Kassi Ashton is making her mark on country music, but before she had even put any music of her own out, she was featured on a song called “Drop Top” from Keith Urban’s 2018 album, Graffiti U. Keith personally asked Kassi to sing on the track, and it completely changed the future of her career. “For someone like that, who’s so talented in writing, singing and playing, to put his stamp on me and help introduce my name into the community and fans was amazing,” she told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY when we caught up with her during the CMA Music Festival. “It was like, ten thousand times better than a blue check mark on social media. Someone with an official seal of greatness said…I think this is good. That was amazing.”
Of course, Kassi has gotten to know Keith a bit since recording with him, and she confirmed that he’s one of the most “genuine people” she’s ever met. “He’s a huge female advocate, too, which is amazing,” she raved. “He is exactly the nice guy you think he is.” Next up, Kassi will get to work with another well-known country artist — she’s heading on tour with Maren Morris later this year! “I’m so pumped,” Kassi admitted. “I try not to think about it because I get too excited and I can’t even sleep.”
Maren has been bringing out a bunch of rising female artists as openers on her GIRL World Tour this year, as part of a movement to prove that women in country music are 100 percent supportive of each other, and Kassi is proud to be part of that. “We get to kind of break the rules and make new and better rules,” Kassi explained, of being a female in the industry at this time. “Back in the day, maybe the women were more successful numbers-wise, but they had more rules to follow. We’re in a wild west time and I feel like we can just do anything. Let’s just do whatever we want, market it however we want, say and sing whatever we want. We get to set the precedent for what’s to come.”
Of course, while all of these exciting things are happening, Kassi is hard at work on music of her own. Ahead of CMA Fest, she dropped a new song called “Field Party” on SoundCloud, and teased that the official release — along with a music video — is coming soon. Plus, she has plans for an album in the back of her mind, although there’s other elements of the process that she’s focusing on for right now.
“I’m an album person,” she told us. “I know people are moving away from that, but I still buy albums on iTunes and listen to them in the order the artist intended. I want to do a project like that — a whole body of work. But for now, I’m just doing song by song so fans can get layers of me and learn more. When the time is right, I’ll do the album.”
CMA Fest airs on Sunday Aug. 4 at 8:00 p.m. on ABC.