Ashley Hess

American Idol, well, before we get, because I do want to talk about American Idol.

Yeah.

You said a word just a minute ago that, It kind of struck me.

You said resorted to.

I resorted to music.

Now, maybe I'm reading too much into that word, but to me, maybe there's an emotional thing about music that you went back to and you said, I had to resort to this.

Can you expand on that a little bit?

I think...

I think it was hard for me to conceptualize what it would actually look like pursuing a career in music.

But that was something that was just always a part of my life.

Like I would always find myself at the piano growing up.

And then when my parents had me take piano lessons, I was like, no, I want to like do it.

I was like, I don't want to take piano lessons because I don't want to read music.

I could just hear what I wanted to play and figure it out, which was so interesting.

But I didn't realize that that was like a gift.

I just thought that was normal that everybody could do that.

And so I think...

Even like as a kid, like, have you guys ever seen Land Before Time? That's my age me.

The song at the end of that, I don't know what it was as a three-year-old, but I just was like,

it moved me.

I was like sobbing as like a three-year-old kid.

And I just have had like...

just this soft spot for music.

And I think most people do, because just in my experience, like music is able to break through barriers in ways that pretty much nothing else can in my experience.

And I think I just experienced that from a really young age and just had a draw to music and I would just get obsessed with songs.