Meet Ashlinn Gray

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashlinn Gray.

Ashlinn, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1997. I have three younger sisters and the most supportive parents. My love of acting started when I was around seven years old. I had my dreams set on it until my younger sister, Dayna, started singing lessons and I tagged along. I was about ten years old and absolutely horrible at singing, however really wanted to be as good as my natural born singer sister. I practiced every day and I would attend competitions but never do as well as I hoped. Eventually, all the hard work started paying off around 15 years old. Thats when I decided to make a career of it.

I started doing more singing in our church’s worship. My worship leader and I started writing songs together with the idea of creating a five track EP to release. The first song I wrote was called Battleships and it was the first single I decided to run with. February 15th, 2015, I released that song and it actually got pretty big in South Africa. It started playing on all the radio stations across the country and my career started blossoming.

I then started homeschooling for my last two years of high school in order to balance my career and education. At that point, I had visited America a few times and decided I would like to venture there as Pop music has a bigger market in the USA. South Africa is more dance music and urban music-driven. I worked on getting my Visa together, found a sponsor after that. I did a few three months visit to the states to solidify everything concerning the move and eventually did the big move to the States in September 2018. Now I’m in LA, running from studio sessions to writing sessions, making music and living my ten years old’s dream.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I decided to do all of my work independently, and that means learning everything yourself. I employed a publicist and had a producer. But that was the extent of my team. There was a lot of learning and mistakes but I actually enjoyed every second of it because I have come to appreciate all the work each job takes in order to put together a song and market it.

My mom took a managerial role when I started but we all know mixing family and business is difficult. Our relationship got shaky as the first two years went along until I decided it would be better for her to stop managing me because I wanted my mom back. We still work together but at a different level and our relationship has never been better.

I think the biggest struggle however was learning what my message would be. What my sound is. What my brand is. When you start out so young around 15/16 years old and start a business, it’s difficult to set on something because you’re growing everyday. Your understanding and perspective of the world changes all the time and we all know your brand can’t change every month. When I turned 20, I finally realized what I wanted my sound and brand to be. So it’s been five years of trial and error. But I think everyone goes through that phase when starting a business.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I became Ashlinn Gray seven years ago. My brand and sound is defined as ‘Left Pop’. My voice is unique and so is my songwriting. I like to write about around emotions and situations I find myself in or thinking about. I guess my music is about unapologetically being myself and reminding others to do the same. We are all trying to figure our shit out. I’m here to own it. Embrace it. Communicate it. Speak to it. We all can help each other figure life out but I’m not here to pay any mind to those who are gonna rain on my parade with their negativity fountain.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I’ve had a few but one that stands out is releasing my track STFU. It’s the closest I’ve come to making the music that is in my head and there’s nothing better than creating something you are so proud of.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ashlinngray.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ashlinngray
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ashlinngraymusic
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ashlinngray
• Other: https://fanlink.to/AshlinnGray

Image Credit:
All photographed images: Chad Brady, Mouth: Dayna McFarlane

Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.