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00:00You know when like the girls go out for dinner and we're just talking about the
00:06most graphic heinous shit of all time. Yeah or when like the waiter will come
00:11by and you'll be like talking about like fisting and you'll all of a sudden the
00:17audio level will go down like oh oh my god did the waiter just hear me say that?
00:30Hi I'm Nick and I'm joined by Ashniko for the latest in Enemies in Conversation series.
00:36How's it going today? Good how are you? Yeah good thank you. You've launched the new era
00:40with a banger of a new single Itty Bitty. Why was that the right one to start the era with?
00:46I feel like it was the most statement of the new songs and I feel like it was a really good
00:55bridge between the old music and the new music. As you said yeah it's like a new era. I feel like
01:03my last album was quite dark and brooding and a little bit like fantastical and this is more
01:12rooted in human realm but there's some there's some there's some mythological elements in there
01:19and I felt like Itty Bitty was yeah the perfect bridge. What is the statement that you're making
01:24with the song? Itty Bitty is about the mysterious, nebulous, exciting space that comes after a
01:37breakup. It's about like the erotic possibility of what could happen on a night out with your friends
01:44which I find very very exciting especially as we move into spring and summer and the sun comes out
01:53and the blossoms bloom. Yeah it's very sexy. It's about almost like adorning yourself with your
02:05your fuck me outfit and like the power of that like the Itty Bitty skirt. I feel like for me the most
02:13powerful I've ever felt is when I'm wearing a little Itty Bitty skirt and I'm like getting ready with my
02:19friends and I'm about to go out it feels like it feels like more than just an outfit it's not I feel
02:26like fashion is such an important part of my own sense of self and my expression gender and the Itty
02:35Bitty skirt is is the the foundation of that for me right now. I feel like I'm always moving in and out
02:42of different styles but right now it's the Itty Bitty skirt. Can it feel like armor for you sometimes
02:49Clay though? Definitely. I think that accessories and pieces of clothing can be almost like amulets
02:58um like me wearing my fuck me outfit is like worshipping at the altar of my own eroticism.
03:06And I guess in this in a kind of similar kind of way before you go on stage wearing a stage outfit
03:11is going to help you get into that mindset. Oh my god completely. When I feel sexy and confident in
03:17myself I feel like the show is just 10 times better. How is um the new music shaping up in this
03:23era? Obviously it's the first track and I think there's probably still a way to go but how does it
03:28feel different to weed color? I think that a lot of my music in the past was very very fantastical as I
03:35said before and it felt like I was kind of stepping into this character this stage persona
03:42and now I feel like frontal lobe fully developed. I kind of am my stage persona
03:51so the music itself is reflecting that it feels a lot more autobiographical. I think that this music
03:58reads more as like diary entries. It reads more as like conversations with friends
04:05you know when like the girls go out for for dinner and we're just talking about the most graphic
04:13heinous shit of all time. Like the other night I went out with my girls and we were just
04:20talking about anal for like an hour but like eating the most gorgeous meal um it kind of it's kind of that
04:28conversation with your girls. Do you have those conversations with your girls? I have had those
04:35conversations and yeah it's kind of wild what can come out after a couple of drinks. It's important
04:39it's really important I think it's really important for my mental health to have a really graphic
04:44conversation in public with my friends yeah. At a kind of um an audio level that not everyone can hear
04:51yeah oh no no honestly sometimes my audio level is for everybody um yeah or when like the waiter
05:00will come by and you'll be like talking about like fisting and you'll all of a sudden the audio
05:06level will go down you'll be like oh oh my god did the waiter just hear me say that um yeah just for
05:13example we weren't talking about that. Probably be the waiter's favorite table that night after hearing
05:18I hope so I hope so yeah good conversation piece. Is it exciting to be putting out music that feels
05:24more autobiographical or is that nerve-wracking as well because you are sharing more of yourself?
05:30I feel like every time I'm moving into campaign I mean yeah putting yourself out there is always
05:35really daunting and it's like painting a target on your back um and there's always like a little bit of
05:43a moment where I have to brace myself and just expect the worst yeah I mean like taking something
05:51that is extremely personal and then kind of moving it into a place of being consumed by other people
05:59and the meaning of it being not misconstrued because I think the beautiful thing about music is that
06:06people can attach their own meanings to it but sometimes I don't love the meanings that they attach to
06:11it those are not the meanings I have attached to them but yeah I think that that is just something
06:17that I have accepted and submitted to um but yeah it's really daunting especially when the stories are
06:26more autobiographical. I guess that's the thing as soon as you share music with the world it's no
06:30longer just yours it's kind of everyone's. Yeah and I think that's so beautiful like my favorite music
06:36soundtracked eras of my life really important moments for me growing up um really formative years
06:44and yeah I can look back at my life and kind of track the history of my growth through what I was
06:51listening to at the time so I think it's really beautiful and I feel like super honored that I get
06:56to do that for other people um and I hope that this music can soundtrack some very important moments
07:02in people's lives. Is there any kind of formative music from your youth that you've gone back to
07:07recently as kind of inspiration for for what you're doing now? All the time I mean I feel like my music
07:16is massively inspired by the very powerful women that I grew up listening to um because for me at the time I was
07:28like these women are so unapologetic and like portraying a certain like sexual liberation and autonomy that
07:39I was not familiar with where I grew up um and so yeah they're like massive icons for me in my life and
07:49I'm always going back and listening to like Gwen and N.Y.A. and Missy and Nicki Minaj and Bjork just yeah
07:58Gaga like it's it's a constant rotation of icons I feel like when you're younger pop stars can almost
08:06seem like superheroes oh my god absolutely Spice Girls to me that was like yeah my marvel universe in a way
08:13yeah no completely yeah like I I've said this before that I didn't start listening to
08:20any male musicians until I was in my late late teens I was just like I I think I really at the
08:28time if I were to go back and like psychoanalyze I just really needed these like older sister role
08:33models um and that's what they were to me yeah they were my they were my superheroes for sure yeah and
08:41the amazing thing about sort of a lot of female artists especially in the pop round is they can
08:45show kind of strength and femininity at the same time yeah these things go hand in hand which is
08:50yeah exactly important to see I think yeah I think that it's important to see that a human can be
08:57incredibly multifaceted and can play around with femininity and masculinity and that is all
09:05encompassed in the same person um and I think that's something that I portray in my music and hope to
09:11hope comes across is your songwriting process any different this time around are you someone who
09:18goes into a session with a lot of ideas already like voice notes or lyrics or do you prefer to be
09:22totally spot you don't like to be totally spontaneous and see what happens I mean sometimes lightning
09:26strikes and something beautiful just comes out of thin air but I definitely I go into the studio with
09:34like most of the time I know what the song title is and then I wear it backwards um yeah I make just
09:42copious amounts of notes all the time constantly all right so when I am in the studio I have just
09:49words so many words and little like fragments of poetry just things that I'm enjoying I also like
09:56looking at mood boards when I'm writing so I'll look through my album mood boards and just write the
10:02things I see and then kind of incorporate it into the lyrics but yeah I think my sound writing process
10:08has become way more immersive I'm like doing like little writing exercises in the studio almost like
10:16I'm in a creative writing class um I do like what's it called what's it called when you have like a word
10:25and then you like word association or something yeah yeah I do a lot of word association in the studio
10:31and that really helps but yeah I'm trying to I'm trying to incorporate new little little games for
10:36myself at this point you prefer to with collaborators that you you know well or are you still open to
10:41working with new people because I always find that interesting that artists kind of sometimes going
10:45to a room with someone they barely know and then have to kind of spell out something really personal
10:49yeah I find that really hard because I think that making music is so personal and writing music is
11:00very intimate like you have to have chemistry with someone like a creative chemistry with someone to
11:09write good music I mean some people are capable of writing good music with people they don't know
11:14but that is not a social skill that I possess at all I feel like I have to really know someone like I
11:21have to know that someone would actually be a friend before I can really open up to them um my main
11:27collaborator slinger I've been working with since I was 18 and it took us like two years to write a good
11:33song wow so yeah we really we've like we have like a almost psychic creative relationship um but yeah
11:45that's my like my longest running collaborator but I am super open to working with new people if it's
11:51right um I yeah I work with I work with songwriters some really good friends of mine I love how music is
12:00collaborative I think that's the most beautiful part about writing music is that it's collaborative
12:05I'm super lyrical so no one touches my lyrics um but yeah I love just like being in a room telling
12:14the story to someone and bouncing out bouncing ideas off each other you mentioned mood boards is there a
12:20mood board for this era and can you share what's on it yeah I've been mood boarding for about two years on
12:25this project um but now we're really we're really digging in and we're yeah we're like moving into
12:31doing all the visual world and shooting the album cover and everything um but yeah so on the mood board
12:40we have like archival Vivian Westwood and Dior Jean-Paul Gaultier we have like fruits magazine Japanese
12:48street style we have anime we have trinkets we have um like dream core and like surrealist painters and
13:01it's just an amalgamation of everything that appears in my in my dreams it sounds like fashion is a huge
13:10part of what this era will be which is what you were saying earlier with itty bitty definitely I think
13:15that now that the music exists more in the human realm I think there's more of a space for fashion
13:21to play a role you're obviously in London today but for a good chunk of February and March you were on
13:25tour in Australia uh with Billie Eilish what was that experience like I love Australia we had such a good
13:33time we were like having the best time ever just climbing waterfalls and going on hikes and eating good
13:42food and playing these shows and yeah it was incredible I mean so Billie plays four shows in
13:49each city so it was the chillest dreamiest support tour of all time and Billie was so kind and her team
13:58was so nice and the fans were so welcoming it was just like I've done support tours in the past that were
14:04kind of a nightmare and this was this was like from heaven it was so good we had such a good time
14:11why can they be a nightmare I feel like for me it's just like a like a lack of control
14:18you know it's not your stage it's not your fandom you know there's a I have I mean I'm like
14:24yeah I have OCD so I love to be in control of everything but it was it was great I loved it
14:31with the support that you maybe have seven eight songs to kind of make an impact is that kind of
14:34stressful as an artist that you can't do yeah I mean you're you're going in front of people who
14:38most of them don't know you and you're trying to win them over a little bit so there there is that
14:45element which can be quite daunting but they were so sweet her fans are so lovely um yeah everyone was
14:53so silly and nice um so it was it was an easy job what made this uh um a support slot you wanted to say
15:00yes to did you feel like yours and Billie's music kind of works well together did it feel like
15:04synchronicity in a way I mean Billie's like one of the most prolific artists of all time her and
15:11her songwriting is so inspiring I was yeah I was watching her show like night after night being like
15:19how did she think of this this is so incredible and so emotive like crying listening to the greatest
15:26and like she's she's just so good yeah it was so inspiring especially like me moving into finishing
15:32this album it was it was really massively inspiring to be a running artist like that were you able to
15:38kind of do any writing while you're on tour or is it two different head spaces I have to be yeah I
15:44have to be in a specific mindset to write I feel like when I write I have to do a day after day after
15:50day like a like a nine to five um and I have to be very comfortable and in my specific environment
15:58of home comforts um so yeah it's hard for me to get into the space where I can write on tour
16:03maybe one day I know some people like write on the tour bus but I've never done that that seems to me
16:08would be I mean all the stuff going on the tour bus trying to then think of ideas that sounds quite
16:11hellish I feel like I yeah for me like getting ready for stage is it's a it's an hours long process
16:20so I don't have an incredible amount of time on tour for writing um that's my like that's my my um
16:28data collection that's when I'm like collecting little pieces of inspiration and being a wild and
16:35crazy girl so that I can write about it when I get off tour what do you like to do when you get off
16:39stage like what do you want to do with all the adrenaline that you've probably got pumping at that
16:43point I feel like I probably should do healthier things like meditate and take a nap and sit in
16:50darkness or something but I think I just like mostly on this tour I was really obsessed with those
16:56they're like little dairy milk caramel koalas and I would come off stage and just like eat loads of
17:02chocolate and just debrief debrief with my girls um but yeah I like to be calm I'm not really I'm not
17:12really a party girl um after after show I like to decompress and like sometimes take my dog for a
17:20walk and just watch tv and like take a bath um but yeah pretty boring run-of-the-mill just like
17:29nighttime routine were you able to take your dog to Australia oh no not on this tour yeah but usually
17:35she comes with me she comes on the tour bus because she loves tour she loves having that much access to
17:41attention she'll like run like in the morning she'll wake everyone up she'll run down the bus
17:46and wake up everyone at dog height and they all go like she'll like jump in their beds with them
17:52and lick them on the face yeah she's an angel and she loves the tour bus she's like so sad after tour
17:59she's sadder than anyone else on tour she has the worst tour blues so like we'll go home and it's just
18:04meeting her and she's like what the fuck is this she's sad for days she almost kind of wants to
18:10live on a big commune or something she loves it she loves other people I am not enough for her
18:14she needs more people I feel bad I need to get like four more dogs and be in like a six-person
18:21polycule for her to like fully be content I think yeah we need to like move towards communal living
18:28for my dog to be happy you have um some live shows booked for the summer including Brighton Pride
18:34why was that one you wanted to do um it's Brighton Pride have you been as a punter in the past yeah
18:42yeah I've like had some wild wild times at Brighton Pride um yeah it's just I just gotta do it it's so
18:51iconic I'm so excited Mariah Carey what the fuck yeah the lineup is actually incredible this year I know I've had
18:58so many friends texting me be like so babe we're all going you're giving me guest list it's happening
19:06so we've got like a whole crew a whole crew of girls are going will you be able to enjoy Mariah's
19:10performance absolutely I will definitely be able to enjoy Miss Mariah's performance that's like I'm
19:18so excited I'm more excited about her performance than mine I don't even know what we're doing I think
19:24we're gonna we're gonna bring some theatrics but yeah for me it's like Mariah's show at this point um
19:30in your career like how do you see your purpose as a musician has it changed a lot since you
19:35sort of came out nine years ago oh god nine years ago jesus christ um my purpose hmm yeah I mean I take
19:47it way less seriously now I think before like everything I was doing every interview I was doing
19:54like every shoot I was doing every song I was putting out was like a make or break for me it was
20:00so stressful I was like sick with stress for years um especially when I first came out and I now I'm just
20:10like you know it's not brain surgery I'm just like doing a job that is inherently joyful um and is meant to
20:22create community and bring people together um like live music is the most like singular beautiful space
20:31where it's like our oldest tradition we're like singing together like we're singing the same lyrics
20:39together in community with strangers but then connecting with them through song like oh my god
20:45that's like our most like ancient human ritual is so beautiful and so yeah I'm so grateful that I get
20:54to do that I think that the job is just that's the purpose of it and I'm just so grateful that I have
21:01people who who are excited to listen to my music um and who are eagerly awaiting new music um but yeah my
21:11purpose yeah I've just been on a journey of of finding what it all means to me I think because sometimes
21:17as I get older my personal ethics kind of go against um my career um like being in the public eye is not
21:28super normal or good for you um so for me it's about finding a comfortable and safe space for for
21:37me to feel comfortable continuing this job and um yeah I think it is about being joyful and creating
21:45community that's the most important part for me how did you get to a point where putting out each
21:50track or each interview wasn't make or break was it just a matter of kind of practice or did you
21:55also kind of a moment hang on I don't need to be tearing myself up over everything at this point
22:01well yeah to be fair it wasn't it didn't start with me tearing myself up it was it was like me
22:08putting stuff out and just being like ripped to shreds by fucking like incel demons and uh just
22:17little like gremlins on the internet so yeah but then I realized that we have this
22:24societal disease where we kind of revel in um destroying femme artists it's just like an obsession
22:36with ripping them to shreds um and so I'm a lot more chill about it now I'm like okay like I'm just
22:44gonna get shit regardless and so do the other girls not that I want them to get that as well but I'm like
22:52this isn't only happening to me so it's fine I'm just really doesn't mean anything to me anymore I
22:58think people go online and they become like a shadow self they and they live these like
23:07dual lives there's like a real cognitive dissonance between their real life and like
23:13how like their beliefs online through the anonymity of social media um and so I just don't take it seriously
23:22anymore like at all I think people go online to feel some sort of they go and they write horrible
23:29shit online to feel some sort of semblance of control over their lives in a world that does not
23:36really allow you to have that much control um and so I get it so I'm just like you know good luck on
23:44your journey to self-love and uh I'm gonna keep making music and being a fucking diva so
23:50y'all have fun why do you think they heap all that negativity on an artist like you is it because
23:55you project a certain confidence do you think I think that once uh once you stop performing for
24:03the male gaze they take that as a they take that as a personal attack like how dare you
24:11take away your fuckability from me like I'm I know that I'm a little like creature I'm a little like
24:21freak online and in my daily life and on stage and I think I've taken away some of my fuckability
24:29and my um palatability is that the word what's another word for that yeah I've I've taken away
24:37a little bit of my my fuckability and it is yeah it's a it's an attack maybe by taking away that
24:46palatability to some people you've increased it for others though the people you want to
24:49yeah yeah exactly I feel like it's important to experience the full range of human grotesqueness
25:01um and I like being a little ugly creature and I also like being a little sexy diva and um yeah
25:10there's a whole spectrum in between there that I would like to experience and play around with my
25:16gender and experience it all I think that I would like yeah the fullness of the human experience is
25:24something that I am seeking I feel like a certain type of internet grammar grammar will probably not
25:28be able to cope with itty bitty very well no no no no no I think uh I think that some people are
25:36having a hard time uh grasping it yeah at first I was like oh it makes me sad that some people are
25:44listening to this and thinking it's just like vapid like overly sexual music when in actuality for me
25:53it's like a really silly beautiful conversation between me and my friends and it's about like
25:59eroticism and the possibility of the unknown how exciting is it to go out and make out with a
26:07stranger in a bathroom and like wear your sexiest outfit and kind of adorn yourself in these trinkets
26:14and accessories um but you know however they want to perceive it they can because I know what it means
26:20to me what are your main aims for 2025 is there anything you really want to kind of get done
26:26I want to build an incredible live show um like get really theatrical with it I want to
26:37create gorgeous visual art to accompany my album I want to finish this album I want to put out this
26:45album yeah I just want to make art and create and also like make art in mediums that are just for me
26:52um I feel so creative right now I think making this music has kind of unlocked something in me feels
27:01really really abundant right now what do you think that is is it because the music's got a
27:06certain joy to it has that unlocked creativity I think so yeah I mean as I was saying before like
27:12I feel like a lot of I was overthinking so much of my career before um and everything was very
27:17make or break for me and now I just give way less of a fuck um so yeah I feel a lot more chill about it
27:26um not that I don't give a fuck about my career I'm like immensely grateful that I get to do it but I
27:32I give less of a fuck about people not liking it so great free absolutely well yeah thank you so much
27:39for the time thank you for having me thank you