We were lucky to catch up with Ashley Riley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley , thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

As a singer songwriter and performing artist my main mission is connection. I believe that expressing ourselves creatively through art and music is what helps us to relate to and understand each other. I think it’s important to know yourself and to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and so my goal is to be honest and vulnerable in the art that I share in the hopes that it can encourage others and let them know they aren’t alone.

Ashley , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a singer songwriter. I perform and tour regionally and write music with other artists as well as for film and TV. I’m proud to say that I’ve been an independent artist for over 10 years now. I also host a podcast called Made of Dreams that highlights the behind the scenes work of creatives and people that inspire me. I didn’t pick up a guitar until my early 20’s but when I did it was with the clear intention of writing and performing. As a creative, I have learned as I go and been hands on with every facet of my business. I’m realizing now that it has given me such a wide skill set from not only the work that I do as a musician but things like building websites, editing audio, photos and videos among many other things. It’s been important to learn to pivot with the industry that I’m in while learning to not rush to follow every trend but to choose the new technologies that align with my vision and support my goal rather than take away from it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

As a business owner I have had to unlearn that thought that being busy equals making progress. You can spend all day on tasks that will make you feel like you are working on your business but might be keeping you from taking the bigger steps that would actually move you along

Have you ever had to pivot?

Well, I think in the last 4 years we’ve all learned the art of the pivot. In the early days of the pandemic I turned to my online community and performed virtual concerts. I learned to engineer my own recordings and collaborated with people remotely and pivoted once again with the start of my podcast. I think that going through 2020 and the following years showed me the importance of connection and conversation beyond the music are just as important.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ashleyriley.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ashley_riley
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ashleyrileymusic

Image Credits
Joseph Riley Sarah Bonsignore Karen Bridges