We look back on first talking to Ashley Cooke back in 2021. She and Bobby talk about how she had almost half a million followers on TikTok (at the time) and about her song "Jealous of the Sky". She also tells us what the 615 House is all about.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
In case you missed it, This is Ashley Cook back
in twenty twenty one. She was on So you're looking
at almost three years ago and she's posted a couple
of random tiktoks and next thing you know she had
low momentum.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well now she's blowing up years later.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
This is from episode three h four, But I wanted
to play it again because at the time when this
came out, you might have thought, who's this brand new artist?
Maybe I don't want to listen to it, But now
it's fun to go back and hear it because you
can learn about her as she's kind of killing it now.
She was just named the iHeart Country on the Verge artist.
She's nominated for Breakthrough Female of the Year at the
CMT Awards. She's on tour with Jordan Davis. Super cool.
(00:41):
How she's blown up in the last few years, and
we definitely want to play this now. This is Ashley
Cook from twenty twenty one. In case you missed it,
here on the Bobby Cast. All right here with Ashley Cook.
Good to meet you in person.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah that got you. I think we've only talked on
the phone, right, Yeah, I think so. That one interview
for the one time. That's one interview.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So I think what I had talked to you about
a lot and we'll get it out of the way
now is six one five house and TikTok because I
just see you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
As more than that person.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Think you than the TikTok now a great way to
be the person people know.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
But I think after a bet, you gotta go, and
you have to go.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Man.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I wish people would only stop asociating me with TikTok.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You know, honestly no, because it gave me such a
huge platform in the beginning that I love it and
I still use it to this day.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I still post almost.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Every day why I use it, and you should, right,
you should.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But I think as an artist people start to get pigeonholed,
like content creators get well, he's only a YouTube person
or he's only but I, you know, for you, the
first time we talked to you, I like, Dank, it's
actually really good, you know, better than just making TikTok videos.
And so was really excited to play your stuff on
you know, two different shows that I program, which is
The Women of My Heart Country and I Think Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We just featured last week on the Big countdown, didn't
we we did?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I mean, yeah, guys, seriously, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I'm still independent, so y'all doing that genuinely changes everything
for independent artists.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
So thank you guys so much.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
But honestly, I think the music should translate past whatever
platform you started on, right, So to not get pitche
and hold it as a TikTok artist, just make music
that translates past that.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I guess that's my way of thinking.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And TikTok is just another way to reach more ears
and more eyeballs, So why.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Not use it, you know, and use everything you possibly
can't exactly Whenever you started six to one to five house, Now,
you guys didn't live.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
There, right, We didn't know most people. I think I
thought that at first, was.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
That everybody did?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeh did you rush that?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Because I wouldn't even wanted people to think you didn't
live there.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'd have just played along with it for a while.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
We kind of, I don't want to say like we
played along, but I think the whole idea of a
content creation house was started with the hype house, right,
and the high Past people were all influencers and actors
and dancers, so all they did all day long was
create on TikTok and YouTube and all these platforms.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
They lived together because it's made the most sense.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
With six one five House, it was started in the
middle of the pandemic, so we saw each other whenever
we could, but we couldn't live together. It didn't really
make any sense to live together. And I'll get together
and create and do all that together, but we never
lived together in the house.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Are you guys still making stuff as six one five House?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We are, But I think just naturally, as the world
opened up because six one five House was started in
a pandemic, it's just now artists are going and touring
and signing record deals and crushing it outside of what
the pandemic was, that naturally we can't make as much content.
And also, again we are artists. We're all writers and artists,
and we tour and we play music. So unlike the
(03:26):
High House and most content creation houses, we can't just
spend all day every day creating for social media. So
we still create sometimes together, but it's just not as much.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
As we could.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did you sign up to I'm sure you did to
make money in the little program where they give you
a couple bucks for every ten thousand streams you.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Get or whatever, which thing like the creator Fund? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
did you do that?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
I don't know, Well I think I did.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I remember I did.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And I have my TikTok following. Isn't extremely huge? You
have like a half a million follow or something like that.
I don't that's pretty big. I don't post on TikTok
a whole I did for like a week. Now, I'm
on TikTok more than everything else, but I.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Don't post a whole lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
But and I would have videos out getting two three
four million, I get like dollar eighty.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I was like, this sucks.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So I've learned my hack to this. Maybe I shouldn't
say this, but I'm gonna say it. On live streams,
I've started to turn people over to Venmo. So I'll
be on a live stream and I'll be like, hey,
if you guys want to hear a song that you
want to hear a shout out whatever, it is, just
my Venmo is at Ashley Cook Ben Mo me however
much you want, every much you can, and I'll play
your song. And that's how I've started to kind of
make a virtual tip jar online. The Creator Fund is
(04:28):
awesome for some people, but for me, that's not really
how many to pay the bills.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So it's like, might as well.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Do you make okay money when you go? Here's my
Venmo you guys?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean, yeah, it's hit or miss, just like every
live show would be.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Can you get a couple hundred bucks?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah? Which what's the most you've ever done on the
live stream? Okay?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So my friend Roman Alexander, I don't know if you
know who. He's a great artist in town. He always
will get all my live streams and like, bet people,
hey you want venmo her five hundred dollars?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You want ven Mohr that time undred?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yes, And I'll literally make like a couple hundred bucks
for like twenty minutes on a live because my friend's like,
can we help out and stuff too? But I make
I mean I make a decent amount. It's you just
got to really work for it. You have to know
how to be savvy with it, I guess is the
way to say it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
My fiance's parents were in town and we went to
Tutsi's last night.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And they'd never been.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I don't really want to go to Tutsi's been there
the first five years.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
All live in town a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But we went and they had not seen how the
Tutsis vibe works where there's two bands, one on each side,
you know, and you tip them they play a song.
But now you can go up and actually scan the
code the barcode, yeah, and tip them on VENMO.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I mean yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think the pandemic just taught a lot of people
a lot of stuff about the virtual world that we
can live in. But it's not about the money at
the end of the day, you know, it really is.
I know that's like the political answer, but genuinely, it's not.
It's about getting people to relate to your music and
get it out there. Because somebody out there has not
heard Justin Bieber's.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Music, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So everybody's always working to get people to hear their music.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So what is your story? You come from where?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Kind of all over the place. But before Nashville, I
was in South Florida.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What do you mean all over the place? And why so?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
My dad's job, he was in corporate and I was
in music since I was eleven years old. My sister
and I used to be in a duo together. I
just kind of traveled down the country growing up. I
think I lived in nineteen different homes before I was eighteen,
So just moving nineteen homes?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Is it because you were playing music or because he was,
you know, moving around.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Kind of both with his job kind of both. It
was always a little bit of both. Corporate took him
all over the country.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So, and you and your sister were what kind of
duo country duo? Yeah, what was the name? It was
called the Locketts.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And did you guys ever come to Nashville before you
came to Nashville all the time.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
So I pretty much grew up on music row.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I was riding with like Jeremy Bussy and Bridget Tatum
and like incredible number one writers when I was like
fifteen years old. So I came here for the first
time a little over ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And how did you get in a room with them
if you're just a teenager from out of town?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Just the music, I guess it translated.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I was in LA and I worked with like some
people out in LA and then they brought us over
here and it was just, you know, how it goes.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's just I don't know how it goes. I don't
I'm not cool enough to know how anything goes.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Honestly, I don't even know, to be honest, I think
I was a kid just kind of being put in rooms,
which is the beauty and the niavit of being a kid.
But from what I can remember, the music we made
just kind of translated and got us in the rooms
with the right people, and that's just how that happened.
Then I went to college at Belmont.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh, so you moved here for school, yes, and they
stayed here. Yes. So you moved here for school knowing
you were going to stay here.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I moved here for Belmont just because, again I had
grown up in Nashville, and I knew of the school.
I loved at the campus. I thought it was incredible,
and I just loved Nashville. It felt like a home
away from home. Went to Belmont for music business, ended
up transferring into communications and marketing. So I studied nothing
to do with music.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Which you shouldn't, right, I mean, honestly, I don't know. Listen,
I still a great degree.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I studied a lot of things, including what I do
now radio television, but I didn't need to. I did
the best thing, about the best thing you can do
in a creative space is just freaking get.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Into it, okay, true, but to each their own and
then have something to fall back on when it doesn't work. True.
And that was kind of my mentality.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And also because I had grown up in music my
whole life. Not I mean, the Belmont Music program is
genuinely incredible, it really is, but I just had been
in so many rooms and learned so much that going
in an intro to publishing class my freshman year, I
was like, wait, this is outdated info. This is different.
I've been in this room. I know what's going on.
So it just was it's hard for them to keep
up with exactly what's going on. But I loved communications
(08:24):
in marketing. It was the best because also I use
it every day in my career right like communications on
stage right now, marketing with TikTok. It all comes to play.
So and then I just stayed in Nashville after that.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So when you stay is it I'm going to be
a songwriter? Is I going to be an artist? Am
I going to do one before the other?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
What was kind of your mindset at twenty two years old?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I mean, does anybody know what they're doing at twenty
two years old. I think I was even twenty one.
I was a low was seeing dream though when you
finish college was the dream? Well, okay, So I studied
communications and marketing again my senior year. I was already
interviewing for communications jobs. I kind of was like, hey,
music was my childhood thing. I still have a huge
passion for it, but let's just think about something different.
Let's just like entertain the idea of going down a
(09:03):
different route. So I almost got hired to a company
in Nashville for communications in marketing. And then at the
same time, like the same month, I applied for the
Country Showcase.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
You know what that is?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So at Belmont there's a you know what that is?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, I think like like Cassie Ashton, she won it
on Brad Paisley Florida Georgia line. I mean, so many
amazing artists have won this competition. So I applied kind
of on a whim, being like, ah, whatever, you know
my senior year bucket list, let's just do it.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's always been a really cool.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Thing to go to and watch.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I got in and I ended up winning the competition,
won the whole thing too.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I won the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I was one of the only non music majors to
win that competition.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Do you have to do an original song?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
It's two originals one cover?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So what what cover? Did you do?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
The middle by Marion Morris. Really it was the vest
It was so much fun.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Did you play it yourself? What do you mean? Or
do you have a band? You have a full band.
It's huge.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
It's like three thousand people in an arena.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's massive. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
But so I won that, and then I graduated and
I was like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna try music.
I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a go as a
solo artist for the first time in my life. I'm
just gonna do it.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
COVID hit like.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Right when that happened, and so I went down to
quarantine with my family in Florida and my friend sent
me a video of Spencer Crandell, one of my other
friends who's on TikTok, and it was some challenge that
he did. I did the challenge and it got like
two million views overnight and it just kind of started
from there. So it was not my plan to do,
I mean, nearly any of this, let alone. What's happening
now this past year and it's just been crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So two things. One, who is Spencer crandall these I
cut your artists.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Big TikToker too, Yeah, okay, amazing artists too.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then two what was the challenge?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It was called the lay Me Down Challenge. It was like,
you know the the Sam Smith song, Amy down to
that song, So it's the bridge of that song and
you like basically just go a whole octave.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Up and sing, So it's a singing challenge.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I was like, nah, I don't know, Like TikTok, you know,
I've loved this app for a long time, but I
don't know if I meant to be a creator on it,
Like who does know that? You know, it's it's the
market that gets to decide who's going to be a
creator on the app. So I posted the video no makeup,
braids in my hair fresh at the pool, like had
zero expectations and it just completely blew up and I
just caught the bug.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So and so then you were in and I was in,
and then how do you become just in?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Too?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All Right, guys, we're going to organize something here and
we're gonna get We're gonna put something together so we can.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Actually market ourselves, which is a really smart thing to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Thank you, honestly looking back at so wild because it
had to have been a good thing, honestly because I
had watched the High Pals for.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So long, and I had had friends like you.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Know, Cooper Allen and Thomas Mack and people that were
really big on TikTok and had this giant following they
were building through country music and just following trends, and
my friend Chris Rudiger and I just kind of I
called him one day and I was like, hey, why
is nobody doing this? At the time, there was only
you know, six or seven country people really on TikTok.
Since then, of course it's really kind of blowed up
and come into the country space, but there was nobody
(11:47):
collaborating on the app really at all, and so we
just kind of found people, texted, DMed and got the
people that were really crushing it through country on the
app to come together and it was born.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The six and five House happened, so that.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Tsmas Mac is the first country president I ever saw
on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Which video to DC and do you remember nobody was funny.
He's hysterical.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I just remember him being funny and being one of
the only, if not first country guys I would see
just sitting there with an acoustic guitar playing funny songs.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, he's hysterical, and he's still on.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Everybody's still on the app. I think just because the
world opened up. It's like, you know, it's an amazing
thing because a lot of us are also still independent.
Most of us are still independent, so it's crazy to
see how much has happened from the app and now
translate against to the real world. I mean, these just
kids that were creating videos on this app, and now
we get to live our dreams.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
So it's really cool.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Has anyone recognized you from TikTok just walking down the street.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You would be mind blown. It blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I'll go down to like Broadway hangout because you know,
I'm single and twenty four, so I'm like whatever, I'm
gonna go. Hang on. I get stopped all the time
for photos and being like, oh my gosh, you're the
girl from TikTok. Or you actually cook, I heard your
song on the highway, or just go on Bobby Bone show,
like they'll just say this stuff all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I'm like, this is so crazy. So yeah, it happens
a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Because I saw someone from TikTok somewhere and I was
in California. We were doing American Idol or something, and
and I kind of know, but I kind of geeked
out a little bit. And then I caught myself and
I was like, why am I geeking out at somebody?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I'm watching two videos.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But you're right, it doesn't matter how you're you get consumed. Yeah, Like,
once you find somebody you like and you're taking them
through radio, Netflix, TikTok, it doesn't matter. Then you kind
of become a fan.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Absolutely absolutely, And that's what's so cool.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I was at my gym like two days ago, and
this guy walks up and is like, Okay, I hate
to geek out and be a fangirl, but like, I
just love your music.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I was like what He's like, I love under It's
so good. I was like, what, so it is?
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean, you're right, it's it's working and people are
consuming it and they're I hope, falling in love with
my music as much as they are my personality or
whatever brings them to my page.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So you're going out on your first tour, you're first
going through all the differences with breelin right.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Hell yeah, yep, So what's that about.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I'm pumped.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
It's nine days in September. It's my first ever tour.
I don't even know any of the details. Probably a
meeting after this to figure out the details, because I
might just take me on a bus somewhere and I'll
show up and play. But I'm I'm freaking pumped. It's
going to be so fun.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The rare thing is that that I see from these
dates is that they're all kind of strung together. Like
when I go out, I'll do Thursday, Friday Saturday or
Friday Saturday. They come home, and that's pretty typical of
a country music tour. However, this is I mean atypical
where you're out, Like you said, basically, you know the
tenth of the twenty third, but nine you're playing nine
(14:37):
shows and you know twelve thirteen days.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, so you're just going to live in a bus.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
What the travel plan is yet, I'm not quite sure
van or something south.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
I mean first tour. You know, I'm probably just gonna
get chucked in a van somewhere.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You honestly should you should.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I think artists should have to come up and go
van first, learn the struggle.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Absolutely crappy bus.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
See It's interesting though, because.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Now that I don't think I should do that still,
because I definitely should. But I was touring when I
was a kid, to faars and festivals.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
And stuff like that, so I have kind of didn't count.
Doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Don't count, doesn't say you got to go do the
struggle and hopefully you make enough and you're opening fee
to pay for your whole trip. You have to be like, oh,
how am I going to afford this and wear the
same closed three nights in a row, But then say, no,
this is my artistic style. I just But you have
to go through that struggle for sure. Then you appreciate
it so much more when you don't have to anymore,
(15:32):
and you look out for the people that are doing it,
Like I have some friends ish who kind of got
to skip that step because they blew up a little
too quick, so they don't quite empathize and understand what
they can see. And they can sympathize a little bit,
but they don't understand, and I feel like they're they're
lacking that empathy to to go, hey, like I got you.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Here's why I got you, because I've been through it too.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Maybe, but if they gave you a jet, take the jet. Okay,
I'm not saying no, put me in a bus.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Who would you say that you listened to a lot
as a kid, because we're all influenced by something.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Who would you say you listened to as a kid.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Where you're like, all right, this is not who I am,
but their sounds definitely kind of took me somewhere for.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Sure, honestly.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So. I moved to Florida when I was fifteen, and
I remember there was this one amphitheater that we all
would go to and I would obsess over the artists
that went there. It was the cruise An Amphitheater. I
don't know what it's called now, but it's the West
paulm Amphitheater. And I remember being there for the Luke Bryan,
the Jason Al Dean Tour Florida Georgia Line. I mean
Dan and Shay Like. I just loved them, especially throughout
high school. They kind of shaped my love for Lyric
(16:36):
and Rascal Flats obsessed with them. I've now become friends
with Jada Marcus, which.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Is so cool.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But I mean, honestly, I just loved the way that
you showed up to a show and everybody just feels
the same emotion. And it seemed like all of those
artists knew how to like grab that from them in
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Also, growing up, my parents played Motown all the time,
so I was a big Motown fan.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
But that's basically like big list of who I love.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Kind of have a Kobe vibe to you a little bit,
Kobe Kel.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I think it's the blonde California, you know, maybe maybe
that's it too.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Maybe. And she lives like five minutes away, so I
can just call her up.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean, I haven't met her yet and I would
love to, amazing. I loved her growing up to you
like Bubbly was one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You guys moved from Califa from Florida to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Did you you came by yourself? That right? Your sister? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So my sister's a year older than me, and she
went to a different school and then transferred into Belmont,
but she she went to Belmont with me as well,
is she here? Kind of she's like all over the place,
the lockets, No More, No More Reunion show. I mean maybe, Honestly,
I think that she just so part of the reason
why I even got into entertainment was because she moved
(17:45):
my family out to LA because she wanted to get
into acting. And so I just kind of was surrounded
by the young Disney crowd and just all these people
in LA and I was like a sporty tomboy, had
no reasoning to be in music, but just fell in
love with the entertainment business because I was around it
so much and all my friends were in it. So
now she after she graduated from college, she was in
a finance job for a little while, but then she
realized that she really wants to do acting again, so
(18:06):
she went from music to acting and she's not pursuing that,
so she's crushing it.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
The young Disney crowd to talk, what is that? What
do you mean?
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Like?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Who?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Well, I mean, I don't know. You kind of just
threw that out there. The Young Disney ca are you
hanging out with Disney stars in LA.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I mean, that's honestly kind of a weird part of
my story too, because I was like, really really good
friends with all of the young Disney crowd when I
was young, like the Cyrus family, like you know, the
Lovado family, the Hudgens family, like all of them. They
were like my friends and my schoolmates and my neighbors,
and I just don't really think of it as then
like the Disney crowd because they were just my friends.
(18:40):
We would make YouTube videos together and go to soccer
and ice skating together, and that was my friend group,
which is maybe why I love this industry because I
feel like there's nothing too glitz or glam. It's always
just like the real music and the meaning behind it
all because I grew up around the craziness and saw
what it did to them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Was your sister a Disney actor?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
No, she wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
They were just friends because of the area.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
We were all friends because of the area.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
You were in Disney. Okay, when you said young Disney,
I thought you were in Disney stuff. You like, throw
me for a loop there, so you weren't acting. You
weren't doing Disney stuff. You just have want to be living.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I did some commercials. Are you telling me something? I
don't know. It's so weird.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I feel like again I was a kid. I was
just like dragged areas. I did we commercials a while
growing up. We like Wii, like the the nunchucks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, what would you do in these commercials?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I don't even remember.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I would like play with the nunchucks, I would There
was like a monkey in one of them. I did
some print modeling. I've just always been in entertainment since
I was a kid. So and we like knew a
lot of like the Disney casting directors and audition and stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
But yeah, when did you know you could sing and
people would actually care that you could sing?
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Do they care now?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I'm kidding? Oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I got into a music like performance class when I
was ten years old. Wrote my first song when I
was a Evan and I remember this guy Jonathan George,
who was a really good friend of ours and he
like coached us when we were younger. He put us
on a stage at this place called the Mint in
La I don't know if you're familiar with that.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I don't even know if it's still a place anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
But we played and I performed my first show when
I was eleven, and people like knew the words.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
To the music that I was putting out and it
was like insane.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The music wasn't that great.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I mean, I was eleven, you know, you'd start somewhere,
but yeah, I mean, I think that was when I
really fell in love with performing, and to this day,
performing is still my favorite part of this. I mean,
there's so much to love about music, but genuinely getting
on a stage and just seeing people people's reactions to
what you're saying, that's like, by far the best part.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Of it all.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And how has it been you say, your independence still,
how has it been you know, trying to find a
team like your team, your your I wouldn't say forever
because changes and is fluid, but your first like established
team record management, Like what what's that process like for
you right now?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Honestly, it's a lot of fun because you know, I'm
so excited to eventually be able to partner with the
right time, I really am. But honestly because of people
like you and the Highway and DSPs like Spotify and
iTunes and Apple and Pandora and.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
All these places.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Like I've had a really really great year and I
feel like I've just been knocking down my goals one
by one independently, and of course having the right partner
is a big goal of mine. But I'm in no rush,
which is the really fun part.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
So it's actually the best.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Place to be because the more you go into a
situation with knowing who you are and some data behind.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You, the less they can tell you who to be exactly.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
And I got to go on a tour independently.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I feel like there's there's so much that has happened
this past year, and it's it's truly mind blowing. I mean,
yesterday I made a video on my Instagram talking about
that because I was like, this week is crazy, you know,
like y'all put me as your spotlight artist, which is
so so cool, thank you, by the way, And it's
just been it's just been crazy. I fe like so
much has happened, and I like to think it's just
because the music is translating, and that's the bottom line.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well listen, I'm glad we finally got to meet me
as well.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I saw you driving with your big jeep yep jack
jacked up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It's jacked up. It's three point seventy five inches.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
No idea what that means, but that's something. All I
know is it looked a little higher and had big
wheels on it. Yes, I gotta assume the gas is
not cheap for that thing.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's not cheap. When the gas crisis happened, I was.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Like, I'm in the.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So how long you had a jeep since I was sixteen. Oh,
you were the same way as a jeep. Oh, the
same one, same jeep.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, I've just you know, gotten it all jacked up
and done a bunch of stuff too. I'm still like,
to this day, I'm like saving my money because I'm like,
I'm gonna go do more to my jeep.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So the goal is to do more to that jeep,
not to get a different jeep.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Absolutely, you're gonna make them last.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I had a chair.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I had a Jeep for a while, and I felt
like if I couldn't drive it with the top off,
I didn't want to drive it. So I kept the
top off. But then I got caught in a storm
once and I got it. It was a bad storm and
I'm driving. Mysses are getting soaked, and I'm like, oh,
this is it.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Time to go trade in the jep of the jeep.
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's why I have the hard top because being from Florida,
I living in Florida. I mean every hour you could
have a thunderstorm and then just complete beautiful, you know,
ninety degree day. So I have the hard top so
I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
We I to hard top too, and Jake Owen bought
me a like some sort of contraption that takes the
top off and you sit it on it.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It just hangs from it and you drive under and
it puts it on it. But I was like, I
don't screw this. I never put it up.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I was like, I want to have him a top off.
I want to drive the jeep like I'm closed to.
But then again, first time I got wet, I was like, oh,
I can't do this. I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
It's so worth that. Though I want to get a
Bronco eventually. I love Broncos and not like the new
the new ones are dope.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
But like the old like yeah, like sixty eight through
seventy four, Yes, are the really cool ones.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
You don't know what a three point seventy five is,
but you know the year of the Bronco that you'd.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Want, you know, I have very I have varied. All right,
you guys, let me let me promote a couple of
things here. On TikTok.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
She is the Ashley Cook, which is cook with an E.
But Instagram same huh, same thing.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
It's all the same.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
The Ashley Cook that was Ashley Cook already taken it was.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
And I've DMed the girl that has Ashley Cook so
many times and she doesn't respond.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I'm like, come on, same, Really, I have to have
mister Bobby Bones because some goob will not give me
Bobby Bones. And it wasn't even using I tried to
get Twitter, got didn't use it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Who has it on the Instagram?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Now?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Have we even looked at that a lot? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I think it's a random Let's see. I'm curious about
this because on Twitter you're saying no. On Instagram, if
I search Bobby Bones, do you even see who it is?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah? A blank page with one hundred and fifty four followers.
What for it's blank.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
See Min's at least like a mother of three kids
that posts all the time, so like it's hard for
her to give up her account, but like.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Come on, hasn't posted since twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
But the problem is with that is I am mister
Bobby Bones. So if I change it now and I
don't have all of that because I'm mister Bob Bones
and everything.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, so it's just you know, cohesiveness, keep it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But I should have that, right. Yeah. It's a fun
story too, is it though? Yeah, great story, a lot
of fun that I could never get the freaking page.
She doesn't sound that fun to me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Fun stories, that's not one Ashley Cook follower the Ashley
Cook on Instagram and TikTok. The new single Already Drank
that Beer is June twenty fifth. She's gonna be out
with Breeland. Just go to the just Ashley Cook dot com.
See if you go to the Ashley Cook dot com,
I would have already so Ashleycook dot com for all
the dates and hey, good luck.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I feel like this is.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The early stage of a long career and a really
cool life for you.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
That means a lot coming from you, so so thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Hang out, work hard, surround yourself with good people, and
good things will happen to you.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Yes, sir, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
And you know I saw that jeep come in.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
For a second I thought I should get another Jeep
and then had a flashback kill me.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That's why I do not want another Jeep.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
No, but for real, thank you guys so much for
spotlighting me and just playing my music in general.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
It really means the world.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I hope you guys know that if you suck, we
wouldn't do it. Thank you. Good people that suck and
we don't do it. So if you socked, we wouldn't
do it. So just know if that's all you, all right,
Ashley
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Cook, everybody, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
In case you missed it, This is Ashley Cook back
in twenty twenty one. She was on So you're looking
at almost three years ago and she's posted a couple
of random tiktoks and next thing you know she had
low momentum.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well now she's blowing up years later.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
This is from episode three h four, But I wanted
to play it again because at the time when this
came out, you might have thought, who's this brand new artist?
Maybe I don't want to listen to it, But now
it's fun to go back and hear it because you
can learn about her as she's kind of killing it now.
She was just named the iHeart Country on the Verge artist.
She's nominated for Breakthrough Female of the Year at the
CMT Awards. She's on tour with Jordan Davis. Super cool.
(00:41):
How she's blown up in the last few years, and
we definitely want to play this now. This is Ashley
Cook from twenty twenty one. In case you missed it,
here on the Bobby Cast. All right here with Ashley Cook.
Good to meet you in person.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah that got you. I think we've only talked on
the phone, right, Yeah, I think so. That one interview
for the one time. That's one interview.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
So I think what I had talked to you about
a lot and we'll get it out of the way
now is six one five house and TikTok because I
just see you.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
As more than that person.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Think you than the TikTok now a great way to
be the person people know.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
But I think after a bet, you gotta go, and
you have to go.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Man.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I wish people would only stop asociating me with TikTok.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
You know, honestly no, because it gave me such a
huge platform in the beginning that I love it and
I still use it to this day.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I still post almost.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Every day why I use it, and you should, right,
you should.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
But I think as an artist people start to get pigeonholed,
like content creators get well, he's only a YouTube person
or he's only but I, you know, for you, the
first time we talked to you, I like, Dank, it's
actually really good, you know, better than just making TikTok videos.
And so was really excited to play your stuff on
you know, two different shows that I program, which is
The Women of My Heart Country and I Think Mike.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We just featured last week on the Big countdown, didn't
we we did?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
I mean, yeah, guys, seriously, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
I'm still independent, so y'all doing that genuinely changes everything
for independent artists.
Speaker 4 (02:01):
So thank you guys so much.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
But honestly, I think the music should translate past whatever
platform you started on, right, So to not get pitche
and hold it as a TikTok artist, just make music
that translates past that.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I guess that's my way of thinking.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
And TikTok is just another way to reach more ears
and more eyeballs, So why.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Not use it, you know, and use everything you possibly
can't exactly Whenever you started six to one to five house, Now,
you guys didn't live.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
There, right, We didn't know most people. I think I
thought that at first, was.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
That everybody did?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeh did you rush that?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Because I wouldn't even wanted people to think you didn't
live there.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'd have just played along with it for a while.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
We kind of, I don't want to say like we
played along, but I think the whole idea of a
content creation house was started with the hype house, right,
and the high Past people were all influencers and actors
and dancers, so all they did all day long was
create on TikTok and YouTube and all these platforms.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
They lived together because it's made the most sense.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
With six one five House, it was started in the
middle of the pandemic, so we saw each other whenever
we could, but we couldn't live together. It didn't really
make any sense to live together. And I'll get together
and create and do all that together, but we never
lived together in the house.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Are you guys still making stuff as six one five House?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
We are, But I think just naturally, as the world
opened up because six one five House was started in
a pandemic, it's just now artists are going and touring
and signing record deals and crushing it outside of what
the pandemic was, that naturally we can't make as much content.
And also, again we are artists. We're all writers and artists,
and we tour and we play music. So unlike the
(03:26):
High House and most content creation houses, we can't just
spend all day every day creating for social media. So
we still create sometimes together, but it's just not as much.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
As we could.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did you sign up to I'm sure you did to
make money in the little program where they give you
a couple bucks for every ten thousand streams you.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Get or whatever, which thing like the creator Fund? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
did you do that?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
I don't know, Well I think I did.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
I remember I did.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
And I have my TikTok following. Isn't extremely huge? You
have like a half a million follow or something like that.
I don't that's pretty big. I don't post on TikTok
a whole I did for like a week. Now, I'm
on TikTok more than everything else, but I.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Don't post a whole lot. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
But and I would have videos out getting two three
four million, I get like dollar eighty.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I was like, this sucks.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So I've learned my hack to this. Maybe I shouldn't
say this, but I'm gonna say it. On live streams,
I've started to turn people over to Venmo. So I'll
be on a live stream and I'll be like, hey,
if you guys want to hear a song that you
want to hear a shout out whatever, it is, just
my Venmo is at Ashley Cook Ben Mo me however
much you want, every much you can, and I'll play
your song. And that's how I've started to kind of
make a virtual tip jar online. The Creator Fund is
(04:28):
awesome for some people, but for me, that's not really
how many to pay the bills.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
So it's like, might as well.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Do you make okay money when you go? Here's my
Venmo you guys?
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean, yeah, it's hit or miss, just like every
live show would be.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Can you get a couple hundred bucks?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah? Which what's the most you've ever done on the
live stream? Okay?
Speaker 3 (04:45):
So my friend Roman Alexander, I don't know if you
know who. He's a great artist in town. He always
will get all my live streams and like, bet people,
hey you want venmo her five hundred dollars?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You want ven Mohr that time undred?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yes, And I'll literally make like a couple hundred bucks
for like twenty minutes on a live because my friend's like,
can we help out and stuff too? But I make
I mean I make a decent amount. It's you just
got to really work for it. You have to know
how to be savvy with it, I guess is the
way to say it.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
My fiance's parents were in town and we went to
Tutsi's last night.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And they'd never been.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I don't really want to go to Tutsi's been there
the first five years.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
All live in town a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But we went and they had not seen how the
Tutsis vibe works where there's two bands, one on each side,
you know, and you tip them they play a song.
But now you can go up and actually scan the
code the barcode, yeah, and tip them on VENMO.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I mean yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I think the pandemic just taught a lot of people
a lot of stuff about the virtual world that we
can live in. But it's not about the money at
the end of the day, you know, it really is.
I know that's like the political answer, but genuinely, it's not.
It's about getting people to relate to your music and
get it out there. Because somebody out there has not
heard Justin Bieber's.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Music, you know.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
So everybody's always working to get people to hear their music.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
So what is your story? You come from where?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Kind of all over the place. But before Nashville, I
was in South Florida.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
What do you mean all over the place? And why so?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
My dad's job, he was in corporate and I was
in music since I was eleven years old. My sister
and I used to be in a duo together. I
just kind of traveled down the country growing up. I
think I lived in nineteen different homes before I was eighteen,
So just moving nineteen homes?
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Is it because you were playing music or because he was,
you know, moving around.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Kind of both with his job kind of both. It
was always a little bit of both. Corporate took him
all over the country.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So, and you and your sister were what kind of
duo country duo? Yeah, what was the name? It was
called the Locketts.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And did you guys ever come to Nashville before you
came to Nashville all the time.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
So I pretty much grew up on music row.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
I was riding with like Jeremy Bussy and Bridget Tatum
and like incredible number one writers when I was like
fifteen years old. So I came here for the first
time a little over ten years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And how did you get in a room with them
if you're just a teenager from out of town?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Just the music, I guess it translated.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
I was in LA and I worked with like some
people out in LA and then they brought us over
here and it was just, you know, how it goes.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's just I don't know how it goes. I don't
I'm not cool enough to know how anything goes.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Honestly, I don't even know, to be honest, I think
I was a kid just kind of being put in rooms,
which is the beauty and the niavit of being a kid.
But from what I can remember, the music we made
just kind of translated and got us in the rooms
with the right people, and that's just how that happened.
Then I went to college at Belmont.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Oh, so you moved here for school, yes, and they
stayed here. Yes. So you moved here for school knowing
you were going to stay here.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I moved here for Belmont just because, again I had
grown up in Nashville, and I knew of the school.
I loved at the campus. I thought it was incredible,
and I just loved Nashville. It felt like a home
away from home. Went to Belmont for music business, ended
up transferring into communications and marketing. So I studied nothing
to do with music.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Which you shouldn't, right, I mean, honestly, I don't know. Listen,
I still a great degree.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I studied a lot of things, including what I do
now radio television, but I didn't need to. I did
the best thing, about the best thing you can do
in a creative space is just freaking get.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Into it, okay, true, but to each their own and
then have something to fall back on when it doesn't work. True.
And that was kind of my mentality.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
And also because I had grown up in music my
whole life. Not I mean, the Belmont Music program is
genuinely incredible, it really is, but I just had been
in so many rooms and learned so much that going
in an intro to publishing class my freshman year, I
was like, wait, this is outdated info. This is different.
I've been in this room. I know what's going on.
So it just was it's hard for them to keep
up with exactly what's going on. But I loved communications
(08:24):
in marketing. It was the best because also I use
it every day in my career right like communications on
stage right now, marketing with TikTok. It all comes to play.
So and then I just stayed in Nashville after that.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
So when you stay is it I'm going to be
a songwriter? Is I going to be an artist? Am
I going to do one before the other?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Like?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
What was kind of your mindset at twenty two years old?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I mean, does anybody know what they're doing at twenty
two years old. I think I was even twenty one.
I was a low was seeing dream though when you
finish college was the dream? Well, okay, So I studied
communications and marketing again my senior year. I was already
interviewing for communications jobs. I kind of was like, hey,
music was my childhood thing. I still have a huge
passion for it, but let's just think about something different.
Let's just like entertain the idea of going down a
(09:03):
different route. So I almost got hired to a company
in Nashville for communications in marketing. And then at the
same time, like the same month, I applied for the
Country Showcase.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
You know what that is?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So at Belmont there's a you know what that is?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, I think like like Cassie Ashton, she won it
on Brad Paisley Florida Georgia line. I mean, so many
amazing artists have won this competition. So I applied kind
of on a whim, being like, ah, whatever, you know
my senior year bucket list, let's just do it.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
It's always been a really cool.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Thing to go to and watch.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I got in and I ended up winning the competition,
won the whole thing too.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I won the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
I was one of the only non music majors to
win that competition.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Do you have to do an original song?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
It's two originals one cover?
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So what what cover? Did you do?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
The middle by Marion Morris. Really it was the vest
It was so much fun.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Did you play it yourself? What do you mean? Or
do you have a band? You have a full band.
It's huge.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
It's like three thousand people in an arena.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's massive. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
But so I won that, and then I graduated and
I was like, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna try music.
I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a go as a
solo artist for the first time in my life. I'm
just gonna do it.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
COVID hit like.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Right when that happened, and so I went down to
quarantine with my family in Florida and my friend sent
me a video of Spencer Crandell, one of my other
friends who's on TikTok, and it was some challenge that
he did. I did the challenge and it got like
two million views overnight and it just kind of started
from there. So it was not my plan to do,
I mean, nearly any of this, let alone. What's happening
now this past year and it's just been crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So two things. One, who is Spencer crandall these I
cut your artists.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Big TikToker too, Yeah, okay, amazing artists too.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And then two what was the challenge?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It was called the lay Me Down Challenge. It was like,
you know the the Sam Smith song, Amy down to
that song, So it's the bridge of that song and
you like basically just go a whole octave.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Up and sing, So it's a singing challenge.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I was like, nah, I don't know, Like TikTok, you know,
I've loved this app for a long time, but I
don't know if I meant to be a creator on it,
Like who does know that? You know, it's it's the
market that gets to decide who's going to be a
creator on the app. So I posted the video no makeup,
braids in my hair fresh at the pool, like had
zero expectations and it just completely blew up and I
just caught the bug.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So and so then you were in and I was in,
and then how do you become just in?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Too?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All Right, guys, we're going to organize something here and
we're gonna get We're gonna put something together so we can.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Actually market ourselves, which is a really smart thing to do.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Thank you, honestly looking back at so wild because it
had to have been a good thing, honestly because I
had watched the High Pals for.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
So long, and I had had friends like you.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Know, Cooper Allen and Thomas Mack and people that were
really big on TikTok and had this giant following they
were building through country music and just following trends, and
my friend Chris Rudiger and I just kind of I
called him one day and I was like, hey, why
is nobody doing this? At the time, there was only
you know, six or seven country people really on TikTok.
Since then, of course it's really kind of blowed up
and come into the country space, but there was nobody
(11:47):
collaborating on the app really at all, and so we
just kind of found people, texted, DMed and got the
people that were really crushing it through country on the
app to come together and it was born.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
The six and five House happened, so that.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Tsmas Mac is the first country president I ever saw
on TikTok.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Which video to DC and do you remember nobody was funny.
He's hysterical.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
I just remember him being funny and being one of
the only, if not first country guys I would see
just sitting there with an acoustic guitar playing funny songs.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, he's hysterical, and he's still on.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Everybody's still on the app. I think just because the
world opened up. It's like, you know, it's an amazing
thing because a lot of us are also still independent.
Most of us are still independent, so it's crazy to
see how much has happened from the app and now
translate against to the real world. I mean, these just
kids that were creating videos on this app, and now
we get to live our dreams.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
So it's really cool.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Has anyone recognized you from TikTok just walking down the street.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You would be mind blown. It blows my mind.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
I'll go down to like Broadway hangout because you know,
I'm single and twenty four, so I'm like whatever, I'm
gonna go. Hang on. I get stopped all the time
for photos and being like, oh my gosh, you're the
girl from TikTok. Or you actually cook, I heard your
song on the highway, or just go on Bobby Bone show,
like they'll just say this stuff all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
I'm like, this is so crazy. So yeah, it happens
a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Because I saw someone from TikTok somewhere and I was
in California. We were doing American Idol or something, and
and I kind of know, but I kind of geeked
out a little bit. And then I caught myself and
I was like, why am I geeking out at somebody?
Speaker 2 (13:23):
I'm watching two videos.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
But you're right, it doesn't matter how you're you get consumed. Yeah, Like,
once you find somebody you like and you're taking them
through radio, Netflix, TikTok, it doesn't matter. Then you kind
of become a fan.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Absolutely absolutely, And that's what's so cool.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
I was at my gym like two days ago, and
this guy walks up and is like, Okay, I hate
to geek out and be a fangirl, but like, I
just love your music.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I was like what He's like, I love under It's
so good. I was like, what, so it is?
Speaker 3 (13:48):
I mean, you're right, it's it's working and people are
consuming it and they're I hope, falling in love with
my music as much as they are my personality or
whatever brings them to my page.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
So it's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So you're going out on your first tour, you're first
going through all the differences with breelin right.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Hell yeah, yep, So what's that about.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
I'm pumped.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
It's nine days in September. It's my first ever tour.
I don't even know any of the details. Probably a
meeting after this to figure out the details, because I
might just take me on a bus somewhere and I'll
show up and play. But I'm I'm freaking pumped. It's
going to be so fun.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
The rare thing is that that I see from these
dates is that they're all kind of strung together. Like
when I go out, I'll do Thursday, Friday Saturday or
Friday Saturday. They come home, and that's pretty typical of
a country music tour. However, this is I mean atypical
where you're out, Like you said, basically, you know the
tenth of the twenty third, but nine you're playing nine
(14:37):
shows and you know twelve thirteen days.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, so you're just going to live in a bus.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
What the travel plan is yet, I'm not quite sure
van or something south.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
I mean first tour. You know, I'm probably just gonna
get chucked in a van somewhere.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You honestly should you should.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
I think artists should have to come up and go
van first, learn the struggle.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Absolutely crappy bus.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
See It's interesting though, because.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Now that I don't think I should do that still,
because I definitely should. But I was touring when I
was a kid, to faars and festivals.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
And stuff like that, so I have kind of didn't count.
Doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Don't count, doesn't say you got to go do the
struggle and hopefully you make enough and you're opening fee
to pay for your whole trip. You have to be like, oh,
how am I going to afford this and wear the
same closed three nights in a row, But then say, no,
this is my artistic style. I just But you have
to go through that struggle for sure. Then you appreciate
it so much more when you don't have to anymore,
(15:32):
and you look out for the people that are doing it,
Like I have some friends ish who kind of got
to skip that step because they blew up a little
too quick, so they don't quite empathize and understand what
they can see. And they can sympathize a little bit,
but they don't understand, and I feel like they're they're
lacking that empathy to to go, hey, like I got you.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Here's why I got you, because I've been through it too.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Maybe, but if they gave you a jet, take the jet. Okay,
I'm not saying no, put me in a bus.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Who would you say that you listened to a lot
as a kid, because we're all influenced by something.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Who would you say you listened to as a kid.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Where you're like, all right, this is not who I am,
but their sounds definitely kind of took me somewhere for.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Sure, honestly.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
So. I moved to Florida when I was fifteen, and
I remember there was this one amphitheater that we all
would go to and I would obsess over the artists
that went there. It was the cruise An Amphitheater. I
don't know what it's called now, but it's the West
paulm Amphitheater. And I remember being there for the Luke Bryan,
the Jason Al Dean Tour Florida Georgia Line. I mean
Dan and Shay Like. I just loved them, especially throughout
high school. They kind of shaped my love for Lyric
(16:36):
and Rascal Flats obsessed with them. I've now become friends
with Jada Marcus, which.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Is so cool.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
But I mean, honestly, I just loved the way that
you showed up to a show and everybody just feels
the same emotion. And it seemed like all of those
artists knew how to like grab that from them in
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Also, growing up, my parents played Motown all the time,
so I was a big Motown fan.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
But that's basically like big list of who I love.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Kind of have a Kobe vibe to you a little bit,
Kobe Kel.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I think it's the blonde California, you know, maybe maybe
that's it too.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Maybe. And she lives like five minutes away, so I
can just call her up.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
I mean, I haven't met her yet and I would
love to, amazing. I loved her growing up to you
like Bubbly was one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
You guys moved from Califa from Florida to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Did you you came by yourself? That right? Your sister? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So my sister's a year older than me, and she
went to a different school and then transferred into Belmont,
but she she went to Belmont with me as well,
is she here? Kind of she's like all over the place,
the lockets, No More, No More Reunion show. I mean maybe, Honestly,
I think that she just so part of the reason
why I even got into entertainment was because she moved
(17:45):
my family out to LA because she wanted to get
into acting. And so I just kind of was surrounded
by the young Disney crowd and just all these people
in LA and I was like a sporty tomboy, had
no reasoning to be in music, but just fell in
love with the entertainment business because I was around it
so much and all my friends were in it. So
now she after she graduated from college, she was in
a finance job for a little while, but then she
realized that she really wants to do acting again, so
(18:06):
she went from music to acting and she's not pursuing that,
so she's crushing it.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
The young Disney crowd to talk, what is that? What
do you mean?
Speaker 5 (18:13):
Like?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Who?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Well, I mean, I don't know. You kind of just
threw that out there. The Young Disney ca are you
hanging out with Disney stars in LA.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
I mean, that's honestly kind of a weird part of
my story too, because I was like, really really good
friends with all of the young Disney crowd when I
was young, like the Cyrus family, like you know, the
Lovado family, the Hudgens family, like all of them. They
were like my friends and my schoolmates and my neighbors,
and I just don't really think of it as then
like the Disney crowd because they were just my friends.
(18:40):
We would make YouTube videos together and go to soccer
and ice skating together, and that was my friend group,
which is maybe why I love this industry because I
feel like there's nothing too glitz or glam. It's always
just like the real music and the meaning behind it
all because I grew up around the craziness and saw
what it did to them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Was your sister a Disney actor?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
No, she wasn't.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
They were just friends because of the area.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
We were all friends because of the area.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
You were in Disney. Okay, when you said young Disney,
I thought you were in Disney stuff. You like, throw
me for a loop there, so you weren't acting. You
weren't doing Disney stuff. You just have want to be living.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I did some commercials. Are you telling me something? I
don't know. It's so weird.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I feel like again I was a kid. I was
just like dragged areas. I did we commercials a while
growing up. We like Wii, like the the nunchucks and stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Yeah, what would you do in these commercials?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I don't even remember.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I would like play with the nunchucks, I would There
was like a monkey in one of them. I did
some print modeling. I've just always been in entertainment since
I was a kid. So and we like knew a
lot of like the Disney casting directors and audition and stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
But yeah, when did you know you could sing and
people would actually care that you could sing?
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Do they care now?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I'm kidding? Oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
I got into a music like performance class when I
was ten years old. Wrote my first song when I
was a Evan and I remember this guy Jonathan George,
who was a really good friend of ours and he
like coached us when we were younger. He put us
on a stage at this place called the Mint in
La I don't know if you're familiar with that.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
I don't even know if it's still a place anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
But we played and I performed my first show when
I was eleven, and people like knew the words.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
To the music that I was putting out and it
was like insane.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The music wasn't that great.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I mean, I was eleven, you know, you'd start somewhere,
but yeah, I mean, I think that was when I
really fell in love with performing, and to this day,
performing is still my favorite part of this. I mean,
there's so much to love about music, but genuinely getting
on a stage and just seeing people people's reactions to
what you're saying, that's like, by far the best part.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Of it all.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
And how has it been you say, your independence still,
how has it been you know, trying to find a
team like your team, your your I wouldn't say forever
because changes and is fluid, but your first like established
team record management, Like what what's that process like for
you right now?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Honestly, it's a lot of fun because you know, I'm
so excited to eventually be able to partner with the
right time, I really am. But honestly because of people
like you and the Highway and DSPs like Spotify and
iTunes and Apple and Pandora and.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
All these places.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Like I've had a really really great year and I
feel like I've just been knocking down my goals one
by one independently, and of course having the right partner
is a big goal of mine. But I'm in no rush,
which is the really fun part.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
So it's actually the best.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Place to be because the more you go into a
situation with knowing who you are and some data behind.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
You, the less they can tell you who to be exactly.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
And I got to go on a tour independently.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I feel like there's there's so much that has happened
this past year, and it's it's truly mind blowing. I mean,
yesterday I made a video on my Instagram talking about
that because I was like, this week is crazy, you know,
like y'all put me as your spotlight artist, which is
so so cool, thank you, by the way, And it's
just been it's just been crazy. I fe like so
much has happened, and I like to think it's just
because the music is translating, and that's the bottom line.
Speaker 6 (21:55):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Well listen, I'm glad we finally got to meet me
as well.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I saw you driving with your big jeep yep jack
jacked up a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It's jacked up. It's three point seventy five inches.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
No idea what that means, but that's something. All I
know is it looked a little higher and had big
wheels on it. Yes, I gotta assume the gas is
not cheap for that thing.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's not cheap. When the gas crisis happened, I was.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Like, I'm in the.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yea.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So how long you had a jeep since I was sixteen. Oh,
you were the same way as a jeep. Oh, the
same one, same jeep.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, I've just you know, gotten it all jacked up
and done a bunch of stuff too. I'm still like,
to this day, I'm like saving my money because I'm like,
I'm gonna go do more to my jeep.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I'm obsessed.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So the goal is to do more to that jeep,
not to get a different jeep.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Absolutely, you're gonna make them last.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I had a chair.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I had a Jeep for a while, and I felt
like if I couldn't drive it with the top off,
I didn't want to drive it. So I kept the
top off. But then I got caught in a storm
once and I got it. It was a bad storm and
I'm driving. Mysses are getting soaked, and I'm like, oh,
this is it.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Time to go trade in the jep of the jeep.
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's why I have the hard top because being from Florida,
I living in Florida. I mean every hour you could
have a thunderstorm and then just complete beautiful, you know,
ninety degree day. So I have the hard top so
I don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
We I to hard top too, and Jake Owen bought
me a like some sort of contraption that takes the
top off and you sit it on it.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
It just hangs from it and you drive under and
it puts it on it. But I was like, I
don't screw this. I never put it up.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I was like, I want to have him a top off.
I want to drive the jeep like I'm closed to.
But then again, first time I got wet, I was like, oh,
I can't do this. I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
It's so worth that. Though I want to get a
Bronco eventually. I love Broncos and not like the new
the new ones are dope.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
But like the old like yeah, like sixty eight through
seventy four, Yes, are the really cool ones.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
You don't know what a three point seventy five is,
but you know the year of the Bronco that you'd.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Want, you know, I have very I have varied. All right,
you guys, let me let me promote a couple of
things here. On TikTok.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
She is the Ashley Cook, which is cook with an E.
But Instagram same huh, same thing.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
It's all the same.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
The Ashley Cook that was Ashley Cook already taken it was.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
And I've DMed the girl that has Ashley Cook so
many times and she doesn't respond.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
I'm like, come on, same, Really, I have to have
mister Bobby Bones because some goob will not give me
Bobby Bones. And it wasn't even using I tried to
get Twitter, got didn't use it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Who has it on the Instagram?
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Now?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Have we even looked at that a lot? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I think it's a random Let's see. I'm curious about
this because on Twitter you're saying no. On Instagram, if
I search Bobby Bones, do you even see who it is?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah? A blank page with one hundred and fifty four followers.
What for it's blank.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
See Min's at least like a mother of three kids
that posts all the time, so like it's hard for
her to give up her account, but like.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Come on, hasn't posted since twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
But the problem is with that is I am mister
Bobby Bones. So if I change it now and I
don't have all of that because I'm mister Bob Bones
and everything.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Yeah, so it's just you know, cohesiveness, keep it.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But I should have that, right. Yeah. It's a fun
story too, is it though? Yeah, great story, a lot
of fun that I could never get the freaking page.
She doesn't sound that fun to me.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Fun stories, that's not one Ashley Cook follower the Ashley
Cook on Instagram and TikTok. The new single Already Drank
that Beer is June twenty fifth. She's gonna be out
with Breeland. Just go to the just Ashley Cook dot com.
See if you go to the Ashley Cook dot com,
I would have already so Ashleycook dot com for all
the dates and hey, good luck.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I feel like this is.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The early stage of a long career and a really
cool life for you.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
That means a lot coming from you, so so thank you.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Hang out, work hard, surround yourself with good people, and
good things will happen to you.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Yes, sir, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
And you know I saw that jeep come in.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
For a second I thought I should get another Jeep
and then had a flashback kill me.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That's why I do not want another Jeep.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
No, but for real, thank you guys so much for
spotlighting me and just playing my music in general.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
It really means the world.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I hope you guys know that if you suck, we
wouldn't do it. Thank you. Good people that suck and
we don't do it. So if you socked, we wouldn't
do it. So just know if that's all you, all right,
Ashley
Speaker 5 (26:05):
Cook, everybody, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
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