I moved out to Colorado 4 years ago from Nebraska, only attending college to get my bachelor’s in Music education. When I landed in Denver, I immediately wanted to be in a band, so I had to CLIMB myself into gigs, bands, people, you name it, and find a way to do something better with my life.
I studied voice in Nebraska for 2 years. Classical and jazz. I have a very strong classical approach to my singing and carry it through my cover projects and my original projects. I do not teach music in a school but I do teach private voice lessons, because after all, i do love teaching and helping others. Right now I am in 3 bands, My project called Asha Blaine, “Mr. Scary- a Tribute to Dokken” and a new classic rock cover band project called “FIREBALL.” I LOVE PERFORMING! If anyone asked me what my dream job was I would tell them that I’m living it. I make my living doing music alone. I teach, write and record, film, I do classic covers as my Youtube is currently growing. I hope to monetize my channel soon. I have an 11 track album coming out this summer with “Deep Inside the Ocean” on this album.
Have you always been interested in music? What is your story and how did you start making music?
YES, I have always loved listening to music, creating music, performing, writing, singing. I have never really tried to write music up until about 2 years ago when my guitar friend, Anthony Trujillo, asked me if I wanted to write over his instrumentals.. I said, “Sure!” From then on out we just started to create an album. He would send me songs to write over. This is right about after a year I had to moved to Denver. The more I write out my vocal lines and harmonies, the more interested I am in actually creating the instrumental layout and have dabbled in creating an entire song myself. I also really enjoy mixing and editing songs. I enjoy the producer aspect even though I could never identify myself as a producer. Being a producer requires A LOT of studio equipment and years of expertise, but I am heavily interested in this aspect of creating music. I guess I was discovered by Anthony when he had seen me perform live with a couple of bands around town. I am definitely a performer that is wanting to excite a very LARGE audience, with a lot of movement on stage, and wailing vocals.
What are you working on now? Any future releases we can look forward to?
Yes. I plan on dropping the entire album in late spring, early summer 2021. I have a couple other singles out right now on my website for purchase. After that, I plan on playing these songs out around Denver and wherever else will have me.
What Is Your Ultimate Goal In The Music Industry?
Right now, my ultimate goal is to grow myself on social media, radio stations, playing out live, basically anyway I can to be a success as a musician. It is my dream to ROCK a stage, and that is where I will forever stay. It just brings me too much joy not to. My goals in the near future are to write another album right after this one. I think my life long goal is to write and perform as much as I can, and just to see where it takes me. My intention is to reach audiences, to impact them, and to invoke inspiration.
What Has Been The Biggest Challenge In Your Career Thus Far?
Wow, my biggest challenge. That would ultimately be understanding and knowing who I AM in how I function in this business. I have to deal with a lot of people, strangers and friends, fans and non-fans. It is very scary at first to put yourself out there. You set yourself up for exposure, to be vulnerable, and to be possibly hated, to be scrutinized. You reach a point where you are pouring ALL OF YOURSELF into something you enjoy so much, that you end up not really caring about the people who don’t approve. At the end of the day, it’s about how much you are accepting and approving of yourself. When you have no cheerleaders or no supporters, who’s going to do it for you? If not them, then it will be myself. People soon follow suit. They see your confidence and are naturally inspired by it. It’s crucial to be able to build yourself up from the ground, then you can be an encourager and inspiration to others, to pursuit their dreams and gifts they’ve been given. The biggest challenge, is the battle with myself.
How do you go about writing a song? Do you have a melody in your head and then write the other music for it or what’s Your typical songwriting process?
Oddly enough, my process seems backwards to most. I usually am never stuck on a melody in my head. I have the ability to improvise over chord progressions that I hear, that easily comes to me. But writing a song, it can’t always be improvised, it needs to make sense to the listener, depending on the type of music that you are writing. The ability to improvise has actually helped me but stunted me at the same time. It kind of takes me a long time to come up with a great melody or verse because I have TOO MANY notes going on in my head within that chord progression, that I end up getting very frustrated within my process. Because Anthony writes all of the instrumental music, he just gives it to me, I write something over it, and that’s a little bit of a back and forth process. We just like to hear what fits with the music and what could be improved on. It is a fun process all in all to have it come together.
How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?
oh my goodness. The internet, is probably the best thing for an artist right now. There are so many platforms for an artist to be heard on, it’s crazy. I honestly think more artists should be putting their music out there. I think a lot of people have to get out of this mindset that they should be making this CD first, then releasing everything. It’s kind of backwards now. You can release one song at a time to the world and it works just fine, if not better, in my opinion. The internet is like free advertising on a newspaper, but you are in control of when you release it, how much it’s worth, how often you release, and all that. It’s the perfect stage for an entreprenur for any type of business they have.
List some famous musicians currently on your playlist
Robert Plant
Josh Kizka- Greta Van Fleet
Ann Wilson- Heart
Moriah Formica
Steven Tyler
Dio
What Did You Do Before You Started Making Music?
I was living in Nebraska, a stay-at-home mom and attending college for vocal music education. I wasn’t really doing much with performance. Just taking classical voice training, music theory, and involved in some community college choirs. When I moved to Denver, I started to perform a little bit with a band called “Boogie Machine,” a 70s disco dance cover band! Very fun, and I would say a crucial stepping stone to my growth as a musician. I was shoved out into audiences, so terribly horrified! But I pushed through, and soon became very comfortable on stage. It is really the place I want to be all the time, that I enjoy so much. I still do stay at home, write music, make covers, grow my social media platforms, practice cover music, and teach students voice. And I still get the privelege of being at home with my children. I couldn’t have a better set up. This was not just handed to me, this came with making some tough decisions. You have to create in life what you want.
Would you have any advice for young people wanting to follow in your footsteps?
My advice is if you want something, YOU have to get it. Opportunities are ALWAYS awaiting you, but you have to do the work to step into the opportunity. Never think that opportunities don’t come your way. That is an excuse for laziness, and I only know this and can say it because I’ve been there HAHA!
Another thing for artists. As an artist, we are our own worst critics, we usually hate what we create, we second guess what we are doing, we think it could be better, we think no one will like it, we always think about judgment, someone putting us down for what we are doing, or not being supported. I am here to tell you, that is a LIE! I have had to mentally change myself. I’ve had to think positively of myself to actually make a move for myself and do something great! And I’m still on that track! You can gain a lot of self-worth when you pour into yourself. And it’s not a selfish thing, this is for your own happiness and to inspire your audience. I have had to quit my day-job and to sacrifice financial opportunities that have nothing to do with music, all for the sake of stepping into who I was created to be. We all have gifts, strengths, creativity that I believe we should be using all the time. It is our MUSE, and it better find us working on our craft!!! And because of these sacrifices, I have actually GAINED so much that can’t be traded. I have a daily opportunity to grow myself, to know myself better, to be able to work with other people on their gifts, to express mine to the world and hopefully inspire them as well.
If you could change anything about the music industry, what would it be? Hollywood. That’s all.
How do you feel about originality?
I encourage originality. However, we are inspired by other musicians originality and can take that on ourselves. There is a reason we are inspired by other artists and want to be like them. They are being ORIGINAL!!!! This is why I say, that it is important for me to sacrifice things, so that I can be a full-time musician. It is a huge part of who I am and where I get my enjoyment in life from. It helps make me more ORIGINAL in my own special way. In a way that no-one else has seen before, and that’s what people love. They want to see you be your TRUE self. Not a version of what YOU THINK people want you to be. You will always hit a brick wall with people pleasing. I’ve been there.
Is there anything else we should know about you? or Something that you would like to add?
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www.ashablainevocals.com
iTunes
amazon
