US Singer/Songwriter Ashley Cooke recently toured the UK supporting Jordan Davis on a number of dates that fell across Europe.

An extremely big hit at last year’s C2C Festival, fans of her music had been eagerly awaiting her return and were of course delighted when she was announced as support for Davis.

Cooke recently released her debut Album Shot In The Dark via Big Loud Records. An album of a whooping 24 songs where each track is a stand out song, Ashley is set for great things within the country music scene and has certainly made a second home here in the UK.

We caught up with Ashley to discuss the tour, the album and more!

Enjoy!

Hi Ashley how are you? I know it’s February now but did you have a nice Christmas? What did you get up to?

I did! Got to spend time with my family who recently moved to Nashville and their new puppy! So good to relax after such a hectic 2023.

So we should jump right in and get to the topic of how exciting it is that you are over here supporting Jordan Davis – how has it been?

Oh it’s been a dream so far. Not only is it so shockingly exciting to see so many people singing along to my music in countries I’ve never been to – but getting to explore on off days has been incredible.

You are here with a full band?

We’re doing a full band set! I wanted to give a bit of a different feel to what we did for C2C last year. so it’ll be me, my guitar player and drummer!

You were at C2C Festival last year as you mentioned – how was that experience for you?

I was truly blown away at the crowd’s response and respect. They’re so attentive and learn your music before they come to the show. I loved it so much.

Did you see any shows and if so who?

I got to catch some of Jordan’s set as well as Thomas Rhett!

Do you have any favourite places in the UK now or food or drink you look forward to having again?

A lot of people say a pint of proper Guinness haha!

Definitely a Guinness!! I’m usually not a big dark beer kind of girl but it’s just too good to pass up. I also love all of the pastries over there – big croissant girl.

You are visiting some exciting places, will you get much down time?

Yes thankfully we have some time off in between shows so planning to stop by some of the classics! I’m really excited to get to explore London because I didn’t really get to with the busy schedule of C2C!

So last year you also released your album Shot in The Dark – the response has been great! How has life been for you since the release?

It’s been wild, truly. SO busy haha! My song “your place” is currently top 30 at radio in the States which is extremely exciting. Headline tour was so incredible we’re already planning the 2nd leg of it as soon as possible.

What can you tell us about the writing process of the album? There’s so many tracks which is amazing!

24, yes!! Honestly, I didn’t plan on my debut album being basically a double album but I couldn’t stop writing. We actually wrote and recorded way more than 24 but narrowed down and at that point I was having a really difficult time taking out any more of the songs. Thankfully my label agreed and said let’s just roll with it and here we are!

With so many songs, how hard or easy was it to pick the first single?

“your place” raised it’s hand on it’s own, actually. We released the project in July with a few focus tracks but didn’t want to choose a single until we could see what fans were responding to the most because that’s always the best indicator. We started playing “your place” at the top of the headline set and noticed crowds consistently freaking out/knowing all of the words, so we moved it to the middle of the set.. and it became a huge moment. We moved it to the very last song in the set because of how big it felt every night. There are a lot of songs on the album that are (thankfully) doing really well but after that many shows seeing crowds scream “your place” to the level they were – it felt like the obvious choice for the 1st one!

How did the track listing order come to be? Is that something that takes time, did the order have meaning?

We crafted it similar to a live set: something that will build on itself and give the listener what (I hope) they’re needing song after song. #12 is important to me because it’s my lucky number and it’s the halfway point in the album, so I put the 1 song I wrote completely by myself in that spot.

I have always been told that the bookends of an album are always very important- was that the case for you too?

I put “tastes like” first because it kinda warms you up. It introduces each instrument 1 by 1 in that intro which to me felt like “shaking the dust off” before entering into the project, plus it’s a very fun song. “state I’m in” felt like the best last song because it feels like a statement. It feels like a period in a sentence and a confident foot to end on; about where I was at in life and love when I made this first project.

You have some great collaborations on there, I personally love a bit of Jackson Dean music! How did those collaborations come to be?

Brett Young – I released a solo version of the song “never til now” and kept seeing all of the social media videos going viral of people sharing their wedding day, engagement, gender reveal etc. and it got me thinking about another person in the story/another perspective. Brett had already heard the song and said “yes”!

Jackson Dean – we became friends through the radio tour circuit and were asked to do a song together for a publishing award show at the Ryman. I stopped by the studio while he was recording to run through the song and we talked for a while. His producer wrote one of the songs I cut and he said he’d heard the demo and loved it a lot. Felt like the perfect fit!

What song on the album has had the best response?

It’s wild to me how many of the songs have had the greatest responses and in different ways. For example: of course “your place” but songs like “enough to leave” and “next to you” have been the most requested at headline shows!

‘Build a Bridge’ is a favourite of mine – what can you tell me about selecting that song as I believe it’s an outside song?

Yes! I was pitched that song in a conference room style pitch meeting and really loved it from the get-go. I loved the unique-ness of the hook and how nursery rhyme it felt.

‘Next To You’ is another favourite- I believe you wrote that solo?

I did! I actually didn’t expect it to even make the album let alone be people’s favorites haha! It took maybe 10 minutes to write and felt so unbelievably personal to me. I wrote it the morning after my Grand Ole Opry debut, walking out to a kitchen full of flowers and notes and champagne bottles and realizing the reason why it was so special was because of the people I got to share the night with.

Thank you so much for talking today, enjoy the rest of the tour and we hope so see you again real soon!