Ashland talks new album, tour, and cyborgs– exclusive interview

All Punked Up sat down with Ashland, a pop-rock duo from Illinois, to talk about their recent songwriting and tour experiences. Ashland opened for Our Last Night’s “Let Light Overcome the Darkness Tour” in the fall and released their second album, Over the Moon, in December. 

Ashland talked about their lessons on tour, the process of creating Over the Moon, and how Asia, the lead singer, came to play a more active role in the songwriting process. 

Be sure to check out Ashland on Spotify, Instagram, and Facebook.

You guys just wrapped up your tour with Our Last Night, SeeStars, and The Word Alive. How was that experience? What were some of your biggest takeaways from this tour?

Asia: It was so great! It was a pleasant surprise. People came out and we made lots of friends. I’ll let Aaron tell you about the lessons though.

Aaron: We didn’t bring enough people out. I was the only one who knew how to drive the van with the trailer. So, for five weeks, I was the only one who drove. I was miserable! We just didn’t have enough people. On shorter runs, we have been able to manage it with us, our drummer, and one other person. But we were in for a rude awakening.

Asia: It was awesome to be on a tour of that size because we had never been on a tour where we completely sold out of our merch by like, the second week. So, we had to rush order merch.

Aaron: We had 3 or 4 shows of no merch, so we brought in super old shirts for a bit.

Which show was your favorite?

Asia: The one that stuck out to me the most was Seattle! The crowd was just really, really hype.

Aaron: The venue was dope, too. It was one of the Showbox venues.

Asia: It looked like an old 20s lounge on the inside, but like super big.

Your latest album Over The Moon released shortly after the tour ended. How long were you guys working on this album from start to finish?

Aaron: Oh god. Really long.

Asia: It was a process we had been working on even before our last album. Some of the songs I had written previously, and we just decided to work with them for this album. Some of the songs we wrote while we were working on the last album. And some of the songs came after that.

Aaron: It was the longest album-making process we’ve ever done. Some songs are even older than this, but it was around 2 years at least.

Asia: I think it took so long because we were trying to work with new people and find our sound. We wanted to play around with new sounds and new producers.

What or who has influenced your sound for this record?

Asia: The sound is different because I wrote more of the songs. Most of the songs were already written before we went into the studio, so we had a clear vision of what we wanted the songs to sound like.

What has it been like for you to play a much more active role in the songwriting process?

Asia: It’s been a journey with us as a band. When I joined Ashland, I had never been in a band before. I have been a songwriter for as long as I can remember but I never shared it with anyone else—even though I knew I wanted to. I was way too afraid to do it. As I grew up and as my passion for music grew, I realized I was suffocating my passion by hiding my songs. My anxiety was holding me back a lot. I am so proud of this album because I broke out of my shell. I started presenting my music to Aaron to see how he felt about it and he accepted it and wanted to work on it. We’re kind of moving in that direction right now with our songwriting.

It’s huge to me—it’s hard to be a woman in the music industry. I just want to use my voice and our platform to encourage women—and anyone really—to not let anxiety hold you back from what you want to do.

Why were “Over the Moon” and “OMG” picked as your singles to release?

Asia: When we were listening to all of the songs on the album, “Over the Moon” stuck out over all the songs. It’s definitely its own song. It’s one of my favorite songs to play live.

Aaron: I honestly love that song.

Asia: And “OMG” is a great song to transfer fans from our previous sound to the new sound that came with this album.

If you had to pick another song to release as the first single instead of “Over the Moon,” which song would it be?

Aaron: Spoiler alert: It would still be “Over the Moon.”

Asia: We discovered on the tour that people really like “I Hate That.” It’s just a good vibe.

What are you working on now to promote the release of the album? Videos? Shows?

Aaron: We probably want to make more videos—whether that be music videos or other videos, like stripped acoustic versions. We’re definitely hoping to tour for it.

Asia: Yeah, hopefully [tour] this spring. And we love doing stripped songs because we try to do new things with them that make them sound different, almost like a whole new song.

Asia: More videos in general. We enjoy having a live presence.

Aaron: We want to do more vlog type stuff. I mean, we’re both idiots, so it’s got to be entertaining. We’ve done a few of those AltPress takeovers which are like, all-day things, and especially in the studio when we’ve been cooped up late at night, things get really weird. But that is probably what makes them so good.

With the start of the decade, what are some goals you have for yourselves as individuals for the next few years? Where do you see yourself in 2030?

Aaron: I’m hoping to be at least a cyborg. Immortal cyborg robot powers. I don’t know if I’ll get it, but that’s what I want.

Asia: Oh, it’ll definitely happen by then. But only for the super-rich people.

When you get in the car, what is the first song or artist you play?

Aaron: The Weeknd just put out two new songs and The Weeknd is probably my favorite artist of the past ten years. And Asia knows every time we get in the vehicle I say “Hey, I’m going to play these two songs on repeat.”

Asia: We were coming back from the Motion City Soundtrack show and we listened to “Heartless” like seven times in a row.

Aaron: Dude, it’s so good! I am so stoked for whatever he is leading up to… I love his voice and the production behind it—it’s always mind-blowing.

Asia: I literally open up my voice memos to work on more songs. Which I should stop doing because you’ll probably hit writer’s block if you do it too much. So, I definitely need to get back into the music scene again.

Aaron: I can tell you what Asia listens to. I can’t tell you any of the artist names, but she does these deep dives into Arabic music.

Asia: This girl is a little underground, Nina Abdel Malak. I grew up listening to it [Arabic music]. I’m also trying to learn Levantine Arabic and listening to music helps.

Apparently Ashland was started by an ad on Craigslist? Wait, what?

Aaron: Every time it still makes me laugh. Disclaimer: You should probably not do this because it was stupid and dangerous at the time and now it is even more stupid and dangerous to meet people on Craigslist.

I was trying to start a new project and I’m from the middle of nowhere in Illinois, so there weren’t a lot of musicians. I put together some people and we made some instrumental demos, but we had no singer. I got so desperate, all the way to the bottom of desperation, and put an ad on Craigslist. Asia had put an ad on Craigslist as well saying she was a singer looking for a band.

Asia and I had never met, but we had some mutual friends, so it wasn’t a total cold call.

Asia: I wasn’t a complete idiot when I went to go meet them. I was really, really nervous about it. I wasn’t sure if it was the smart thing to do. So, I talked to my aunt at the time and she said “This is your passion you’ve always wanted to be in a band. You’ll never know if you don’t go and meet these people.” So, she drove me and said she’d stay outside in the car and if I needed to run, she would be there.

Aaron: So, we met at this creepy abandoned warehouse with no electricity…

Asia: Oh my god [laughs] shut up. No, we didn’t!

What was the first song you created together?

Aaron: I’ll fast-forward a little bit. The first song Asia and I created together where it truly was a mutual process was “No Trouble” and it is still one of my favorite songs.

Asia: Yeah, we still play that song live all the time.

Aaron: We can’t not play it. That’s our song at the moment where if we don’t play it, people that know us will get upset.

This album is pretty different than your previous album. Learning how to change your sound in a positive way takes just as much talent as it does to create music in the first place. How did you guys manage such a successful sound change?

Asia: I feel like a lot of bands fail when they change their sound because they go from doing what is natural to them to forcing it for some reason. A lot of bands succeed in it because they go from something that was more forced and fade into something that is more natural. I think that’s what we’ve slowly been working towards.

Any last comments for your fans and All Punked Up readers?

Aaron: Invest in biotech so we can all become cyborgs by the end of the decade.

Asia: And check us out on all socials! 

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Featured image courtesy of Lindsey Byrnes.