This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Ashley Cooke

When you think of Ashley Cooke, you probably think of her addictive country-pop bops and maybe that time you caught yourself humming “Never Til Now” for three days straight. But this week, she’s adding another title to her growing résumé: radio host. Ashley Cooke is Backstage Country’s Elaina Smith co-host for the whole week.  

Smith and Cooke discussed her latest single, “The Hell You Are,” and the twist at the end of the song. The singer-songwriter admitted it’s her favorite thing ever: “It’s fun because as my career has progressed, I've had a lot of people saying, ‘So do you love the flip of the hook the double entendre’ and I'm like, ‘I really do because I'm such a bookworm I love words.’ I love journaling. I think it's so cool and clever. I'm such a lyric freak, and when I get to do something like that, where people that listen to it, they go, ‘Oh my gosh. That's so clever!’ Nothing feels better to me.”  

She made it clear, though, that she’s not doing it “just for the sake of like gotcha.” Cooke reiterated, “I want it to still mean something, but songs like ‘Your Place’ and ‘The Hell You Are,’ they have a clever flip while also really being emotional and meaning something to me and being relatable to people that have been in these kinds of situations. So when I can do that in a song where I can be clever with the lyrics, but also hit the emotion where it doesn't feel like it has to be clever for you to get the song and feel the song, but on top of it, it's clever. It's a win-win for me.”  

Cooke shares that her first number-one hit, “Your Place,” not only helped her career, but it also taught her to trust her instincts, since her team wasn’t completely sold on the song in the beginning. “It allowed me to really listen to my inner voice and my inner sureness when it comes to music and what I want to release, and not just listening to the people around me, and they're an amazing team. I mean, they've chosen a lot of things that I said no to that have ended up being a great thing in my career because they pushed me to do it."

She added, “I love them. I value them. I trust them, for sure, but this is one of those experiences that taught me a valuable lesson about trusting myself and what I want to say as an artist. I mean, there are so many artists in this world that sing all different kinds of songs. And if you don't know what song is your song, what song you sing, and what something you want to say, then everybody else could sing your song. So what do I want [to] say? Who am I as an artist? And I think that that song really taught me what that means and who I am to my core as an artist and things that feel the most in line with what I wanna say and who [I] want to be. Being authentic is everything.”  

If you’re a fan of country music or just need a new radio obsession, tune in to Backstage Country and get the insider stories on everything about Ashley Cooke this week.