Kassi Ashton Says First Country Album Isn't an 'Era I'm Going Through': 'Don't Want the Debut to Be a Trend' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Kassi Ashton at the 59th Academy of Country Music Awards from Ford Center at The Star on May 16, 2024 in Frisco, Texas.Photo:Gilbert Flores/Penske Media/Getty

Gilbert Flores/Penske Media/Getty

Kassi Ashtonis as self-assured as she is unapologetic, and her debut albumMade from the Dirtis no exception.

The country singer, 30, aptly hails from a place called California, Missouri, where her equal parts free spirit and self-proclaimed “hillbilly” heritage have combined to shape her into a spitfire artist, all in perfect time.

“The music that I have made now and that’s on this album and that I’m making for after the album, I couldn’t have made that five years ago. I just wasn’t as concentrated and honed in on who I am as a person. It wasn’t like I discovered myself, that’s not it, it’s more so I uncovered myself,” the2024 ACM nomineetells PEOPLE exclusively.

Kassi Ashton performing on July 25, 2024, at The Eagles Club in Milwaukee.Zack Knudsen

Zack Knudsen

Ashton says she had a “come to Jesus moment” during the pandemic when she really stopped to ask herself what kind of music she enjoyed most, and she found her answer in the notion that she wanted to create things she would be proud to “play for my favorite artists in the genre,” likeChris StapletonandBrothers Osborneand Sturgill Simpson.

“Why am I not doing that?” she remembers asking herself.

Ashton’s vibe is very muchStevie NicksmeetsEric Church— two more of her great inspirations — and the result is a sound she calls “everything that had soul and grit and a story and a lot of guitars in the production.”

“Everything in my gut was screaming, ‘This is it. This music is so good,'” she says of crafting her album. “And I don’t think that I’m going to be tired of it in 10 years. I don’t think that this is an era that I’m going through. You definitely don’t want the debut to be a trend because it’s going to be everyone’s first impression. This has really got to be you. And then if you want to zigzag on your way after that, totally cool.”

Kassi Ashton visits SiriusXM Studios on September 5, 2024 in Nashville.Tibrina Hobson/Getty

Tibrina Hobson/Getty

Ashton may not be sonically zigzagging, but her path to rising country star wasn’t quite linear, either.

“My mom is as southern as they come. I remember my pawpaw, even if he was wearing his teeth, you couldn’t understand what he was saying. And then my dad’s whole side of the family are just hillbillies, long-bearded, motorcycle, gun-owning hillbillies — not southern, not redneck. Hillbillies,” she says earnestly. “And so my mom sang country and my sister sang country, and that was the main genre that was played in our house. It was never a question of what I wanted to do.”

Kassi Ashton performs during CMA Fest 2024 on June 8, 2024 in Nashville.Mickey Bernal/Getty

Mickey Bernal/Getty

One of the songs off Ashton’s new album in particular is titled “Son of a Gun,” and it essentially serves as her own origin story.

“My mom was a UPS driver and my dad was delivering meat at a bar and they were hitting on each other. My mom was like, ‘Oh, I know where you live. You’re that [one] with the gate, a million miles from his house, and I can’t get the packages up.’ Not a fancy gate, like a cattle gate. And my dad was like, ‘You don’t know where I live.’ So my mom raced him and my dad took the long way around, and my mom was waiting at the gate when he got there,” Ashton says of how her parents first met.

“[They] were only together for three years, so the inspiration of that song was even if two things weren’t meant to be together, I’m a product of that anyway, so we’ll see,” she surmises, before quoting a lyric from the tune.

Kassi Ashton attends the ACM Awards at Omni Frisco Hotel at The Star on May 16, 2024 in Frisco, Texas (in an outfit she handmade!).Jason Kempin/Getty

Jason Kempin/Getty

All this is to say, Ashton, a thyroid cancer survivor who rides a Harley Davidson named Lilith and has toured with the likes ofMaren Morris, is the real deal, and she hopesMade from the Dirtconveys her authenticity.

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“I’m a real person and I’m down to earth and I’ve had my struggles and I can sing my ass off!” she says with a laugh. “I hope they get that at the end, and I hope that they kind of fantasize about riding a motorcycle when they get done.”

Made from the Dirtis out everywhere now.

source: people.com