“Strength isn’t always about pushing. Sometimes, it’s giving yourself grace.”
Ashley Riley sees that through line as the takeaway from her new single, “Easy On Me,” written almost a year ago at her kitchen table in Decatur, Ill., on a typical Friday afternoon.
“There was a thunderstorm headed our way, and my husband was on the way home with a take-and-bake pizza,” says Riley, an indie-Americana fixture in the Midwest who’s shared stages with Kim Richey, Ellis Paul and Robbie Fulks. “I remember it so clearly because the song came through pretty quickly, and I felt a bit protective of it.”
Since then, “Easy On Me” has become like a personal lullaby for Riley, a reminder that the path to healing isn’t linear.
“I wanted to record it while I still had that mystical feeling about it, so I got to work laying down an acoustic guitar and vocal track in my home studio,” says Riley. “I spent a day recording the guitar and vocal and drove around listening to it in my car for a few days to really work out the layers and harmonies. After that, I sent the song to my longtime producer/collaborator, James Treichler. I also enlisted the guitar skills of my friend and former bandmate, Braun Sheets. I don’t remember the timeline, but that band became a casualty of the 2020 shutdowns. Since then, I’ve been playing solo acoustic—but I still love to have the full-band treatment on records.”
We’re proud to premiere Ashley Riley’s “Easy On Me.”
—Hobart Rowland
See Ashley Riley live.
