This interview is part of our series featuring musicians touring with Wanderlust Festivals for the 2017 season. Check out Ashley at a 2017 event as early as February! For more information about Wanderlust O’ahu, please click here. We can’t wait to see you there!
Ashley Lilinoe, a 22-year-old singer/songwriter hailing from Hawaii, creates soulful, healing music written from the heart. Her music has been self-described as “acoustic neo-soul meets jazzy R&B flowing with a bluesy reggae,” and her songs are a journey in themselves, exploring what it means to love yourself and the earth around you. Ashley speaks about loving our Mother Earth, acknowledging our most basic, innate truths and caring for one another. Sound familiar, yogis? We had the pleasure of chatting with Ashley.x
WL (Wanderlust): How did you first come to music? Was music an integral part of your childhood?
AL (Ashley Lilinoe): I grew up with family all around. We lived on a lane next to each other so there were constant gatherings all the time. I’d watch my elders sing their old time Hawaiian favorites. Eventually I got my first ukulele when I was about six years old. I’d go into my room to practice what I saw on the ukulele—just to perform for the next night of drinking and jamming.
WL: What inspires you to write and sing?
AL: Traveling to the depths of this human experience, adventuring through the darkest sea, taking the clearest path: It is truly a miracle to just… feel. Really, the groove I play before I speak is what sets in the foundation for the words to birth themselves into musical reality.
WL: How does nature play into your compositions?
AL: I am in Love with our sweet mother—I am here to serve this place in which we exist upon. To live equally in harmony with all beings that inhabit this beautiful planet. My dream is the garden, which is the natural state of the Earth. We are returning, as we return to ourselves. Self love is the purpose and passion of my beingness. It is the only way to reconnect with the heaven that life has always been and will always be.
WL: What does a typical day look like for you? Are there any practices or rituals that you do daily?
AL: Greeting myself into my body. Water. Kitty stretches. Fruits and vegetables. Some form of play. Grounding with the Earth. Sh*ts-n-giggles. The rest will follow.
WL: What projects are you working on right now?
AL: My adventure is ever-flowing with friends and life from all around—I travel to play. I travel to fall in love with everything. I am currently in Canada with my tribe, developing my artistry within the realm of embodying the shapeshifter through movement, storytelling and being the clown we truly all are. I am also in the preproduction stage of working with a team in Japan to release the music that has been marinating for years. I have been creating this musical medicine from within that heals me, before I dose the world.
Catch Ashley and other luminaries at a Wanderlust event in 2017!
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Jillian Billard is a poet, yoga teacher, cellist and avid wanderer. A native New Yorker, she is often caught daydreaming of sprawling green fields and mountains. She trained and received her ashtanga yoga teacher’s certification in Goa, India and works at Laughing Lotus Yoga Center in Brooklyn. You can often find her with her head buried in a book, doused in lavender. Follow her on her (very newly developed) Instagram page for class schedules and updates at @jillboyoga.