Audacy Launch artist, Kassi Ashton, is celebrating the long-awaited release of her debut album, Made From The Dirt, and it’s absolutely worth the wait.
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The project features 10 tracks that showcase Ashton’s unique, grunge-glamor style and tell stories of love, loss, and beating the odds. “I wrote ‘Made From The Dirt’ because we are made all the better every time we get back up,” she said of the release. “We are more beautiful because of the scars, stories, and bulls***. I hope after listening down, you feel seen, you feel validated, and you feel like the baddest to ever do it."
Ashton knows the feeling of getting knocked-down all too well after experiencing a false-start at radio in 2020, thanks to the pandemic and two prior singles falling flat. Her experience fueled the messages behind, Made From The Dirt, and is a reminder to herself that she’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.
“In 2019 everything was going great, I was on Girl: The World Tour with Maren Morris, it’s my first tour ever, I was two of three, we were supposed to go to radio at the top of 2020. BOOM. We know what happened,” the Belmont University graduate said of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down not only live music but left the future of the industry a big question mark.
“Everything gets put on pause… everything just kind of stopped because I wasn’t at a place where I could keep going through the pandemic,” she expressed. During the pandemic, Ashton held on by a thread by releasing her song, “Black Motorcycle,” and becoming an ambassador for Harley Davidson, but her fight to make it on Country radio was really just getting started.
“Coming into 2022, we had my first single, ‘Dates in Pickup Trucks’… and I was like, ‘OK, we’re doing this,’” she said before sharing the single got pulled. “Then we did ‘Drive You Out of My Mind,’ and I love that song, still to this day — it’s a smash in my head… but unfortunately, it made it to like 42 [on the charts],” she explained before admitting she started to feel defeated.
“You kind of get down on yourself, you’re like, ‘I know I’m meant to be here, so why is it not working?’” she stated before shedding a few tears remembering the struggle, during a talk with Katie Neal. Come 2024, a magical writing session with Jared Keim and Emily Weisband brought Ashton’s single, “Called Crazy,” which gave her new hope as well as a lead single for her debut album.
“To bring it full circle, the day we wrote ‘Called Crazy’ I was like, ‘If this isn’t it, I don’t know what is,'” she said. “I just felt in my gut it’s me. So, if I go down the drain on this song, at least I will know no one told me to do this, no one made me into something that I’m not... I will always be myself and if I’m going to put my money and I’m going to put all my blood, sweat and tears into a song — this is going to be the one.”
“Called Crazy,” is proving to be just that as it continues to climb the charts. Hear it and the nine other songs of Ashton’s debut project by listening to, Made from the Dirt, available now.
MADE FROM THE DIRT TRACKLISTING:
1. Made From The Dirt
2. Called Crazy
3. Son Of A Gun
4. I Don’t Wanna Dance
5. The Straw
6. Angels Smoke Cigarettes
7. The Stars Know
8. Drive You Out of My Mind
9. 'Til The Lights Go Out
10. Juanita