Ashton Shepherd in the raw

A conversation with the country songstress, who hits Red Bank on Friday

By Alex Biese

When the Writers in the Raw series returns to Red Bank's Count Basie Theatre on Friday (May 1), taking the stage for the intimate, acoustic evening will be a punk rock pioneer (David Johansen of the New York Dolls), an alt-rock bandleader (Rhett Miller of the Old 97's), a big name in DIY indie rock (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's Alec Ounsworth) and a rising country starlet, Ashton Shepherd.

And while the gaps between the performers' genres of choice may be wide, Shepherd said she is anticipating sharing the stage with her fellow songwriters on Friday night, when she'll bring her traditional country sounds to the stage of the Basie.

"I'm looking forward to everybody," the 22-year-old Alabama native said. "I think it's going to be awesome to get to see everybody (perform) in such a raw way, because I think so many artists nowadays lack the know-how or the talent to really just sit there and play acoustically, and I feel privileged that I have been chosen to show talent in that way, so I'm excited about that."

The married mother of a 3-year-old son, Shepherd released her debut album, "Sounds So Good," last year, and was met with rave reviews in publications such as The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. She recently spoke with Metromix Jersey Shore.

Your album has been out for a little over a year now. Has the feeling sunk in yet of having the record in stores and hearing your songs on the radio?

Yeah, I mean, somewhat it has, but then at the same time, it hasn't, because it's such a surreal thing. I mean, we live in a very small town, in Leroy, Alabama. I grew up in a family of six people in a little bitty house, country living and just simple things every day, riding dirt roads is one of the biggest outings we had; where I grew up there weren't red lights or anything.

So, you go from that, and even since my married life with my husband and my little boy, (it's) the same thing. They farm produce and I've even sold produce on the side of the road before, so I've done some of the most real-life stuff people could do, and so it makes it, I guess, even harder for it to sink in for me that this is actually happening for me.

Your album received a lot of critical acclaim. Do you think people were longing for a return to the traditional style of country that's on the record?

I do. I think it's one of those things where people have been without it because supposedly what's hits isn't country music, real country music, and it's kind of rammed down your throat, the same, orchestrated-type of country music, and they kind of push it down people's throats when, in fact, people out here where we live love country music, real country music. And, not knocking who's out there today, because I'm a big fan of everybody on the radio, but that type of country music, I think it's a sad thing for it not to exist, and I think the people are real hungry for it.

The title track of the album, "Sounds So Good," is a really good summertime tune. What is some of your favorite music to listen to in the summertime?

You know, gosh, we even cover this song from time to time, "Fishin' in the Dark" (by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is one of my favorite summer songs, (it's) about going fishing and we even cover that song at some of our shows. Another one of my favorite songs, it just sticks out, is David Lee Murphy, "Dust on the Bottle." I mean, I have so many favorite songs, but those are a couple of songs there that always remind me of summertime.

The first track on the album, "Takin' Off This Pain," starts with a great pair of lyrics that really help establish an identity and grab the listener. Can you tell me a bit about writing that song and those opening lyrics?

You know, that song actually, I sat down on my couch and I had come up with it; (I) just wanted to write a song, and I sat down and sang that line first. And sometimes, as silly as it sounds, that's how I write my songs. I can just be sitting there and it just will literally fall into my lap or come out of my mouth; I'm just coming up with it, out of thin air. Once I wrote the first line that you're talking about, "I've got a cold beer in my right hand, in my left I've got my wedding band," well, there wasn't no doubt where the song was going after that, to me, as a writer.

Everybody, I think, that is married, feels like they don't get enough attention sometimes. I think it's just a normal thing, and I think some people just people just feel like they have just had it, I'm tired of you watching the T.V. and not paying any attention to me, and so I just tried to put all that in there for a regular person out there that feels that way.

What's the songwriting process like for you and your brother-in-law (Adam Cunningham), who co-wrote some of the songs on the album?

Adam and I really haven't written together a ton, believe it or not. We're always talking about coming up with stuff together, and we're always coming up with ideas and bouncing them off of each other, and it just so happens that a few of the songs on the record were some of the ones that people liked the most (and) was stuff we had done together.

As a matter of fact, me and him right now are trying to make a point to make a scheduled time together to write, because look at what (has) come out of us writing. Like "How Big Are Angel Wings," we sat down, he had the idea, we sat down together and knew where we wanted to go, he knew exactly how he wanted it, he had some of the chorus written and we finished it together.

Like "Old Memory," he had this big storyline of how the song should go and he wasn't sure about a lot of things, and that's where me and him working together works great, because we sit down together and come up with something that maybe by ourselves we couldn't have come up with, so it's pretty cool.

One of the other standout tracks on the album, for me, is "I Ain't Dead Yet." Can you tell me a bit about that one?

Oh yeah, I wrote that song (and) that's as true as anything I've ever written in my life. I wrote that song when I was a stay-at-home mom and my husband worked construction and my little boy, gosh, he was probably 8 months old, sitting in his highchair and I was feeding him and he was eater Gerber puffs and I had my guitar there, I picked it up when I was sitting at the kitchen table.

I had been wanting to write a song that stated what I felt like about being a young mama that still likes go out and have fun sometimes and don't want to be ridiculed for it, because when you say "go out sometimes," sometimes means sometimes, it's not something you do all the time, it's a break you need every so often, and that's how that some came about. I wrote it from the first line, "I got a baby at home," to finish, never even knowing that I was going to use the hook "I ain't dead yet," and it just came as I wrote the song, if that makes sense.

Oh yeah, definitely. And how has being a mother affected your life on the road? Has it made it difficult, or do you bring the family on the road with you?

Using a Red Bank, NJ show for example, I fly there on a Friday and I fly home on a Saturday, in that case usually my husband flies with me and my baby's grandparents will keep him for a night or whatever. Like last week, we went out for two shows and my husband stayed home with my son and my brother-in-law, the one we just talked about writing with me, he's my bass player, so me and him make the drive to Nashville, and him being with me, I feel really safe, because I feel like he is my brother.

The alternative to that, and what we try to do the most, is when we have full band shows, two and three nights a week on the road, we just bring my little boy with me and he stays on the bus with us and sleeps in a little bunk and he's just one of the ones on the bus, like a little roadie. We try to bring him out as much as we can and even it out so that when I do have the times that I have a couple-days trip and he doesn't go, it's doesn't bother me nearly as bad, because I've tried to bring him out as much as I can.