Ashley Ryan’s ‘Bad for You’ Draws from Experience: ‘One Heartbreak Can Write 100 Songs’ (Exclusive)

Ashley Ryan called California home.

“There you could find me in my bedroom writing songs about the guy from high school who broke my heart, singing into my hairbrush in the mirror, pretending to be Carrie Underwood,” Ryan, 25, recalls to PEOPLE in recent interview. “I loved music. I loved singing. I loved performing.”

Despite this, love seemed to come true when Ryan’s life was rocked by the sudden death of her brother. “He passed away when I was about 7,” Ryan says quietly. “He died in his sleep of type one diabetes. Since then, writing has become a way to deal with pain.”

Ashley Ryan.

Libby Danforth

But Ryan didn’t even know that more pain was waiting for him.

“My father struggled with alcoholism and stuff, so I think there’s a correlation when it comes to my writing style,” says Ryan, who went viral last year with the powerful “Hush Little Baby,” which has racked up more than 12 million views. on TikTok and Facebook and over 2 million streams on Spotify alone. “I’m almost drawn to justice and the songs of women getting back at the men who neglected them in the sense of Miranda Lambert’s ‘Gunpower & Lead’ and Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats.’

And for the past seven years, she has dealt with that relentless pain that still lives in her heart in her home in Nashville. “I’ve had a lot of women from abusive relationships or just absent fathers tell me their story,” says Ryan, who first made music waves as a student at Belmont University when she was invited to perform with Keith Urban at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena back in 2014. 2018 . “And it’s just amazing to see how something I wrote for myself to heal from everything that hurt me can go and help other people.”

Take for example the anguished “Bad for You.”

“‘Bad for You’ is about a certain person who really broke my heart a few years ago,” Ryan says of her new single, premiering exclusively on PEOPLE, which she co-wrote with Larry McCoy and Neil Coty. “It really is true what they say. One broken heart can write a hundred poems.”

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Ashley Ryan’s Too Far Gone.

Libby Danforth

Ryan won’t mention any names when talking about the man who inspired “Bad for You,” but he can confirm that he had green eyes, the same color she sings about in the bridge of “Bad for You.”

“I’ll respect the person enough not to say who they are,” explains Ryan, who is also releasing her new EP, Gone too far on Friday. “But when songwriters experience heartbreak, they don’t go to therapy, because why pay for it? You just call your friends and write a song. It becomes a story based on the emotions of the time.”

But that emotion was so six months ago.

– When I’m sad, I don’t listen to sad music – says Ryan, who incidentally mentions that she is currently single. “I have to put out a rock song that’s just going to lift my spirits. And I hope ‘Bad for You’ is that kind of song for other people. It shows another side of me, which I really like people to see.”

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Source: HIS Education