INTERVIEW: ASTON talks about her debut EP and speaking up for women: "I can be a bitch sometimes, but I'm a bitch who knows what she wants and doesn't settle for anything less than that."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
You may only be new to the name ASTON, but the Australian singer-songwriter has achieved huge success over the last year both behind and in front of the microphone. As a songwriter she has written songs for artists including Ricki-Lee, Cosmo’s Midnight and Jordie Ireland and her 2019 single (under the name A$ton Wyld) ‘Next Level’ was featured Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw, later being covered by K-pop band Aespa and racking up close to 160 million views on YouTube and over 72 million streams on Spotify alone.
Last year she launched her ASTON project with debit single ‘Girl Is A Gun’, a fierce pop-R&B track with hints of reggae and earlier this month she released her self-titled debut EP. It is a sublime collection of music with multiple pop soundscapes, including the gritty R&B of ‘Middle Fingers’, the soaring pop of ‘Firebomb’ and the tropical, summery beats of ‘Heartbreak Club’.
ASTON makes the kind of music that completely envelopes you and with her powerful vocals, addictive melodies and sheer charisma she has the potential to be one of Australia’s great breakthrough new talents. Women In Pop recently caught up with ASTON to find out more about her music and career.
Hi ASTON! Oh my god, your EP is seriously good, like bloody amazing. First of all, how are things in your wonderful, very sharp spiked heeled booted world today?
Oh thank you so much. Everything's pretty good. I am in the middle of filming content, as well as doing the EP stuff a couple of months ago I started posting videos in my car on TikTok. And that's just what I do!
That's not a bad thing. You TikTok is so good, it’s good for us to see you. Personally, I'm like TikTok is yet to be soiled. It's just lovely things on there.
It's is, it's really wild. Instagram was this quite long drawn out path of people really loving it and obsessing over it, but TikTok really just seemed to hit everyone by storm and really changed the way people consume entertainment. I had never been able to express myself online before because I felt that Instagram was a bit weird. It was posting pictures and I was like, ‘well, I make sound’. So it feels weird to just only post pictures of myself so TikTok has been a great outlet.
Your music for me has this ferocity, but there's also a lot of fun. It's fun ferocity, and it's fun rage, and it's not serious. And Instagram can probably be a little bit smug, but with TikTok, it just seems like the perfect pairing for you and your music.
Yeah, it has come out of nowhere and it's been a chance for me to play around with different writing styles or what I want to talk about. It's been really good. I've noticed predominantly my listenership like 93.7% women, so that's good, because on Instagram it was not that. It's been good for me to try different things. And a lot of people have really liked the savage, in your face some would say inappropriate words or concepts so I'm like, ‘Okay, I'm gonna keep going in that direction’!
Going through the EP I couldn't help noticing you've got this incredible 'for the girls' feel, an energy to your music. Not even necessarily lyrically, but also the way it's presented. It's not just in the anthems or the way your videos play out there's just something about it that's so incredibly fierce, and I guess calling them all together. Was that something that you've always set out to do?
I'm glad you said that because I always found myself to really, really for the girls. I don't like saying feminist because I feel that has a really strange connotation to it sometimes, butI just want people to be themselves. If that is being more sexually open, or if that's not, then I want people to just do what they feel comfortable with doing. Apart from just making music I would love to help out volunteering in places like Planned Parenthood, not really the planning children side, but more the education around sex, sexuality, owning who you are and e starting those conversations with women that I feel are taboo. People shame people, they'll call them a slut, so people don't like talking about that stuff. I have really interesting conversations with my friends about things where the only reason they're not confident about being a woman and being themselves is because they don't know this stuff. They don't know how to be sexually confident, or they don't really know that they don't need to prove something to someone. That's my message and it also crosses over to any minority. Any minority, it doesn't have to be woman. [The message] to just anyone is to be yourself.
Let's talk about the nugget of the EP. It's your debut, it's self titled, it is full of fury, with incredibly infectious beats and your delicious vocals. I just want to know what what was your thought process and your goal heading into this, your very first collation?
I didn't set out to have a certain amount of songs because I'm writing all the time, not only for myself but for other artists. I am so brutal when it comes to songs and making sure that it's perfect for the artists. I never want to just go in and be like, ‘Okay, I've got this song for you’. I want to know everything about that artist, so I can get the most out of them, and I do the same for myself. It wasn't like I necessarily had to make it smaller, there's a lot of stuff that I like, but I'm so picky about what I want to tell and the story that I want to portray. The songs I pick they have to be at such a high standard for myself. Someone else might not like the music, but it had to be exactly what I wanted it to be.
Because it's for you. It's your collection. Particularly with streaming platforms now, people argue and say ‘we're missing the album’, but I kind of like that artists are now very much making albums for themselves. They're not having to get those three hit songs in order to get someone to buy the CD. They're like, ‘No, you can just choose those ones if you want or you can listen to my collection at will.’
Yeah, I like that. We originally released some of them as singles and that was really good to see which did well and which ones didn't. It's funny, I speak to a lot of artists all the time and they'll be like, ‘I just don't know which one to pick’. And I'm always like, ‘Yes, I like those two, I wouldn't choose any of those other ones to go on your EP. I would actually write new ones cause those two are just so incredible it makes everything look sad’. I'm pretty brutal! That was like the first thing my first mentor ever taught me was as a songwriter never be precious. I throw songs away at the drop of the hat. I'm like’ okay, that's not good enough, bye.’ It’s good to be like that because I don't get hung up on things if they don't happen.
And you then get your beautiful EP that's just come out, which like I said, it's just a party bag for the ladies.
Yeah, and every song on the EP was something that I really wanted to say. I definitely have told lots of people to eff off so 'Middle Fingers' is perfect. And 'Girl Is A Gun' was like my first exploration in my sexuality. And then 'Killer Queen' was just embodying what it's like to be a powerful woman and appreciating someone else's beauty and power. And then 'Firebomb' was a little bit vulnerable and honest about having your heart broken, and how it feels to be manipulated by someone. And then 'Heartbreak Club' is really just come together and cry all together. It’s my favourite thing to do, have a cry with my friends.
There's nothing quite like a group cry. I want to talk to you a little bit, obviously, about your latest single, we just touched on it 'Middle Fingers': 'I say sorry, way too much / It's my turn to give no fucks'. I love it. You said you're so savage when it comes to selecting songs, so I'm imagining you must have wanted to give a hell of a lot of middle fingers before putting it to a song and then putting that song on the EP.
Yeah, you have no idea! I wrote that and then, for another year and a half, I still had moments where I'd go and speak to my therapist and be like, 'I just had this fucking meeting. And this person totally threw me under the bus. And I literally just stared at her, and I didn't even do anything. And I was like damn, I wish I said something'. And then I was like, actually, no fucking way. That's ridiculous. I can't believe even though I've written that song, that it took me so many times of listening to that song to fully believe it. Now I'm very confident with if someone, if I'm in a meeting or even just talking to a friend or a work colleague and something's not right, I can speak up and be like, ‘there's no way that's gonna happen’. Or, ‘that's totally bursting my boundaries. And you can shove it.’
People are hearing your songs and they're chanting like ‘hell yeah’ and whether they mean to or not, subconsciously they're looking to you for a voice and opinion that mirrors their own. Is it something you're aware of?
Even if I didn't do music or I didn't write or I wasn't a public figure, that would always be my standing point. Discussing taboos and breaking down stigmas is the best way to start people having a conversation. It's not always about educating someone about something, it's just about talking because everyone's gonna have different point of views. There's so many things that we don't talk about, or we're afraid of, we’re afraid of the labels. People probably look at some of my stuff and they're like, ‘Oh, she's a bitch’. And they're probably right. I can be a bitch sometimes, but I'm a bitch who knows what she wants and doesn't settle for anything less than that. So if that helps someone, just one person, then that's changing someone's life. The fact that I can do it through music is just fun.
Australia is a small pond, big country, small pond. Your music has already gained so much international traction. Your work has featured in Kpop, BMW, Netflix, it's incredibly global. So many of our young artists just feel the push to move abroad to launch their careers. What are your thoughts on air time or room for female artists in Australia?
I definitely think there's an issue within… I wouldn't even say music industry, it's art in general. And unfortunately that does have a little bit to do with government, where things are focused and where money is put. It is a shame that for many artists in Australia that create, they feel like they have to leave because they just don't get the support that they need, even though the majority of Australians get in their car everyday and listen to music. They're always consuming art. When they go into the shops to get something from the supermarket, someone has designed whatever is on the package. People are consuming art all the time. It’s just a shame that specifically in Australia, it doesn't get the recognition it quite deserves. It's a shame that I can't take my country with me because there's great things about being Australian and living here. It's more just the business side of things and the country rather than the people. There’s people that listen to all music here, but the infrastructures maybe could do with a little finessing.
Lastly, before I have to leave you what is coming up from you except more car singing and dancing?
Oh definitely touring. I feel like I have to make up for a lot of touring. that couldn't happen. I do plan on moving to the States, just so I can continue working with some of the people that I worked with the past few years. And then moving on to the next music, which I'm excited for, because I really want to jump off from ‘Middle Fingers'. I don't want to shock people by coming out with like a classical album, but I do really want to push the boundaries and say it like I mean it.
Aston is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things ASTON you can follow her on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
