ASHLEY RAY

Ashley Ray sings us through the stories of finding our way to ourselves in her new album Animal. She experientially knows there is a choice women must make. Regardless of age, or season of life, the question of “Who am I, really?” seems to arise and provoke an often-radical reassessment. Will I spend the rest of my days tied to the roles, and rituals that were given to me by culture, religion, and the generation of women before me, or do I step out and into my chosen life, a life that bids me to claim my own personal authority and exercise it? 

Ray does not hold back as she narrates her story beginning with the agony of facing the reality that divorce was the only way forward in a marriage that held no space for her to become a mother. In the first single released, "Married” lays bare her experience, reckoning with a relationship that could not survive her hopes and desires, leaving her to choose what seems counterintuitive as she croons, “I want a divorce, ‘cause I wanna be married.” It was a choice, if you will, for herself, her truest desires, over the ritual and rules of a marriage poorly formed and unable to give her space to evolve. Ray says, “I got to the point where I was in the shower always crying, telling myself that maybe I could bite the bullet and be okay with not being a mom, but my body yearned for it so, and in my bones, I knew I could not stay. This record is about living and not simply surviving. It was the shift that began my return to myself. Thank God I had people who would sit in the room with me and listen and help me bring these songs to life.” 

“Married” and "Animal” were written on the same day with longtime writing partners, and dear friends Sean McConnell and Karen Fairchild. “Animal” strikes a forbidden chord as women are rarely allowed to acknowledge, much less articulate, the primal urge for passion, while men can write and sing all day long about their longing for a woman. Ray wanted to say it aloud, to own her desires, unabashedly. She wanted to speak of natural longing. The song was written at 1:00 a.m. when the three comrades thought their day was done. It had been a productive day during the pandemic that yielded “Married,” and Ray began to articulate how she felt, and the title track fell out of her. It was written in real-time as she says, “I had blown up my current life to open space for the life I knew I wanted, needed, and deserved.” Ray trusted her gut in those brutal life decisions, and she trusted her gut in pouring it out in these songs. Fairchild headed out around 2:00 a.m., and McConnell insisted Ray lay down the vocal for “Animal.” Fairchild says, “It was one of the most powerful vocals she’s heard” from Ray. “It was so vulnerable and raw.”

But there is no easy path forward when it all crumbles around us. Ray’s song “My Own Place” leads the listener into what it was like for Ray as she walked away, single and alone. It is poignant and powerful in its simplicity as it shows the pain that follows the grief of an ending when the beginning hasn’t yet sprouted. Every bright and beautiful next thing must ferment in the darkness before it can bloom. Ray calls it “the loneliest and most liberating time I had ever known. I never felt free like that. I had been working to be this perfect wife, making the dinner, washing the dishes, and ensuring everything was in its perfect place. And then I was alone.”

“Break My Heart” takes us into the next chapter as Ray falls in love with her now-husband, Joe Ginsberg, a fellow songwriter, and artist in his own right. “Break My Heart" might be the fastest song Ray has ever written. McConnell knew Ray was falling in love anew, and they had the pieces of “jagged little pill,” “wild horse,” and “I think you can take her,” but were not sure what was coming next. Ray ran with her emotions and all that was transpiring with her new love and the risks involved in opening yourself up to love again. For Ray, there was more involved than just her heart and his heart, as she had fallen in love with a single father, which changed the stakes altogether for her. But ultimately, Ray says, “I trusted myself, and it gave me courage. I wanted to love him. I wanted to love her. Even if it breaks all our hearts, I wanted to try with them.” The song is a duet with one of Ray’s favorite artists and friend, Ruston Kelly, and the album’s second single.

The personal authority that led Ray on this journey is nothing new but simply rediscovered. Ray grew up in Kansas, telling her grandfather, Popo, that she wanted to be a priest when she grew up. Instead of correcting her desire, he applauded her ambition and insisted that the country and the church needed strong female leadership, and she could indeed be that priest. But instead of a priest, Ray learned to write her own liturgy and a very different worship. Ray writes, “There have been times when I’ve just wanted to pray to Mary, centered around the feminine divine and desire to feel connected to all things divine.” She wrote “Bathtub Madonna" when she was pregnant — it is an anthem to all the weather-chipped, sun-faded, Midwest lawn statues of Mother Mary that she and her family would drive around and admire, as well as her Matriarchal ancestors who have gone before her. Ray didn’t have to go far to find her favorite Bathtub Madonna, the one her grandfather proudly built “is right outside his backdoor.”

In “Dirty Angel,” Ray returns to that courageous and free little Kansan girl as she lets herself run free with rousing guitar and electric production. Ray sings, “You were such a preacher, I ate up every word, you found yourself a seeker, and made a fool of her.” Ray insists this is a story for every woman who longs to rebel against the system and shout, “No more!” 

“Stripper Glitter” came from an experience Ray had at a local strip club with her then-boyfriend, Joe Ginsberg, and friends as she watched the indifference of several male patrons sitting in the front row as they failed to tip the dancers. Ray was incensed as she walked around the men to tip the women at work. She empathized, as she recalled the many hours spent on her feet as a full time waitress, dependent on tips to put food on her own table. She not-so-eloquently got the men's attention and insisted, “It's time to tip.” It struck a nerve around the lack of pay and gratitude women like herself receive in our culture. The weight of unpaid labor is crushing for all women — regardless of pay grade — as it is expected, yet not rewarded. Her admonition is stinging as she sings, “She ain’t here to get your rocks off, she’s got a baby to feed, it’s just a job to keep the lights on so if you like what you see, get out your money.” She and Ginsberg wrote the song with McConnell. 

With this album, Ray is pushing back against being the ideal and exalting the real. Being a woman who can say, “Get out of my heart and get into my bed,” Ray is calling to the women who are going through these things alone. She wants to be a voice for women who have been taught to distrust their gut, their internal knowing. Ray is saying, “Your gut is God” — that is her message to her daughters and those who hear her music. 

If there is a bookend on the side of this tale, it is “Mothership,” written by Ray with Fairchild and McConnell. Honoring her two daughters, Ray knows that women in this industry are told to choose: either be a mom or an artist. Ray believes she can be both and do it well. She always knew she wanted to be a mom, and is a firm advocate for all the women who are at that crossroads; she shouts to you, it is BOTH/AND! She was raised as a child who fell asleep under the stars as her parents listened to live music. It shaped and informed her, and she is giddy to give that same experience to her girls. That life has already begun, as she returned to touring when her youngest was 3 months old. 

Animal tells Ray’s story — and every woman’s story — from the waking epiphany that we are stuck in a life we cannot inhabit, through the transition of loneliness and the gathering of courage, to the triumph of stepping into alignment with our truest nature. Yet Ray knows there is no end point, no arrival on this journey; her songs and her life tell the stories and ask the questions. She will continue to ask them, and there will be many iterations to come, each revealing more of who she is as a human being. Ray knows firsthand how vital and powerful it is to answer the questions with honesty, to embody the animal she is becoming. 

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Written by: Jorja White