Asha is a musician, producer, and artist based in Los Angeles. Dark electronic pop, hip hop, and world music are all mixed together in her music. In 2020, she issued her debut record, Of Something Better.
Her new album Magic, which will be released later this year, features the first single, House With A View. She considers it to be a very special song, and to go along with it, a very special music video just debuted. Check out the song and the exclusive interview below:
1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
ASHA: I started music at a young age, no one in my family was musical at all. I was jealous of my friends who would be asked to play the piano at parties. I wanted attention, I wanted to be a rock star! But I also liked writing poetry and lyrics very young, so it made perfect sense that I’d become a songwriter.
2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
ASHA: I have formal training. I started classical piano training at 10 and then guitar lessons around 14 years old. Then I got a composition degree from Northeastern University. So I’d say I’ve had a lot of training! I remember I hated playing other composer’s pieces and I enjoyed sort of jamming and improvising a lot more. I was never going to be a classical pianist. I wanted to write my own music.
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘ASHA’?
ASHA: I got into writing music so young and was inspired by film and video game composers like John Williams, Yoko Kanno, and Nobuo Uemastu, but then got into artists like Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, and Fiona Apple, as well as a lot of prog and classic rock. At this point I am influenced by so many artists of all different genres it’s hard to pinpoint any one influence. I’ve been really into disco and funk for the past year or so, but I still love electronic music, rock and hip hop so I would say I’m fluid. I think for me I like finding the blend of electronic and live instruments and that’s the world my music is living in now.
As for Asha, it’s a Polish nickname my parents called me growing up and it’s always stuck with me.
4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
ASHA: The key elements are the lyrics and melody. I think lyrics are important if your song has something to say, and melody is just how you deliver that message. I would describe this album in particular as a return to songwriting, and a return to more rock based music after my last few EPs and albums were more in the trip hop/electronic realm. I describe this album as indie pop though because I still have a bit of electronic pop elements.
ASHA:
I’ve always gathered influence from other artists and then made music with my own interpretation or spin on it. I have never been able to just make pop, or make rock, I always have had my own way of doing things, and creating things that seem familiar but are sort of just left of center. My development has been through years of just doing music that feels right to me at the time or with whatever constraints given. For a while it was making electronic beats because I was making music in a tiny bed room in my apartment in Brooklyn. Now I have a studio where I can have all my instruments and the room to experiment. I’ve also had to get good at sort of faking a lot of styles for my commercial work either through production or physically playing instruments in those styles, so I’ve expanded my sonic world to reflect that.
6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
ASHA:
Music to me has always been an expression of whatever I’m feeling. The best songs ever written are the ones that say the most with very little. It’s hearing that moment that gives you goosebumps, or feeling the beat and tapping your foot instinctively. On this album alone I’ve written songs about moving on after heart break, losing religion, women’s rights, and a song about my heritage. I mean and feel deeply every single one of those songs. But at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with creating music just for entertainment and making people feel good and I think I’ve done a little bit of that, too. All music has its place in the world, and that’s the beauty of it.
7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?
ASHA:
I do. I write music for a living, but a lot of that music doesn’t feel like an expression of me per se, it’s me being a hired gun writing whatever I’m told to write. But that has also turned me into a musical chameleon. The music I make for myself becomes a lot rarer and more special to me because it is wholly an expression of me. I’ve had friends and family reach out and tell me they love House With a View, and it has felt like a success and I’m excited to see what comes next.
8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
ASHA:
Sometimes it all starts with a voice memo on my phone, a la House With A View. That recording at the very beginning of the song was me in a car hearing the melody and words and needing to record them before I forgot. I included a few recordings like that on this album to show the process of how sometimes the very first idea/recording is changed very little to the final product because I’m going with my gut and letting the music come out of me naturally rather than forcing it.
As for finishing the song, things sort of happen organically from the first idea. I do almost all the production alone, although for this album I had a few friends play a few parts here and there. But when you hear Asha music, you are hearing almost all me, and what is going on in my mind and how I hear things.
9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
ASHA: The let down of feeling like you are not good enough, that your music isn’t special, it can slowly destroy you. I’ve had many rejections and let downs throughout my time as a musician. I’ve written songs about the depression of it all. The music industry is really hard and full of disappointment. But I stopped caring if I was breaking the mold and just started making music I enjoyed in hopes that other people would enjoy it, too.
10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
ASHA: I once had a song featured in a commercial that had millions of views on YouTube and all the comments were asking who the music was written by. I had to release the song on streaming platforms because people were clamoring for it! It’s my song called Hidden Languages. Check it out!
11. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?
ASHA: I want people to feel that they can interpret songs however it suits them. Just the other day someone asked me about the Mr Flowerhead character from my music video for House With a View and he asked if he could tell me his interpretation first and I was like hell yea! I love that. Then we had a discussion about relationships and who I wrote the song about. It was a cool way to open up and get to know someone and have them get to know me.
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