Country music gained an interesting newcomer in late 2007 and early 2008 and we’re not talking about Lady Antebellum. Ashton Shepherd appeared on the scene with a fantastically traditional-leaning debut single called “Takin’ Off This Pain.” The song eventually hit the Top 20 of the charts and was followed by an equally impressive debut album called Sounds So Good. After touring behind that album and working on her follow-up album, Ashton Shepherd returned earlier this month with “Look It Up,” (Watch Video) a spit-fire of a single which instantly has been embraced by radio, CMT and GAC and the fans. In this exclusive feature interview, Ashton recently spoke with Roughstock at the UMG Nashville offices about both her old material and the stuff on her up-coming album, which she’s putting the finishing touches on.
Matt Bjorke: You appeared on the country music scene with “Taking Off This Plain” and followed it up with the album Sounds So Good. How did it make you feel to see your singles and album on the charts next to folks like Lee Ann Womack and George Strait?
Ashton Shepherd: It makes you feel accomplished. It makes me grateful and – as silly as it sounds – kind of relieved to have been accepted by everybody as quickly as I was.
Matt: What were some of the best parts about touring behind the album?
Ashton: You know, just giving people pieces of who I am and allowing people to know that I’m just a regular person like they are and God’s been good to me and blessed me with a talent to write and allowed me to be able to sing to them about real things. People want to hear real things and that’s what was so neat about promoting that record, it felt so easy to promote, because it was real.
Matt: How would you describe your new single “Look It Up?”
Ashton: I’d call it “Sassy and classy.” (Laughs). I think that it’s very sassy and very funny. I think it’s humorous and light hearted even though, to me, the girl in the song, she is over it. It’s not a mad song. It’s more of a smart-aleck “I’m over you” song. I think that a lot of people, even if they’re in a relationship or not, everybody needs to sing a song like that sometimes, because we all feel that way.
Matt: Is that what made the song right to be the lead single for the record?
Ashton: Well, I’ll be honest with you, I have a couple more that could’ve been great lead-singles but Luke Lewis, head of UMG Nashville, really took this single into his own hands saying to me, “Ashton, this is a smash. This is a huge hit, it’s very reactive.” He just thinks it’s the right song at the right time. We have some other songs that we think of as no-brainers for radio. Songs that really could be anthems but this song felt like the right first one.
Matt: Well I read that you recorded a Dallas Davidson/Rhett Akins song so immediately I think of “that’s one of the ‘no-brainers’ as an of-the-moment kind of song, particularly with the success they’re having lately”…
Ashton: Right. And that’s their niche right now too, crafting songs that sound good on the radio. But I also have a couple Bobby Pinson co-writes and he’s really great…
Matt: He’s fantastic…
Ashton: It was so funny to watch me write with him because I’m such a very instinctual writer, meaning it just comes out quickly without thinking about it. Bobby on the other hand, he’s a very mechanical with melodies coming out everywhere. He’ll just be hummin’ something and making up this melody and it sounds like a hit and he doesn’t even have words…I’m like “Bobby, how do you do this?”
Matt: That sounds like the guy I could write songs with as I write lyrics but haven’t learned an instrument at this point….
Ashton: Yeah, and my thing is I am a ballad writer…I don’t have a lack of ballads. I feel like I could make four albums with outstanding ballads, the stuff that would wrench your heart but you’ve gotta be able to have something that’s contemporary radio-ready stuff to get airplay and Bobby’s great at that. So it was like Ashton Shepherd’s “naturalistic” stuff meets Bobby Pinson’s Melodic tempo stuff. I’ve told people it was like ‘spontaneous combustion.’
Matt: Are you working with the same producer as before?
Ashton: Yeah, I’m working with Buddy Cannon…
Matt: It’s hard to argue with that…
Ashton: That’s right, it’s great to work with him.
Matt: I know you wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on Sounds So Good, how many songs did you write for the new project?
Ashton: Golly, we’ve written a ton of songs the last couple of years and we’ve been pilfering through them picking out the best songs to record. Right now we’ve got nice songs cut and we’re going to record three or four more. So out of the thirteen songs we’re working with, we’ve got three of them that are outside material and the rest of ‘em I’m a writer on, three are 100% me, two of them are with Bobby Pinson, one’s with Troy Jones (“People Are Crazy”) and its…
Matt: It’s like a who’s who of strong writers…
Ashton: Yeah, and they’re such great writers and it’s really neat to sit down with somebody who has their own way of songwriting but yet you still can hear me in the songs. That’s what I’m so excited to get to share with everybody. This is the next chapter of Ashton Shepherd meets Nashville. It really is, because that first record was to a certain degree but seven of those songs I wrote by myself…
Matt: You could’ve called the first record Meet Ashton Shepherd…
Ashton: Right, it was really oriented to my own songwriting and this one is too because I still have three of my own songs and I could possibly have four as I have two or three songs I’ve written by myself that I’m trying to get recorded with the three more we have to do. There’s also a co-write with Dean Dillon and Dale Dodson wrote. So we’ve got a really good mixture of writers and I think it’s gonna be real special album.
Matt: How difficult is it for you to go through the process of selecting the songs for the record?
Ashton: It’s hard and what makes it hard is I kinda know what I like and I have 10 favorites of my own that I’d love to put on a record but it’s hard when you send them to Buddy, the label and the publishing company. It’s hard to hear the feedback from other people, when they don’t get it. Because I know what they’re about and it’s hear the critique because it’s my song. I know where it’s coming from and I cannot describe it to them…Know what I’m saying?
Matt: Sure as a writer, definitely… Like others say, it’s like a child; you never want to hear bad or negative about your children…
Ashton: Right and that’s why I am careful about what I send in and how I do describe the songs because there’s been a lot of material turned in the last few years and I feel like, I honestly feel this, that we could go in and record a third album right now. Between my solo stuff and the co-writes, I feel very confident about them. I don’t feel like we’re getting to put ‘em all on this record…
Matt: Well, that’s certainly a good position to be in…
Ashton: …I really do feel like this, I don’t know where the label will be on that, come time for the next record, because the industry usually is all about the “what’s new, what did you write this week, what’s fresh” kind of stuff. But I’m not really like that, I’m like “look if we have good material, just don’t overlook this.”
Matt: That’s like a story I heard about “Moments” by Emerson Drive. I heard that song a year before it came out and told everyone that would listen that it was a smash hit and then I was told it sat around for seven years before Emerson Drive cut it, after a publisher challenged the label to record it…
Ashton: There you go. Why though? Why? It’s a strange process but you know what, I’m so proud to have had the door opened like it was. I should’ve never been able to come up here and make that first record I made. I mean to have the writers on my record that wanted to write with me this time around, I’m very grateful for all of it. I still have a tendency to push for my own songs but at the same time I am loving the songwriting process and I’ve learned so much from my co-writers.
Matt: And if you stood your ground on recording only your own material, you’d never have gotten around to recording a song like “Look It Up”…
Ashton: That’s right! I would’ve never had written with Bobby Pinson. We’d never have written the potential title of the album “Where Country Grows” and it is very possible that the song will be the a single, probably the second single from the album. It has melody and lines that wouldn’t have been there if Bobby wasn’t there. Granted, he wouldn’t have wrote it without me there but that’s the beauty of it. It’s a beautiful 50-50 co-write.
Matt: and that’s a Nashville thing but you know if you look at rock act, it’s still a similar process in that they write their songs together or two of the members write together. It’s just that they may know each other a bit better than if you write with a new co-writer…
Ashton…Right.
Matt: So the record really is an evolution of your sound from the first album Sounds So Good?
Ashton: Absolutely! I think it’s a good answer to the first record. What it doesn’t have is as many Ashton Shepherd songs, and as everyone knows, I wrote seven of those by myself but as I stepped back and took a look at the new co-writing process for this record, It was the oddest thing, as I was in the process of creating those songs, I sort of felt like I was getting away from myself a little bit. But when I listened back to it, it really brought me out. It was the exactly the opposite of what I thought. I’m really anxious to see what the critics have to say about it because I had such great reviews on the last record. People have been waiting and wondering, I hope they love it.
Matt: You know, I look at it this way; Look at Jamey Johnson’s records. He cuts outside material but it still sounds like Jamey…So if people remember that when coming into this record, I’m sure it’ll be fine…
Ashton: And they will. And with my voice and the way I sing, my stuff is my stuff and I make it my own. And that’s part of what makes an artist an artist, being able to take something and make it their own. If you think about the many artists who don’t write their own stuff, that’s what makes them great, like Reba McEntire or Martina McBride or George Strait. They became big stars by making the songs their own style.
Matt: And then you look at somebody like Miranda Lambert who wrote most – if not all – her own stuff previous to “The House That Built Me” yet it has become her signature song…
Ashton: There you go. You know, you have to be able to show that as an artist. You have to be able to make people believe that you did write the song, even when you didn’t…
Matt: And in all honesty, I see it on the internet message boards and comment sections, most fans will think you wrote the songs anyway, even if they’re reading the liner notes and lyrics…
Ashton: Yeah, exactly. They believe the songs to be that way.
Matt: You recently made the music video for “Look It Up.” How would you compare the process of making a video to making a record?
Ashton: Well, it’s very different because it’s not as natural feeling to me. Actually making the record is natural because I’m singing but when you get in front of the camera, you know every little thing is getting recorded and you’re hoping that you come across the way you want to. Like ‘do I look OK,’
Matt:..All of the sudden you’re an actor going “Is the process right?”…
Ashton: Exactly… “Am I doin’ this right?” It doesn’t feel as natural to me as the other one is…
Matt: How much fun is it for you, despite all of that, to make the videos?
Ashton: It’s really fun and I oughta let myself have a little more fun because I’m a little nervy and I want everything to be right so I over think things sometimes, so I probably could have more fun if I wasn’t quite as picky about stuff…
Matt: And just trust what the director is doing…
Ashton: And that’s what I did this time around, from the moment I got out of the car. I said “Just tell me what to do today.” If something’s not right, just tell me what to do…
Matt: Everyone’s not Dwight Yoakam, right? [He often directs his own music videos and is an actor]
Ashton: Exactly, I’m not Dwight Yoakam (laughs).
Matt: You’ve been recently invited as to be one of the Headliners for the CMA Songwriter Series at Joe’s Pub in New York City, how cool is that for you to be able to participate in such an event?
Ashton: I’m very, very honored and gnawing at the bit to be able to be a part of it because I love to sit around and play new songs that I’ve written, I love doing that. I am even think I’m gonna do it on the road some, play some stuff that’s new, and play stuff that’s not on a record, because I have a handful of songs I love to play live and some of ‘em aren’t on the new record…
Matt: Some of the songs could be ‘tested’ for the next album and it’s a good way to give your band a little break in a show…
Ashton: right, exactly and I love to do it, and fans love to hear some new stuff too…
Matt: What would you like to say to fans that may be learning about Ashton Shepherd for the first time through this interview or your new single “Look It Up?”
Ashton: I really, really hope that my music is something they can relate to and I’m just an average, real person who has gotten lucky enough to have a really good opportunity right now and I hope they like the music enough to buy my record.
For more information on Ashton Shepherd you can click here to read our first interview with the recording star.
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