If there’s one artist who unites old-school and young dance music fans alike, it’s Ashley Paul. Best known for her iconic ‘80s dance hit “When Boys Cry,” Ashley was born to be an industry icon, and to this day, she’s still making music.
Sitting down with her, we were eager to get the full story of how her most famous song came about. As she tells it, it all started in a mall in Hollywood when she was just six years old. She was singing with a local group of neighborhood kids when a theatre group discovered her. From there, she found herself touring the country with the Atlantic Foundation for the Performing Arts until, one day, she found disco.
Around then, she moved to New York to take her career to the next level, and that was when she met Joel Diamond. An iconic industry composer in his own right, Diamond immediately saw the talent in Ashley and brought her on to sing “When Boys Cry.” The rest, as they say, is history.
“It was one of those weird moments,” says Ashely, “when you meet somebody for the first time, and you think you know them forever.”
Looking back now, Ashley is quite humble about her younger self, saying she never knew how successful the song would be or what it would lead to. “What I knew was that I felt that singing the song was so natural to me. It wasn’t a song I had to rehearse or learn. It was innate.”
From there, she went on to write songs of her own. She describes herself as a self-taught songwriter – “not in the ballpark of Carly Simon, ” – but more of a “bubblegum” songwriter. She writes about love, and the heart, because she says, that’s a big part of her.
In recent years, she’s moved to a more freestyle kind of music, experimenting with new styles and sounds. Earlier this year, she released a fresh take on the club classic “Yo No Se,” along with a handful of remixes from various artists. The song brings an authentic Latin American influence to her music, and the many remixes only serve to show just how versatile a voice like Ashley Paul’s is.
Last but not least, we talked about Ashley’s upcoming projects. Right now, she’s working on two tracks, collaborating with Alex Forbes and Jeff Renzel. “Love Light Me Up”, the first of the two tracks will mix traditional instruments and house music. Citing Tom Jones as a significant influence on the song’s style, Ashley describes the track as a big band house.
“When I heard the dance track […] the first word that came into my mind was ‘illumination’. There were lights going off in front of me. Like, I felt like there was just an illumination inside of me… I mean that’s how moved I was.”
Aside from that, she says the other track she’s working on is a freestyle song called “Shine”. Co-written with Kariana, the music is planned for a release in the first week of January, giving us all something to be excited about in the new year.
To learn more about the career of Ashely Paul, check out the full, exclusive Nexus Radio Interview below.
