Even Rising Stars Need a Break: Ashley Cooke Talks Burnout

When Ashley Cooke sat down with Elaina Smith to co-host Backstage Country, she reminded us that even rising country stars have something in common with the rest of us mortals: burnout. Yes, even when you’re living the dream of singing your songs to a screaming crowd, exhaustion is still very real.

Cooke shared how she experienced burnout. “I experienced burnout hardcore just with a lot of stuff this last couple of years. Maybe that's what I feel. It's just not worth it if you don't feel something. But does it make you feel something and make you closer to yourself? It's like, what is the point of it?”  

She added, “I'm an extrovert to my core. I love people. And I think when I was on radio tour and touring, and just like focusing [on] the grind as a young artist, you're on the grind 24/7. I wasn't having as many conversations with people that made me feel fulfilled to my core. And I had to get back with my people, my friends, and also remove the artist's face for a second.”  

She explained, “I think a lot of us kind of put on our persona when it comes to rooms that you're in and talking to people and interviews and all this stuff. I think I just had to kind of rip all of that off and just be like, every conversation I enter into, whether it's a business conversation or not, you can find somebody and you can connect with somebody on a different level, even if you're talking about your recent single or whatever it is. I just kind of stopped looking for things that didn't feed my soul. That sounds so cheesy, but it's the truth.”  

Cooke revealed that her next album is going to be brutally honest. Smith asked her how she drew the line on something that’s a little too honest. She revealed, “My team has really encouraged me in this season to just rip the walls down and just not care. I feel like I've always been somebody who, I don't want to say it's like save face, but I've always been someone who, if I'm going through something, I don't want to like post it on social media because I'm like, ‘Okay, well who cares?’ You know, like, who's going to care about what I'm going through? Who's going [to] care?”  

She added, “But one thing I've learned from this era of creation is people won't relate to it if I don't. And so even like my team has been pushing me with songs that I've written that are very real situations that you'll hear very soon. They're like, just be honest. You don't have to tell the whole story behind it. You don't have to get into all of everything that went down and share names and all this stuff, but be honest, write what you feel, write what [you] know because somebody else is gonna have the person they relate to about that song too.”  

Ashley Cooke, co-hosting Backstage Country, wasn’t just about fun banter and behind-the-scenes stories. It was also a gentle and honest reminder that our favorite artists go through human experiences just like us.