Ashe

**Years Active** | 2017-present

**Ashlyn Rae Willson** (professionally known as **Ashe**) is an American singer-songwriter from San Jose, California, born 24 April 1993. She is known for her introspective and honest lyrics, writing mostly about her divorce, love, and loss.

She rose to fame in 2019 upon release of her single "Moral Of The Story" from its eponymous EP when it was featured on the soundtrack of the Netflix Original film *To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You*, it then quickly went viral on TikTok spawning millions of videos using the song.

Her debut album *Ashlyn* was released 7 May 2021, quickly followed by her sophomore album *Rae* on 14 October 2022. Both albums garnered great positive critical and fan acclaim, praising their honesty, rawness, and maturity.

Her music style has been described as mixing alternative and pop, with indie, country, and jazz.

## Early/Personal Life

Ashe was raised in a conservative Christian household in San Jose. She began attending piano and vocal lessons at the age of 8 and began writing songs in her teens, and even danced competitively as a child. She attended Berklee College of Music and graduated with a major in contemporary writing and production in 2015.

Ashe got married at 21 years old; however, she has said after filing for divorce that the relationship was sadly abusive. She has dedicated a lot of her songs (mainly from her debut album) to that relationship, detailing how it hurt her mentally.

Ashe's older brother, Ryne, sadly passed away in September 2020 due to a drug overdose. She has dedicated two of her songs to him, namely "Ryne's Song" and "Love Is Letting Go".

Between approximately 2020-2022, Ashe was in a relationship with Spencer Roehre. As of mid/late-2022, Ashe has been in a happy relationship with fellow musician John Canada.

## Artistry

Ashe says that jazz music, Diane Keaton and Carole King are major influences and inspirations to her own music, and has released a single with Diane Keaton called "Love Is Letting Go" off of *Rae*. Artists she admires are Stevie Nicks, Carole King, John Mayer, Justin Vernon and Bon Iver.

She notoriously does not perform encores, as she believes they are "egotistical" and "silly", and have lost meaning as it is expected to be done instead of a surprise.

### Creative Process

Ashe explained that her stage name gave her a healthy distance between her and her career. But "stripped that away" when she decided to name her albums after her real name, calling it "no longer a separation of Church and State"; as her debut album is called *Ashlyn*, which continued to her sophomore album named *Rae*, and joked that her third album will be called *Willson*, which would "[complete] the trilogy", saying "she's not that mysterious".

She explains how the albums are "snapshots" of her at that time, observed in the titles (as the albums are named after her real name), they are her name but reflect a version of her at a specific point in time, they are different versions of her. Joking that she would get married for more future album names.

Describing her writing process, Ashe has said that "it is like having the album or song already there in you, you just have to chip away to find it". Furthermore, she explains that if her and the co-writers managed to write a song in one day, she would try to record the vocals on that same day too to "[live] in the magic and the emotion of 'we just wrote this record, let's get on the mic and capture that' [...] it makes an impact".

## 2015-2019: Early projects and *Moral Of The Story EP*

She emerged in the 2010s singing demos in Nashville when producer Ben Phipps asked her to sing on "Sleep Alone". She also has vocals on Shaun Frank's song "Let You Get Away", for which she was Juno-nominated.

After signing to Mom + Pop independent label, she released her debut single "Used To It" in June 2017 and "Girl Who Cried Wolf" in November 2017. On 22 June 2018, Ashe released her debut EP, *The Rabbit Hole*, which was described as "a versatile and compelling seven-track affair". One of her non-album songs, "Real Love", was featured on Spotify's 'New Music Friday' playlist.

In 2019, the day after filing for divorce, she wrote the song "Moral Of The Story", her most famous song to-date about what she has learnt looking back at her unhappy marriage, it was released on 14 February 2019. It was featured on the soundtrack of the Netflix Original film *To All The Boys: P.S I Still Love You*, it then quickly went viral on TikTok spawning millions of videos using the song.

On 5 April 2019, Chapter 1 of the *Moral Of The Story EP* was released, including the eponymous song. This was quickly followed on 9 August 2019 by Chapter 2, concluding the extended play.

## 2020-2021: *Ashlyn*

On 22 July 2020, Ashe released the first dedicated single from her upcoming debut album "Save Myself". Followed by "Till Forever Falls Apart" on 2 March 2021 featuring FINNEAS, whom produced the record; the two collaborated before when O'Connell produced "Moral Of The Story".

The highly-anticipated album *Ashlyn* was officially announced 7 April 2021, with the single "I'm Fine" releasing a day later, succeeded by singles "When I'm Older" and "Me Without You" before the album was released on 7 May 2021. Ashe has called it "grandiose and sonically ambitious, it is not safe [...] I went for it". It released to great critical and fan acclaim.

Most of the album was written and produced in 2020 (except "Moral Of The Story" (2019)), but when Ashe's older brother, Ryne, sadly passed away in September 2020 due to a drug overdose, she decided to write one more song dedicate it to him and include it on the album, the eponymous "Ryne's Song".

Although not official singles, "Love Is Not Enough" and "Not Mad Anymore" received accompanying music videos after the release of the album.

The album was promoted through the world The Fault Line Tour in 2021-22, with a special performance of the album at *Lafayette* in London on 13 September 2021.

## 2022-present: *Rae*

On 3 March 2022, Ashe released the single "Another Man's Jeans", whose music video, shot in Mexico, had to be filmed twice after the director discovered that the 16mm film used was corrupted and unusable. This was quickly followed by "Hope You're Not Happy" on 6 May 2022.

The album, *Rae*, was finally announced on 22 June 2022 with the single "Angry Woman" releasing alongside it; succeeded by "Shower With My Clothes On", "Emotional", "Love Is Letting Go" featuring Diane Keaton, and lastly "omw" leading up to the album's release. It too released to great critical and fan acclaim.

The final five songs to be made for *Rae* were created at a week-long writing camp with Ashe and her co-writers in Big Bear, California in late 2021. The songs that emerged were: "omw", "Emotional", "Love You Need", "Love Is Letting Go", and "Fun While It Lasted".

The album was promoted through the world Fun While It Lasted Tour in 2022-23, with a special performance of the album called *Live at Troubadour* in West Hollywood where she played the album in sequence for the first time, to which Diane Keaton attended the soundcheck.

On 4 November 2022, she released a non-album single with Stephen Sanchez called "Missing You".

In February 2023, Ashe decided to cancel all performances in 2023 due to her mental health. She explained how she had been working and touring non-stop for the past three years and rarely took time off, this led to her realising that she needed to focus on bettering herself mentally. All tickets were refunded in full.

## Future: *Willson*

The third album is expected to be called *Willson*, thus completing the "trilogy" tradition of naming albums after herself. In an interview, she said how she is "excited to dive into the telling of love songs", as she entered into a relationship with John Canada when *Rae* was being made, with her only notable love song up until now being "Love You Need".

In autumn 2022, Ashe revealed that she had been writing again, and posted three song demo snippets to her Instagram Stories during mid-January 2023. In interviews in mid and late 2022, Ashe mentioned working with producer Julian Bunetta, and famous songwriter Liz Rose, respectively.

## Trivia

* Ashe says that she grew up listening only to Christian radio and that she thanks her grandfather for introducing her to music from names like Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and Jefferson Airplane.

* Ashe put an "e" on her stagename to pay homage to Carole King.

* Her favourite song is "Tapestry" by Carole King.

* Her favourite colour is yellow.
	+ In every music video, at least one piece of her outfit has been yellow in colour.
		- A notable exception is "Not Mad Anymore", where she wears an all-red ensemble.

* Her 2022 single with Diane Keaton, "Love Is Letting Go" from the album *Rae*, is dedicated to both of their brothers whom have passed, and is the first time Keaton has been included on a studio recorded single in her career.

* Curiously, all of her album artworks (*Moral Of The Story EP*, *Ashlyn*, and *Rae*) have Ashe sitting and leaning to the right.

* Speaking about her relationship with Finneas and Billie Eilish, she said that they had the same management company, *Best Friends*.
	+ Finneas and Ashe co-wrote the song "Wrong Side of Myself", which was part of her first EP, *The Rabbit Hole*.
		- And co-wrote and co-produced her biggest hit to date, "Moral Of The Story".
		- Following this, Finneas and Ashe became good friends.
		- He also helped her go through the entire divorce process.
		- Although Finneas is 4 years younger than her, Ashe thinks he is "mature beyond his years".

* She notoriously does not perform encores, as she believes they are "egotistical" and "silly", and have lost meaning as it is expected to be done instead of a surprise.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtaoYYYNkyw
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JddMS\_MG6O4
3. ↑ https://berklee.edu/berklee-today/spring-2016/ashlyn-willson
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ashe-mn0003496874/biography
5. ↑ https://starsoffline.com/spencer-roehre-wiki-ashe-boyfriend-age-job-height/
6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr4K19O071c
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 http://uwmpost.com/fringe/exclusive-interview-ashe
8. ↑ https://popcrush.com/ashe-popcrush-presents-interview-used-to-it/
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qytzXkbZiGQ
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 https://www.last.fm/music/Ashe/+wiki
11. ↑ http://www.momandpopmusic.com/featured/2017/6/ashe-joins-the-mom-pop-family
12. ↑ https://genius.com/a/who-is-25-year-old-singer-ashe-moral-of-the-story-is-a-netflix-viral-hit
13. ↑ https://earmilk.com/2017/08/16/ashes-debut-single-used-to-it-gets-future-pop-remix-from-aire-atlantica/
14. ↑ https://ventsmagazine.com/2018/06/27/ashe-releases-debut-ep-the-rabbit-hole/
15. ↑ https://milk.xyz/articles/premiere-ashe-gets-emotional-on-debut-ep-the-rabbit-hole/
16. ↑ http://pilerats.com/music/electronic/ashe-the-rabbit-hole/
17. ↑ http://www.onestowatch.com/blog/ashe-moves-on-from-a-toxic-relationship-in-moral
18. ↑ https://genius.com/a/who-is-25-year-old-singer-ashe-moral-of-the-story-is-a-netflix-viral-hit
19. ↑ The Big Bear Sessions
20. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKSDelR6A1E
21. ↑ https://twitter.com/ashemusic/status/1620829458285608960
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 https://www.bringinitbackwards.com/interview-with-ashe/
23. ↑ Willson#Song Snippets
24. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjB-\_ii7tww
25. ↑ http://b-sides.tv/video/20180204-video-interview-ashe-talks-beginnings-new-music
26. ↑ https://youtu.be/bcvU1tvTfbs
27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/ashe-76762.php