We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Ash Sharbaugh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Michael Ash, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
It was love at first listen — Duran Duran’s “Is There Anyone Out There?” I was thirteen-years-old, sitting at the dining room table around Thanksgiving-time, finishing My homework before My school’s Thanksgiving break, and that tune came on. I had just purchased the cassette, and THAT song came on. I was floored! The forelorn lyrics accompanied by a dark — yet infectious — bed of cool, ‘mysterious,’ synthesized sounds arrested My imagination, and — suddenly — I wanted to create something just as beautiful, if not more lush and lovely. THAT moment was when I knew I wanted to compose poetry and music for the rest of My life.
I had always drawn and composed poetry since I was a child, and music had always touched Me. Precociously so. But, at that moment, I wanted to MASTER both music AND poetry, and meld them together into the most unique and precious things I could ever hope to create.
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.
I am Michael Ash Sharbaugh. I am a music composer, instrumentalist, singer, and poet. I produce original atmospheric pop, spacerock, ambient, and experimental musics from the ground-up. In My own recording studio. I began amassing musical equipment at age fifteen after many a band mate disappointed Me when it came time to record at external music studios. We — My bands and I — would spend heaps of money to record Our prized musical compositions, but band members either would not show up to the recording sessions, or be unprepared.
Thus, I would run to music retailers during the sessions — while they were going on — and purchase drum machines and electronics in order to learn and produce the missing members’ parts. Eventually, having become disallusioned with the entire ‘band-mentality,’ I became a solo artist — one with tons of equipment and His own studio and recording apparatus.
What sets Me apart from others is My approach to composing: I experiment, and often let the music ‘compose itself’; that is, I set-out to initiate happy accidents and random occurences in order to suggest new directions for My songs and instrumentals. I take the ‘pure music’ approach: My lyrics are usually penned using stream-of-consciousness, as I believe that words — when they are part of a musical piece — need to merely showcase the ‘vehicle’ of the vocalized melody, and are not to be focused upon. To focus upon the lyric pulls one away from experiencing the music as a whole — as a pure, sound-driven entity.
I have over two-hundred musical works published on all of the music-streaming sites, and am endlessly intent to release more. I choose — for now — not to play live, as I can be heard around the world, 24-hours-per-day, and not lug equipment around, and sonically ‘touch’ many more people than any room can hold.
I am a perfectionist when preparing My recordings for sale and streaming, and sometimes take over one year to fix any one musical idea into a recording; more often, however, I write and record my pieces feverishly and intensely, and finish them within two weeks.
I am eager to create more, and yearn to score a horror movie, and eventually find a producer that brings My talents further to-the-fore — someone I can believe in who believes in Me, and who challenges Me and teaches Me new things.
I am a one-man show: I create My music from scratch, record it, edit it, master it, publish it, promote it, and watch its metrics across the world. It is exhausting, but I know of no other way to be. As you might recall from earlier, I have always found that I could not depend on anyone but Myself and My own endless gumption.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
There is: I seek immortality.
I purposely set-out never to sire children, nor to wed, as I had ascertained early-on that each would pull Me away from My ability, My time, and My financials in order to pursue full-time musical creation.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Most do not understand why I do not pursue more financially secure statuses. After all, I wield a Master’s degree, and could easily earn more money and obtain ‘security.’ But, I learned early on in My teens that if one is to squeeze the most out of one’s life, one must realize that time is WAY more valuable than money: we all only live for a uncertain amount of years, and life is so precious. Money can always be earned and chased after, but I chose to live My life from My death-bed — backwards; that is, I live by imagining what I would like to have accomplished and look back upon as I am breathing My final breaths, or nearing death [hopefully, far] in the future. Living this way, and summoning such thoughts prior to any life-choice or movement, has brought Me nothing but self-satisfaction and happiness.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://soundcloud.com/michael-ash-sharbaugh
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikashsharbaugh/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaelashsharbaugh
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-david-ash-sharbaugh/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/M_A_Sharbaugh
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjvt4k-qiEKpBRwrnV7A8gw
- SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0ZJcUKJJgHJXV4ZIkV9RSJ?si=abg6ueYlR-2T6U7Ab_XhvA
- APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/michael-ash-sharbaugh/733070740
- PANDORA: https://pandora.app.link/S0WszBrZCCb
Image Credits
Michael Ash Sharbaugh