Ashe Takes Us Backstage Ahead of her ‘Trilogy’ Tour

When singer-songwriter Ashe stepped into the studio with Suki Waterhouse after a months-long hiatus from music and the spotlight, she wasn’t expecting to begin the process of her third studio album — but that’s exactly what happened.

“Suki Waterhouse came to Nashville to play Bonnaroo in 2023 and she asked me to write, and I said I really didn’t want to do it,” Ashe, 31, told Us Weekly while promoting her upcoming The Trilogy Tour. “But I told her, ‘I love you, and I think if you put your bar really low then we’ll have a good time.’”

Noting that she was struggling with insecurity and a lack of confidence after canceling her 2023 world tour for mental health reasons, Ashe told Us that the session with Waterhouse, 32, helped to reignite her love for her craft.

“I got there and the spark was lit again. I was like, ‘Oh man, not only does this bring me so much joy, but I’m good at this,’” she said. “I had that feeling that I’m really meant to make music for the longest time.”

Flash forward one year and Willson — the final part of the musical trilogy that spells out the singer’s full name, preceded by Ashlyn (her debut, released in 2021) and Rae (2022) — is out for the world to hear, released by Ashe independently. Her collaboration with Waterhouse, the fruit of the magical songwriting session they shared last summer, “Pushing Daisies,” is also available.

Waterhouse is the latest in a line of successful collaborations for the Nashville-based singer-songwriter, including “Moral of the Story” with Niall Horan and “Till Forever Falls Apart” with Finneas. Ashe says the magic of these partnerships is “love and respect” — and it helps to build on a foundation of friendship, which was the case with both Waterhouse and Finneas.

As Ashe gets ready to hit the road once again — headlining for the first time since 2022 — she told Us she’s feeling “very hopeful and excited.”

“I’ve done so much therapy and work and put so much energy and time into becoming a healthy person so that I could do this again. So I’m really, really excited,” she said. “I’m just so grateful that there’s this audience that’s still stuck around and some new fans who are like, ‘Oh, let’s see what this is about.’”

Before taking the stage for The Trilogy Tour, which kicks off in Atlanta in May 2025, Ashe took Us backstage, sharing exclusive details about life on tour:

Pre-Show Ritual

At some point, I did this thing where I’d stand on my head, get all the blood to the top of my head for, like, a minute. And then somewhere along the line I stopped doing that, but I think I should bring that back on the next tour. It might be a little woo woo, but I kind of lost my ritual and I’m excited to start the tour and find them again.

I used to take a shot of tequila right before we went on stage, and now I’m like, “Let’s not do that anymore. Let’s go into this next tour as healthy as possible.”

Ideal Dressing Rooms Vibes

Some good Motown music. Not too loud, but a good vibe. I don’t like to be alone before I go on stage. I like to have my band with me and we all have pre-show handshakes before we go on stage. We each have our own secret handshake with each other.

[I don’t eat] much before a show, because you’re running around on stage for an hour and a half. I used to have pickles in the green room as my pre-show snack. Something about the vinegar is supposed to be good for your vocal cords — I don’t know why. I could be totally wrong but someone told me that at some point.

Craziest Tour Experience

There was one time when fans were running up to the bus after the show and shaking the bus. That was pretty crazy —it wasn’t mid-concert, but it was pretty nuts. We just let ‘em finish — kind of like a toddler getting their energy out — and then they chilled out and the bus driver was like, “We’ve got to go.”

The only other thing I can think of is multiple times I’ve forgotten my mic before I go on stage and the intro is about to be over. There’s a video somewhere of me running backstage and my tour manager running backstage and we’re trying to find the microphone and we can’t find it. Eventually we found it, the show had started and I’m like, “Hello Detroit,” or whatever city we were in, but I was fully in the green room — the song had started and I had to run from backstage.

But I’m excited to have some new fun tour stories coming up!

Favorite Song to Perform Live

“Running Out of Time” is pretty fun. I’ve only done it once, at the Brooklyn Bowl one night only album release show. It was so fun. It was song one and I ran onto the stage and I was whipping my hair around. I remember thinking, “You’re going at 120 [percent] right now and this is a marathon. You still have an hour and a half.” So I remember halfway through that song dialing it back. So I’m excited to get comfortable with that song.

But there’s just something so special about “Till Forever Falls Apart.” It’s a fan favorite. The whole room is just, kind of, screaming. My audio engineer on that last headline tour said the decibel that we hit as a crowd in the room was as loud as a jet plane taking off. I was like, “That’s pretty powerful. That’s cool.” A room full of voices, and these were no bigger than 1,500 people singing a song as loud as a jet plane.

Ideal Afterparty

If all my friends ever could be there — just all my people that I love so much — that’s an ideal afterparty. [Charli XCX’s] Brat is on in the background.

My ideal afterparty is a scenario where it’s the last show of the tour so I can go all out and yell over the loud music and have a drink in my hand. There’s such a level of elite athleticism you have to step into if you want to be healthy on tour. So my ideal afterparty would be at the very end, where I could just lose my voice and have some drinks with all my friends.

Maybe there’s Christmas decorations everywhere, for no reason. It’s not even Christmas time. I’m such a Christmas goblin. [Ashe’s cover of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is out now.]