We recently connected with Ashavari and have shared our conversation below.

Ashavari, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

I owe a lot to my mom. I really appreciate the way she fostered my growth as an artist, but getting me hands on in many different art forms as a child. In pre-school days in India, she would put me in these roles and shows they would have for the kids, where I’d get an opportunity to recite a famous speech or monologue from a film, sing a song, etc. She would sew these gorgeous dresses for me, based on characters in movies and my favourite dolls, learn to play piano with me, teach me how to paint and draw, since she was a wonderful visionary and artist herself, and so much more. She even put me in ballet at one point, but I hated that. The thing that really stuck with me was my passion for music. It started with piano lessons and singing along to Andrew Lloyd Webber, which I was exposed to because of her eloquent taste, but as I got older, I was able to use this to audition for things that ended up really shaping me and my future. Like the Regional Arts Program at my high school where I majored in vocal music performance, and more.

I’m not sure if she knew I would follow the path of music, but my mom did name me “Ashavari” because it is the name of a melodic mode in Indian Classical Music, To her, Ashavari, or ‘Asavari’, means music.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Music and performance art has always been a part of my blood since I was a child. I was surrounded by it and got a chance at it from a very young age. As I grew older, I trained it more seriously and found that I had a talent with my voice that I can use to tell powerful stories.

In the earlier half of my life, I just wanted to live out my dreams to sing in bands, perform at big venues in front of many people and share my soul to the world. However, as I grew older, I realized I could use my voice through a powerful medium that I love so much to tell a powerful story that could resonate with others just like me. The life experiences I had as an Indian-Canadian girl, and the traumas I endured became the foundation of my drive to tell those stories and explore the visual mediums I can communicate them in. Stories like these help bring people together and help us all feel less alone.

I started off in various prog metal bands and choirs, but since 2019, I decided to start dropping music as a solo musician. My first single was Pink Afternoon that I wrote with a local Toronto producer, Prod by KXNG. After that and during the pandemic, I decided I was going to work on my first EP which was meant to be a snapshot of my life when I wrote it. It’s titled “BitterSweet” since it talks about my very personal healing journey . The BitterSweet EP is a bedroom pop style album that explores the tones of lo-fi, neosoul and sprinkled with electronic fusion in its single “Frustrated”, which is my second most popular release to date. Frustrated was released with a whimsical aesthetic music video directed, styled and produced entirely by myself. All the songs from the BitterSweet EP are branded with an anime-style art, with the tracks taking you through a 4-episode long healing journey.

In 2022, I released 2 “In The Deep” and “No Angel”, which experimented with new sounds such as grungey neo-soul and dark pop. In 2023, I released the song “Feel The Same” which is a classic r&b duet with Seattle artist, Dante Riverz. Most recently, I released the song Losing My Composure, which is a fun, upbeat, summer jam with a dance break.

As a long-time performer, I’ve graced the stage of many iconic venues in Toronto, most notably Yonge-Dundas Square for Desifest 2023, The Opera House, and The Velvet Underground, where I once back-up danced for Dorian Electra, opening for Rina Sawayama at her “Ordinary Superstar” world tour. Over the past year I’ve gained international traction in the west coast, having played 8 shows in Seattle, WA in 2022.

In March this year, I released “Feel The Same”, a duet with Seattle r&b singer, Dante Riverz. In June, I dropped “Losing My Composure”, a fun, upbeat, summer jam produced by Seattle legend, QREEPZ. My most popular song sitting at 22K streams is “Regina”, a collaboration with legendary YouTuber and Tiktoker, Simon Servida that tapped into hiphop and rap sounds.

I think as an artist, I really want to see more South Asian singers make waves in pop culture. I think music is powerful to be able to have that effect in the world, and Im happy to be part of the wave pushing it forward now. I want other brown girls like me to feel seen. I always grew up feeling misunderstood and compelled to prove that i can take up spaces in places where people made me feel like I didn’t belong — but now, I want to be authentic and I want people to feel inspired that they can be free of the chains society cuffs them with.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I had a really hard time dealing with my old-band splitting up and it caused a huge pivot in my music career. I was in university when it happened, and it was the only music I had out at the time. I was with this band for 4 years, completed a full-length 13 song album, went on a mini-tour in Canada,and creative directed their first music video–investing a lot of time, resources and finances into this. However, the split was messy. I wasn’t properly accredited as an artist and there were a lot of music business wake up calls that I had to learn the hard way. Unfortunately, being a broke university student, I wasn’t able to afford an Entertainment lawyer to help sort things out. Every lawyer would tell me it wasn’t worth it because I’d spend more in lawyer fees than what I’d get out of taking it to court. I cannot name or promote this band because of this reason. During this time, I had also just escaped a pretty abusive relationship and was a recent grad — so my stress levels were really high and the way I coped was to sorta just escape from music all together.

It was a pretty dark time of my life, so I took a long hiatus from music between the years of 2017-2019. I still of course needed some artistic outlet that was music-related to release with, so that’s where dance came in! I started taking dance classes at various studios in Toronto, which is how I met Fizz, director of Reverb crew. I would start training in hiphop, heels and commercial choreography. It became such a huuuge passion of mine, because I saw such fast growth and really enjoyed every moment of it. In 2019, when I decided to drop my first song “Pink Afternoon”, I wondered if maybe dance was a nice distraction from my music goals as a singer-songwriter. However, it actually made me listen to music differently and now, I’m able to have choreography and execute the dance moves for my own performances, which is what I did for my my biggest shows to date, at Yonge-Dundas Square and Mel Lastman Square, that had a turnout of over 5000 people.

Sometimes the darkest things that happen to us are a blessing in disguise, I learned a lot about music business from the band split, and all in all, despite taking a long hiatus, it ended up pivoting my career as an artist for the better.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

This is an interesting question because I can’t generalize society to speak about the global society, since each city has its own ecosystem and approach.

I will say though, that there’s a lot I think Toronto and the GTA can do and improve on.

While I was living in the States, I got to really experience how the music industry and creative spaces foster an environment for artists. I was in Seattle which is not the most famous. “music city” but it’s definitely up there with the greats given its rich history and iconic musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Macklemore and Jay Park coming out of it. I found that what they had that the GTA doesn’t have, is a plethora of well-funded music venues, with top-of-the-line audio equipment and engineers, as well as a culture of people that enjoy going out to experience music. There was also a sense of “if any of us win, we put our city on the map”, allowing there to be real communities and regulars supporting each other at shows. While briefly visiting LA and New York I found that the vibe was similar there too, but with even more opportunities and more connections.

I think Toronto and the GTA can take inspiration for improving its artistic environment. Funding venues is the first step, and I don’t just mean big venues — but also the small venues. Adding more stages and places to perform, investing in their aesthetics, the sound quality, the vibes… making it fun for people to make the trip to go out. Winters can be tough here, as is the transportation — especially living outside the bounds of the TTC. Aside from having more venues that are better funded, we have to develop a culture together as a society to look for and support upcoming artists. Maybe having more accessible venues is the first step, but also making that a cool thing to do to check out local music, as opposed to only hitting up the clubs. Maybe that looks like instagrammable moments and cool marketing partnership campaigns. Of course, mentality is harder to change in people, but I’m a strong believer of “be the change you want to see”. As artists and musicians, we have to be willing to work with each other regardless of social following and just be in it for the love and passion of it, not just the grind. Having jam sessions for the sake of it and having more spaces to do that in would be amazing for the community. In general, Toronto and the GTA has so many people and it can be isolating with its gruelling winters and poor transportation, but there’s definitely avenues for us to build more communities and expand the areas that are “popping”.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ashavari__
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/ashavari
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ashavari
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/ashavari
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ashavari__ https://discord.gg/Kxk8rxpMyt

Image Credits
Felice.c0m ; Kathleen W, Cale Faraon