Ash Lune is unafraid to wear her heart on her sleeve as she shares angelic ballads for an anxiety riddled generation. From her breakout debut single ‘Panic at the Party’ to her most recent ‘Before’, Ash Lune is steadily building up to her debut EP, ‘Broken Science Experiments’, a release we are extremely excited for.
The Mumbai born, Brisbane based artist’s music is timeless, stretching decades as she blends her life experiences with the sounds of an old soul. Her heartfelt balladry would have anyone believe that she’s been doing this for years. In a way though, she has. Always knowing that she was put on this earth to sing, as she grew up she began to really tune in. In the early-2000’s, she would explore the internet with her older brother searching for music. After avidly listening and learning, she is now forming the kind of artistry she once looked up to as a kid.
Becoming a leading voice in the next generation of young songwriters, we couldn't be more excited for the release of her debut EP, ‘Broken Science Experiments’.
So, your whole family are musicians too?
Yeah, they are! My dad is an accountant and a real estate agent, my brother is a food writer in Dubai, but we all grew up really loving music. Not everyone played an instrument in the beginning, it was just my twin sister and I. She played the guitar and I started playing a little bit of classical piano. We all really love music. I know growing up my brother was so passionate about music, more than anything else on the planet... and I really looked up to him as my role model, so if he liked music, I liked music... if he liked a particular movie, I liked that movie. I really got into music because of him. He’s seven years older than me, so a ten-year-old would try to sneak into a seventeen-year-old’s bedroom with his friends. Just to make his friends laugh I would talk smack like the crazy little sister. He would always tell me to get out, and I would just sit there. Him and his friends would be discovering new music, I would just sit there and listen to what everyone enjoyed. They would talk about how they liked how an artist did this, or if they were too cliché, I would just sit there and soak it all up.
Do you have a really distinct musical memory from when you were younger?
Definitely, I have two! The only award I've ever got in my life was for music, I was in the second grade at my school’s talent show thing... It was on the same day that my family were leaving for a vacation in Dubai, and I almost didn’t even attend because we were leaving. I was so sad. I ended up coming second, I was so happy I ran up to the stage, I'm pretty sure I fell over! I snatched the award and hugged it so tight, and my brother was yelling “come on our plane will leave!” so I ran off stage, and got into the car headed to the airport. I carried my award on the plane all the way to Dubai. Another would be when my brothers’ friends were watching a music video of a woman singing, I thought it was such a beautiful song, I wished I could write like that... and that song was ‘Video Games’ by Lana Del Rey. I was staring at the computer wishing I was her. I got some of the lyrics from that song tattooed, it was the first time I thought “I want to do that”. I can't even remember what I had for breakfast, but I remember that so clearly.
How did it feel once ‘Panic At The Party’ started getting traction?
I’ll be honest, on the first day I thought I was going nowhere... I kind of forgot I had to wait at least a week before I would see anything. I am quite shocked at how good it’s doing, even just the fact that it is still playing on BBC Radio 1. I think the most awesome part about that is that it’s not just being played over there, Jack Saunders also talks about it! He talks about it in the most beautiful and passionate way every time he plays it. I’m not always awake when it plays, so I’m always asking my manager to record it and send it to me. I was on the biggest Apple playlist, and I only found out after my friend told me! This might sound cringe, but I google myself every day just to see where else it is being noticed.
Congrats on the release of ‘Before’ - How are you feeling now that it’s out?
Very relieved honestly, it was super difficult to do this one. It was already finished and it was supposed to be super acoustic... but we had to build it up more. Originally, ‘Before’ wasn’t going to be the second single, it was going to be a song called ‘Sleepwalk’ but everyone was telling me how great it was, and they were wondering why it wasn’t going to be a single. So, I had to go back to a song that I had written months ago, and look at it with a whole new perspective. We were working on it and couldn’t get it right, then one day I woke up and wanted electric guitars, and that worked out great.
That’s crazy you re-visited it - what kind of song was it to write? Did it come about quickly? Or was it written over a few weeks?
I went into the studio very stressed out that day because I was still doing finals, and it was about a week until I had to submit my thesis, and I had to go to work the same night. I walked into the studio telling my manager that I wasn’t going to write a song today... I’m just going to do what I want. I wrote just the first verse and the hook, and I went home after that. It turned out my manager loved it so much, they said I needed to write a second verse because they loved it so much. It’s turned out to be one of the most beautiful songs on the EP.
And you’ve announced your forthcoming EP, Broken Science Experiments!
I’m super excited for it, but also very nervous. The name came from an inside joke I was having panic attacks while writing it all, and I had this image in my head of a kid walking to a neighbour with a broken science project, sobbing and asking if they could fix it... and that’s exactly what it felt like. When management and I talked about it we laughed at the image of a child holding this broken science experiment. The songs were all fixer-uppers.
Tell me about the process of finding your sound?
I actually had such a different sound before I had management, I was trying to adhere to what I thought audiences wanted opposed to what I wanted. Management made me really comfortable with who I was. Developing my sound was difficult at the time, the first little EP I made for them was very pop, it could get lost in the sea of pop music. It all started with ‘Panic At The Party’ and the response was so good, from there I wrote every song right after one another.
Do you have any mantras?
Don’t think, just work! It seems to work for me.