Daniel MeigsAshley McBryde famously dubbed herself a “Girl Goin’ Nowhere” after a high school teacher predicted her musical dreams would never come true.

Now, with widespread acclaim and multiple awards to her credit — including the CMA New Artist of the Year trophy — the hard-working troubadour is learning to enjoy some of her success.

“I’m a little less afraid,” Ashley tells ABC Audio. “There’s just a lot of unknowns. And then you kind of eventually get to a point where you realize everything is unknown.”

“Nobody knows what’s going on, nobody’s exactly got it together. We don’t know where the elevator is,” she offers as an example. “And then you kind of go, ‘It’s fine if I don’t know what’s happening. No one else does either.’ And you can really roll with change a lot easier.”

The Arkansas native admits that was hard for her at first, having built a successful career as an independent artist all on her own.

“At first, you’ve got to think about someone who’s booking all their own shows, doing all of their own stuff, running their own sound and everything in the bars,” she explains. “And you’re giving up control of those things.”

“And it’s really uncomfortable for a little while,” she continues. “But then once you realize it’s okay to give up that control, that there are people that will have your back, then it gets a lot easier.”

“So I guess I am a little lighter,” she reflects.  

Ashley’s current single, “One Night Standards,” was just certified gold as it topped the country chart in Canada. The lead single from her sophomore album, Never Will, is on the verge of breaking into the top ten in the States.

By Stephen Hubbard
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