Ashley McEwen

Ashley McEwen’s music bursts out of the speakers with a freshness and vitality that captures everyone who hears it. Singing with a wholehearted joy that is all too rare, Ashley charms and enchants, and is an emerging star to be reckoned with. Her debut CD, Inside My Head, heralds the arrival of this gorgeous young phenom who is soon to set the music world by storm. Based in Colorado Springs, Ashley has been singing for as long as she can remember. “I started young,” she says, “I started with piano when I was 5, and the first time I performed was at a talent show, singing Celine Dion songs.” Driven to perform, Ashley developed herself on stage in the theater, singing and acting in musicals. But she faced her toughest audience at home. “I grew up in a family of 6 people and since I was the second oldest, I had to entertain my little sisters,” she says with a laugh. “I think my songwriting started so I’d constantly have something for my sisters.” There has always been music in the McEwen house, and Ashley has absorbed all of it. “I grew up with my mom’s influences. I love Sting, the Beatles, the Police and Journey,” My dad had me listening to country as well. And as a young teenager, I loved Britney,” she says. Always growing as an artist, Ashley taught herself the guitar in her teens, which added another important tool in her development as a songwriter. Her songwriting ability is one of the things that separates Ashley from most of her pop star peers, just about all of whom work with outside writers. “I wrote every song on Inside My Head,” she states proudly. “That’s an area that I’m always looking to grow and better myself in. But how many other young female pop singers can say they wrote the music and lyrics to every song on their debut?” Ashley’s songs, in tandem with the production work by Tommy C, are what separate Inside My Head from the glut of female pop singers out there. The modern beats and tough-sounding guitar of “Soul to Soul” give way to a shimmering and powerful arrangement, punctuated by Ashley’s irresistible vocals. “That’s a fun song,” says Ashley. “It’s about the spiritual feeling you get when you’re completely in tune with someone, how you’ll finish someone’s sentences.” The swelling keyboard textures of “Closer Than You Think” start the heartfelt and compelling ballad that Ashley calls her “absolute favorite.” She expands, “The concept of the song is how everything is closer than we think it is. Things pass us by so quickly – and you don’t even know it’s going. It’s a song about taking advantage of the opportunities in front of us and not procrastinating.” Ashley is committed to helping others as well. “I do a lot of charity work,” she says, “I’d really like to start an organization locally and help the people in the community where I’m from. I know the troubles that people go through.” Ashley is getting ready for 2009 to be the year of her arrival in the music world. She’s currently preparing a video for “Closer Than You Think” in Los Angeles, as well as getting a band together. She’s also about halfway through her second album, one that Ashley says is going to have more of a rock feel. But for now, Inside My Head is the showcase for Ashley McEwen’s abundant array of talents, sure to cement her status as one of the hot up and coming artists to watch in 2009. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.