Rising country artistAshley Cookewrote her first song at the age of 11 and lived in 19 different homes before she was 18 years old. Her heart has been broken countless times for countless reasons. But somehow, she makes the chaos of love sound so good.
“Finding love, losing love, wanting love, not wanting love, all of it – it’s all just a part of life,” says Cooke, 24, in a recent interview with PEOPLE about the variety of lovely cuts on her new albumAlready Drank That Beer Side A. “And I feel like this album, from top to bottom, meets me where I’m at right now in my life. And hopefully people can relate to that because it’s also where they find themselves too.”
Ashley Cooke.John Shearer
Her journey to here hasn’t come without its curveballs, as Cooke found herself much like countless other country music dreamers who found themselves stopped dead in their tracks thanks to the pandemic last year.
“I was like, ‘Okay, I can’t really do the traditional way of being a new artist in Nashville playing shows and being in writers’ rooms and being around everybody in person,'” says the Belmont University graduate, who grabbed much attention when she won the illustrious Country Showcase, joining an elite group of winners that has also includedBrad Paisley,Chris YoungandTyler HubbardofFlorida Georgia Line. “So I went to quarantine down in Florida with my family and everything took off from there — and now I’m here.”
“I was really at a point of exhaustion when I wrote that,” Cooke says of the song she wrote alongside John Byron and Rocky Block just a few short months ago. “Every line in that song really just hits me so personally. I’m a very loyal person and I love people so hard. It’s really hard to let people go. And that’s where I was with somebody that I really loved, and I didn’t know how to move on, and I didn’t know how to get over them. And I just wrote that on a page.”
Of course, the timeliness of these songs can not only be heard within every note, but the emotion can especially be heard when she sings them to her growing legion of fans.
“What’s really cool about this kind of new era with social media is that I’m writing from where I’m at, in this very moment,” says Cooke, who grew up on heartfelt selections from artists such asRascal Flatts, Florida Georgia Line andJason Aldean. “In the years prior, I feel like people would write a song and they wouldn’t release it for years.”
Well, not anymore.
In fact, Cooke will now be out touring this fresh new music as she heads out on the road withBRELANDandSpencer Crandallthis fall.
“BRELAND is such a phenomenal human,” says Cooke, who actually met him when she realized that he was friends with her cousin. “I just really admire the kind of new lane he’s been occupying. He’s brought some hip-hop elements to country and that’s super, super cool. And I’m excited to just learn from him and see how his set can be super dynamic and see how our fans will translate together. And I’m just really excited to get to experience both of our first tours together. It’s sort of unbelievable, you know?”
source: people.com
