decision, if not the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I had a really cheap old piano at the end of my bed and I woke up in the middle of the night, because I think I had had a nightmare about it. I wrote a majority of the negative part of the song on the piano and I recorded it on my phone. My best friend at the time also went to Belmont, she was a songwriting major and we wrote together a lot. I sent her the memo and I was like ‘hey, 3am, I’m all in my feelings, do I need to throw this away and go back to sleep? Should this see the light of day? What do I do, is this too personal?’ She sent it back to me, the next day finished, all resolved. She helped me write part of the second verse and then wrote that entire last chorus. I cried, of course, and professed my love to her for what she had done – because she was my best friend. I remember being on the phone and we both kind of paused and were like ‘shit, we’re songwriters.’ (laughs) You write drinking songs or heartbreak songs, you don’t write that shit. We both got publishing deals off it before we even graduated. That’s when you know.
What has the response been like to it on the road? It’s one of those songs that must just speak to people.
Yeah it’s ridiculous, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a live show of mine, but I love to dance and shake my hips and be wild. Some people who don’t know me well, who might be there for someone else or the headliner or whatever see me like that and I see the assumptions on their face. Then ‘Pretty Shiny Things,’ I literally see them change their mind and I kind of feel like I start the shows out wild and then that is the meat, centre and core of the entire show, that’s like the ‘we are all human here.’ In our society, with social media and everything, we see a lot of times that the cover is more important than the pages. I’m just here to remind you that it’s not. You see a lot of people take a deep breath, and that’s so rewarding as an artist because the reason we do what we do is to get them out of their troubles or out of their head and let them relax for a minute. To visibly see them do that during your show, it is the most rewarding thing you can ask for.Â
It’s almost like you’ve completely changed their perspective in one song.
Completely, and it’s special to me too.Â
I guess it will be a while now before we get to see you again live, with everyone’s plans getting completely derailed. What are your plans for the rest of the year? Obviously you were meant to be over for C2C, but can we expect new music in the coming months?Â
Yeah, first of all, I am so so bummed. It was literally the middle of the night when it was announced that there was going to be the travel ban. I was in Germany and my friend Tenille Townes texted me at like two o’clock in the morning or something and she was like ‘hey, this just got announced, we’re leaving in the morning, I want you to be on my flight’ – she’s one of my best friends – and so I’m like ‘oh, geez.’ Luckily, one of our workers back in the States, booked flights automatically. I was just so bummed, because like you say you saw me at CMA Songwriters and I love the UK and that was going to be my favourite part of the trip. To have to leave was heartbreaking, I got back home and was like ‘nooooo.’ I have so many fans over there that I see all the time, we talk and we were so excited.
Music in the next couple of months, is a bit up in the air. With quarantine, no one is at the label, we’re all just trying to figure out how we’re going to just not completely do nothing, for however long this lasts. We were in the process, before all this happened, of picking out my first radio single because I’ve never been to radio. That’s where that will go next, so I am so excited for that. People have been telling me for years, ‘just go to radio,’ but I’ve wanted to build a base. I’ve never been happier that I did it that way.
Final Few
Wine or Whiskey? Oh it depends on the circumstance (laughs). If I am at home or at dinner, then it’s red wine – cabernet, most of the time. If I am celebrating something, or I am in my dad’s shop with my dad, then it is whiskey all the way.
Record, book and thing you’d bring to a desert island? Oh that is so hard, you’d want it to be something that went with the island… Just off the top of my head, the new Harry Styles album, would go with the island in my opinion and I think that album is genius. The book? I’d have to take the series called ‘A Discovery of Witches’ – the first book is actually on Sundance right now. Thing? I’d probably bring matches and a knife (laughs) – we’ll go logical there.Â
Complete the sentence…
Music is… connection.
Country music is… home.Â
Kassi Ashton is… unstoppable.
