Ash Koley

0:00Well, how are you guys doing? Good. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. Thanks for dressing up for the TV and everything. It's very nice. You should be becoming their slubs, but you've come in your Sunday bed. That's a really... No time has changed before our show. Oh, I see. We had to do the whole deal. How's the tour going? Really good. We're enjoying, we get along with the band. Good, good responses in the audience. We're loving it. Yeah. There hasn't been any negatives. No, it's all good. Let's see. It must be nice because you guys were talking about being studio musicians at the time and songwriters and touring as a whole new game for you. It must be nice to tour with someone like Sexmouth who is such a... He's known for a songwriting more than anything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's... You have a chance to discuss that with them at all? Oh, yeah. Like structures and things? Yeah. Well, no, we haven't talked specifically songwriting. It's kind of like talking songwriting with Paul McCartney.

0:47Do you know what I mean? It's like... It's the kind of subject there. It's like... We're all kind of buddies on the tour and get along really well and don't really want to breach that talking shop thing. Right. You know, it's... He just... We will love it. He knows what he's doing and he's good at it. Yeah. And he's got it. Very passionate about it. And all those guys in the Sexmouth Band are so passionate about music. It's nice to be with a band that, you know, before and after shows are all listening to music and talking about it. And it's nice to be around that. Is that what's gotten you on this Wilburys kick that you keep playing around in the guitar? Oh, we've been listening to that for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. We just love them. We love great songwriters and that band is full of them, right? So hard not to appreciate it. That's super group. Yeah, absolutely. You sound straight from that you were saying before to the other guy. But it doesn't really listen to those songs. The melodies are still there.

1:35Like it's still pop melodies with good songwriting beneath it. Yeah. But you said it straight earlier. You're like, we don't do that Wilburys stuff in our music. Well, I can't remember which one he's... Well, yeah. I think we said that. I guess what we meant was arrangement... Our instrument-wise. Although both of us are Mandolin, Banjo, acoustic guitar, junkies. So... But in the stuff we're doing, we're trying to be as honest as possible in right music that is truly our personality. So certain instruments don't always accent those things in your personalities. A song like Don't Let Your Feet Touch Ground. All the different instrumentation in that song is a reflection, I think, for the most part of both of our personalities. Yeah. And we just haven't been able to sneak a Mandolin in yet, but we're starting. I know. And we just played a show in Winnipeg and we did about four songs with a full band and then about four songs with just a snare on stage with a banjo, Mandolin, and acoustic guitar.

2:27And I loved it. I could have done the whole show like that. And everyone's like, well, you got it. You can't... people get sick of the banjo, so you got to give it... Yeah. Just... but I don't get sick of it. No, I'm not. Mumford's bringing it back. Bando's going to be huge. So the Avid Brothers. That's right. Yeah. We're big fans. Yeah. So you play stuff too, Ash? No. No. You're just a fan of the Mando and on the least random instrument. I love the way they sound. I mean, like... I could play like chords if you teach me something. Right. Yeah. I can do it. What do you have fantastic teacher beside you? Yeah, of course, right? Yeah. Well, I'm not. But I can't. Just a guest today. I'm an amazing professor. I don't feel comfortable enough to go on stage yet and I'm sure eventually I will. Cool.

3:12She's very talented so if she wanted to she could certainly do it. Although the tambourine's out of the question. No, I suck at the tambourine. The rhythm is way off isn't it? They've taken that away from me a long time ago. Maybe you can sneak a shaker in or something. Yeah, no. No? Okay. No. All right, fair enough. What about songwriting? How does that work for the two of you? Because I mean, it's your name, right? Yeah. The band is the two of you. Yeah. So how does the collaboration for writing work? I think for the most part the way it's always kind of worked. And I mean, it varies at times. But I think the bulk of the stuff is I write it in the studio. I produce it, bring Ash in. And then she takes my vocal out, puts her vocal in. And then the song starts taking on an entirely new life. So then we start going back and forth on arrangements and on different song ideas to make it Ash Coley, which is the two of us.

3:57So yes, it's very much so a collaboration. The songs would be really terrible without her input. And I'd like to think that without mine, they might maybe not exist in it. It would be bad. Yeah. Yeah. So we're both pretty lucky to have met that person that you can collaborate with, that it's so easy. It's really easy the way we do it. Yeah. It just works. Can you talk about writing your feet touch ground? Because you guys are going to play in a second here. Yeah. Well, that was a, I had moved to Toronto and you were visiting and we were just writing in the EMI studio. And you had brought it pretty much almost done. I brought it without a bridge. Yeah. And the second verse. And we wrote that, we just finished it together and that studio there. And that was pretty much it. And we didn't really know that it was going to be the first single that we didn't know that

4:46everybody was going to like it so much. It was just kind of one of our songs. And then once the lottery picked it up and then it just kind of went from there. And that song was probably writing and production all in maybe three, four hours. Really? Yeah. And it was fully complete. Yeah. They say that the best songs come the easiest to you and take the last time, the least amount of time. So when we feel like that we're making a song really fast, that we're onto something good hopefully. Yeah. And then when it's taking longer than if we're really having to come and haul over a melody or a lyric or something, we just walk away from it. Yeah. I mean, it's a scene that will come back in a few years. Yeah. Yeah. It's meant to be. Yeah. You were saying live, that's the song people are like, oh, I know these guys. So does that make it, does it make you want to play that earlier in the set?

5:31Or do you want to save it and make it a guest kind of thing? Yeah. Well, we play brighter at night, right off the bat. And we kind of get a lot of the similar reactions. The first song we play so people identify with us. Although it hasn't done the stuff that it hasn't maybe hit people in the same way that brighter at night has or sorry that don't really feed such ground. But when we played don't eat just ground, yeah, everyone seems to get fired up. But we like to think we have them fired up before we play it. It just kind of adds some new flavors to the soup. Yeah. And a lot of people think that that's a cover. Oh, like so who did you, who are you covering? Or like, well, no. Is that a compliment or no? I think so. Absolutely. Yeah. And they think Mary the inventor, which is, I don't know, it's on the record. I don't know what number it is, but they always wonder who song it is. And it's just, well, it's a harness. And Paul McCartney kind of said in one of his bios that while you're writing a song, if

6:19it sounds like somebody else is finish it because you're on to something, you know? Yeah. And if it's his mantra. That's the second time you mentioned McCartney. I assume you'd be a big beetle fan. I can probably toss him in there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Do you want to do something like they did where you're going to switch up sounds every record and like try and make a completely new record each time? I'm sure we'll keep evolving our sound. And you know, it's just as like people evolve in personalities, I'm sure our sound will. We just hope the market allows us to stretch our legs. Yeah. You know, it's just the music industry is very tricky animal now. And you're not really allowed to stretch your legs anymore. If you're identified with one sound and certain formats are playing you, if you switch that sound, everybody goes running away. But it seemed to work for killers and radio head and just those two.

7:07You would absolutely love that if we were lucky enough to be able to do that. Awesome. You mentioned Breder, you want to tell about running that one too? Oh, let me remember that one. I do. We have... Okay. You know what? No, I won't tell the story because it's too ridiculous. Then that's a good reason to tell the story. You know, I have raccoons in my backyard. And it's a good start to do. And you know what? I looked out my back window. At first I duct taped my garbage. And then I came out the next morning and it was perfectly peeled off. And the garbage was everywhere. And the next night I was kind of doing dishes looking out my back window. And these three raccoons were looking at me and you can't really see this on radio. But they were intertwining their fingers over and over. Like looking at me like they were thinking just one. And I was like... The Mr. Burns hands on me. Yeah. So then I just kind of thought in terms of you know, these little buggers come out at night

7:54and have an incredible time and just destroy stuff. And then I started thinking in terms of, well that's kind of what we do as well. You know, people are very similar in that animal nature way where at night is when we do our worst. That's when we go out. And the idea of that song was that, I mean it's just coined in the chorus phrase of brighter at night. It's brighter at night for us a lot of the times. There's your third McCartney reference. A song about raccoons. There we go. You're right. Yeah. Rocky Raccoon. Yeah. We'll cover that one tonight. That's a good one. Maybe we will. Ash, are you thinking an Abbotribute Band? Is this true? Because we play a lot of Abbot on the station. Well I'm a huge Abbot fan. I did play an attribute band back when I was... Yeah. We do cover Abbot on our show actually. Oh yeah. We do a little medley of all our influences.

8:40We try and put six different songs into one five minute song or seven songs. Where does that sit in the set? I think third last maybe. That's nice. I don't know, somewhere in there. Yes. But yeah, I just love Abbot so I joined a trivia band in it. Just kind of worked out perfectly. It was just so good to play all their songs and dress up. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the white satin and the feathers. Do you miss it? I mean, I can listen to them anytime I can. I mean, I get to be on stage doing what I do now and I love that. It was just kind of a good fun chapter in my life that I'm ready to... I'm happy I moved on from. But I have great memories from it. Cool. We do something called five questions. Five quick questions, one more answer. You guys can both answer.

9:25Okay. Road or studio? Studio. Lettinger McCartney. Oh. I can't say Paul McCartney. What you said, that's four times now. Okay, I'll take Lennon. You'll say, oh, that's a switch. Ash? I don't know, Paul McCartney. Most important thing in a song, lyrics, melody or rhythm? Melody. Yeah. Cool. A song you've written you're most proud of. Belly for adventure. Oh. Balance. Yeah. Balance. Or get a weak car. I'll switch my answer. Oh, we've got, yeah. We're proud of them all. So it seems hard to pick one. Yeah. I'm going to go with balance then, I think. Okay. Cool. Yeah, you agree? I'm going to go with Coley. I had a voice crack there. Oh. I'm going to drive. Let's do it again. One word, Ash Coley.

10:11Ridiculous. No. Idiot. Oh, so. Edit that out. No, that's good. Idiot. Idiot's. Niodiot's and Ridiculous. Yeah. What's the third single going to be? You know what you want? We're fighting over it. It's kind of going back and forth, back and forth right now. We're really hoping it's going to be Mary the inventor. Yeah. It's between Mary the inventor sheep and wolves clothing. What's the show again? Great. Great. And it's an out of me track. It could be down time up. It's down time up. Yeah, one of the three.