We were lucky to catch up with Ash Always recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ash, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned probably 75% of what I know from the internet. When the main artist I work with went viral and I started taking this more seriously in 2021 it was probably closer to 95%. I’ve been incredibly blessed the last few years to have the opportunity to assist and collaborate with some really wonderful people who have passed along their knowledge.

Most of that learning came from YouTube. I started out in 2016 and pretty much just made really main stream, generic electro-house. The kind of stuff that has a catch synth line, pretty basic vocals about breaking up, a huge snare build w/ riser, and a huge melodic drop. Even before the content era became such a part of the industry there was a plethora of knowledge being shared (especially for EDM & Hip Hop). So that’s pretty much where I learned. Even now I still learn things from YouTube. Since content is the new marketing there’s even more out there.

I think there are a two ways I could have sped up my process. The main one (and I think this applies to everyone) is by finishing more songs. I’m a perfectionist, and I tweak and hold on to things too long. Growth tends to come when you commit to things, finish them, and then decide oh I wanna try that differently next time, or hey I don’t like how this sounded let me figure out how I can make it sound right next time. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t spend some time tweaking, but there is a difference between experimenting with how a specific knob on an EQ affects a sound and EQing a guitar to sound perfect.

Another thing is by making an effort to get access to analog gear sooner. The studio where I went to school was hardly even a studio (We had a live mixer instead of an audio interface, a few mics, and speakers. The room wasn’t even treated properly it just had that cheap acoustic pyramid foam.) So I had never had access to any sort of outboard compressors or eq’s. When I first got access to a hardware compressor I mad a LOT of mistakes – I was over compressing everything, setting the output to hot, attack and decay times all over the place. But every time I made a mistake it had consequences, consequences I could hear, and consequences that meant I had to re-record if I wanted to fix. I couldn’t tweak. And that’s when I really started to learn how to properly use compression.

I think the most essential skill in being a music collaborator is learning how to have the right mindset. For a long time I think I was stuck thinking that every time I worked on a song I had to make it the best song ever. But there can only be one best song every, and I can’t even decide which one of my favorites I think is the best song ever, so how could I ever make the best song ever. When I really got that thought fully internalized I realized how silly it was. What I’ve been trying to work towards now is making each song the best possible version of itself. Not only is this an actually attainable goal, it’s the goal that makes the most sense, since art isn’t about making the best of something, but expressing yourself in the most true way.

The main obstacles are sort of just reiterations of what I already said. Not having access to outboard gear- I’m a very tactile person, so when I finally was able to start turning knobs I felt like it really created a stronger brain body pathway than pressing something on my mouse. And my own mindset, feeling like I needed every song I worked on to be perfect and tweaking forever instead of making decisions and being okay that I might make mistakes and then looking back and learning.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Aesc, I work professionally as Ash Always, and I am music producer, songwriter, and audio engineer.

I got started at the very end of high school when I had a pretty hard break-up and needed somewhere to channel all the emotional energy I had. I spent my last semester of high school (and much of college) not doing my homework and producing songs on my laptop. My sophomore year I was running sound for an acapella show and met Frances Forever (back before they had taken that name), and asked them to sing on a track of mine. We recorded in my dorm closet, and I didn’t have any money to pay them but I offered to help them with some music if they wanted (I was just being nice, at the time I had no interest in producing other people). And now here I am 6 years later, doing this thing almost full time.

My approach to collaborating has always been to help the artist attain their vision. Of course I’m always going to bring my own perspective and thoughts, and I think a certain amount of friction of ideas is important in the creative process.

The work I’m most proud of has been my work Frances Forever and Rex Laurent. If I had to pick a few songs I would say Backroom by Rex Laurent, Paranoia Party by Frances Forever, and a whole lot of unreleased music sitting in my hard drive. There’s a song in there by Cammi McDermott that might be one of my favorites ever.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I was recently listening to handful of artists who pitched to be local support for the tour I’m about to leave on. We have one show in Canada and I was blown away by the quality of the music the acts there pitched. Too which I found out that Canada has a whole grant system set up for musicians. So I would say we just need to sort out the whole money issue.

Making music has never been more accessible, which is awesome. If you can afford a computer and headphones you can make music, for about $200 more you can record your voice at a passable quality.

And yet it seems making a sustainable living is being increasingly difficult. And that’s really what it comes down to for me. If you have to spend 20-30 hours a week on a part time job so you can pay rent and buy groceries, it becomes increasingly difficult to have enough time and energy to make great art. I recently worked as a VITA tax preparer for tax season to make some extra money (working about 22 hours a week) and there was a distinct drop in my creative output. The middle class of musicians (like the middle class in general) is disappearing.

This isn’t anything that hasn’t been said before, but streaming pays terrible. You can’t make money touring. Merch and vinyls are about the only thing anyone brings cash in on these days, and you can’t even move Merch without touring, so you’re really just hoping that it’s offsetting the touring costs.

As individuals you can support artists by buying their Merch if you want it, or buying digital copies of albums that you stream a lot. But at the end of the day this isn’t a problem that will be solved by individual do-gooders. We need to restructure the way the money moves.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

First of all I don’t think there’s a such thing as a non-creative. Even in roles we consider to be traditionally “non-creative” there is still creativity.

I think the thing about my journey that even I took some time to understand is I need to do what I do. When I don’t get to work on making something (and for me that something is usually either Music or Writing) my brain gets unhappy. I get all this pent up energy that I can’t release by going for a run or bike ride or whatever. Creating things is just a part of my being, and no matter what I need to do. Looking back my most miserable periods have the most do with how little I was creating. Even times that probably should have been more negative weren’t if I was able to channel my energy into creating. It’s an aspect of my being. Like needing to eat or drink or get sunlight. I have to create.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ashalways.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ashalways.wav