Building songs from a single line - Interviewing Ashley Suh

You mentioned you have a new single called ‘I watch the rain’, what can you tell us about the inspiration behind that track?

It started almost three years ago, I wrote it during college. I had the line, ‘I watch the rain fall’, very simply in my notebook for sophomore year. By the time I was hitting junior/senior year I had an assignment to create a song, so I took that line to build from. It ended up being an indie rock track, the gist of it is about feeling misunderstood and how I personally handle that. I feel like when we go through times of being hurt there are always levels to that. The way that I do it is it starts with sadness e.g. ‘this didn’t turn out how I thought it would’. Then misunderstanding adds into it, anger, grief and so much more it piles up. So, I wanted the song to expand into those different emotions as it goes. If I had to simplify the song into one thing it would be that you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong with me, I already know.

You’ve spoken about being surrounded by music growing up, what did that look like, how did it start?

My mum, she studied piano in a college in California, so we had a grand piano in our home that I remember her practicing classical music on. My dad is actually a banker hahah, totally different, but on the weekends he would play songs on guitar (as he grew up being in church band). My grandmother studied Opera in college in Korea. I got interested in music pretty young, by age 9/10 I kind of knew I wanted to do this. It was so weird though because I didn’t like raising my hand in class, I’m very shy, I don’t like people looking at me. I knew when I had my first music class, there was a teacher called Mr S in elementary school, he would pass out lyrics to a Beatles song or something and I felt so so happy, it was crazy. I fell in love with the fact that there was always a story behind a song, and I love books. As a child it blew my mind that I could sing my stories. It all kind of grew from there, by the time I was 12 I started to try and make my own stuff.

Image by Rockie

What do you want listeners to feel when they hear your upcoming debut album and are there any hints you can give us about the album?

I think this album is an accumulation of everything I have learned from starting music to now. The main thing I want people to feel from this album is bravery and courage, that is what got me to be able to do this in the first place. Courage is not something you wait for, you kind of decide it. In general, I hope people feel that there is a light to this album, not in the way that it is naïve, in the way that hope is tied to bravery. It is easier to be negative and not believe, but I hope that people feel there is a light to this and that they have the courage to believe and hope.

After listening to your single ‘Carousel’, I was in awe of how you blend genres. Do you define your music by one genre, is it an experiment?

For the upcoming album there will be a lot of different genres, but for future albums I don’t know if I will do concept genre albums. I jump to whatever I am called to create, I think the one tie line through everything is first the way that I song write – I love hooks, I need a good hook in each song. All of my songs from before and whatever is coming next you could strip down to a singer/songwriter base that started with one line on paper, in my room. They are all intimate, at their core they don’t require anything else.

I collaborated with Nick VanAmburg, a jazz pianist, I couldn’t have created this song without him!

What would be your dream festival line up that you would headline?

-            IU (she’s a Korean artist, really amazing)

-           Jannabi (also a Korean artist)

-            Zion T (Korean artist)

-           Taylor Swift (that’s why I started)

-           The Killers (listened a lot in middle school and love their sound)

-            Hayley Williams (love her new album)

-            Jon Bellion (love his new album Father Figure)

If your music could be the soundtrack to a film/series what would you choose?

I love ‘Because This Is My First Life’, essentially it’s a story where this girl wants to be a writer, but she goes through a lot of things and it’s also a romcom. I don’t know if it would be a perfect fit, but I’d go with that one!

Thank you so much Ashley! I absolutely adored this interview :)

Photos by Rockie and Nadia

Check out Ashley’s socials and links here