Ash Tuesday channels nostalgia in album ‘Aught!’

Ashlynn Kilcrease — better known by her stage name, Ash Tuesday — describes her music as pop alternative and “rock that should be on the radio.”

The 26-year-old Macon native creates the kind of music you might jam to through wired headphones while daydreaming in your childhood bedroom. 

She describes her sound as reminiscent — “in the sense that you’ve been here before.”

Kilcrease grew up surrounded by music. Her maternal grandparents were professional musicians who played in a band. Her grandfather, Tony Dorsey, played with Paul McCartney in his band Wings. 

“I grew up thinking most people could sing,” she said. “It just never clicked that singing or even making up songs was not what people do all the time.”

Kilcrease didn’t come to appreciate Macon’s music history — its ties to Otis Redding, Little Richard and The Allman Brothers Band — until she was older. 

“That stuff you don’t appreciate growing up, but of course, you learn to get a better grasp and understanding of how much that matters,” she said. 

Kilcrease made music as a hobby growing up, but because of her family’s musical background, she didn’t view singing as a special talent. She posted her music on Tumblr and got her first guitar when she was 16, but she jokes she “sucked” at playing until now. 

She didn’t begin seriously considering a career in music until she attended the University of Georgia, where she majored in entertainment and media. 

Leanne Villanueva, a fellow UGA student, collaborated with Kilcrease on a project for Villanueva’s music business class. The project came to a halt during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Kilcrease wanted to continue making music and recruited Villanueva as her manager.  

Kilcrease said she felt inspired by indie-rock musician Phoebe Bridgers, who she described as a “trailblazer for girls with guitars.”

Though some notable “girls with guitars” have dominated the music scene in the past, she noted every rock star seemed to be a man in the 2010s. Kilcrease finally had a female artist she could relate to when Bridgers hit the scene.

Kilcrease created a stage persona in Ash Tuesday, an exaggerated version of herself that pays homage to the spiritual energy in many of her songs.

She said she feels nervous to talk in front of people, but she has never been scared to sing and “something about being behind a guitar helps a lot.”

Kilcrease released her first full-length album “Aught!” on Aug. 22. The name is a reference to the early 2000s, a “formative” and “vivid” era in her life. “Aught!” also references the number “0,” which she said is symbolic of the cyclical nature of things coming back around.  

The 12-song record may be new to listeners, but it’s really a collection of songs written between 2022-24, except the “Aught!” title track, which she wrote in June to tie all the songs together. 

“That’s not me anymore,” Kilcrease said of the songs on her album. 

“Aught!” represents an introspective time for her, she said, noting that her sound has matured since. Her current writing is less based on her own emotions and more written in third person. 

Although “Aught!” is a culmination of songs written over several years, she recorded the whole album in just four months.

With her first album out and in listeners’ ears, Kilcrease said she wants to finalize her ideas for a second album by the end of the year.

She’s not looking for any “big and brash” inspiration or formative life change to inspire her next record.

“I feel like there’s always a spectacle in songwriting or you need to go through this big event,” she said. “And nothing is happening ever.” 

She hopes to someday tour with New Jersey-based rock band, “The Front Bottoms,” which make music from the “mundane” and the “suburban.” 

Romanticizing the ordinary and allowing the music to sound “kind of bad,” Kilcrease said, is “part of the art.”