By Jim Barber
Who knew Dina was a actually rock star? Well it’s true, sort of. One of the most beloved characters from the popular NBC sitcom, Superstore, ‘Dina’ is actually the super-talented, funny-as-hell, genuinely all-Canadian multifaceted creative artist Lauren Ash. And Ash has stepped out from behind her comedic persona to unleash her musical take on heartbreak and resiliency with her first ever album, Call Me When You Get This, which was released on Sept. 11.
The date was deliberate, not because it was the anniversary of the horrific terrorist attacks on 9/11 2001, but because exactly one year before, on Sept. 11, 2024, Ash’s life was shattered by an epic emotional sucker punch of a break up. Like any artist, one of the ways to process such an intense time, to lift oneself up and brush oneself is by using the creative drive and talents she has honed over two decades of stage and television performing. Already venturing down the path of exploring her musical side, it was actually pretty serendipitous, in the sense that the sudden dissolution of the relationship came when Ash was already flexing her songwriting muscles. The result is an album that is sometimes raw, sometimes raucous, heartfelt as well as harrowing, but innately infused with Ash’s unmistakably unique charm, personality and humour. It is a tour-de-force of honesty and authenticity and a bold statement by a singer/musician/songwriter who has found an exciting and fulfilling new path of expression.
With her background, pedigree and extensive experience as a comedic actor and improviser, there was a tiny bit of concern on Ash’s part that people may not take her music seriously, even though the subject matter is quite serious and the emotional journey she was on in the year-long lead up to the album’s release was pretty effin’ harrowing.
“It’s an interesting line to toe because it would have felt disingenuous of me to suddenly make all this very serious music. Like, that’s not who I am. I think that my fear with that also would be that people would think that it’s a joke or something. So, I think the big thing for me was trying to make sure it all felt as authentic as possible and having a mix of serious and funny bits, because that speaks to who I am as a person. I think there is a perception, especially when you work in comedy, that you’re funny all the time, and that your life is sunshine and rainbows and giggles. And it’s not. I think some of the saddest people I know are people who work in comedy. It’s just a reality. So, I think that was definitely a concern for me. I was also concerned about musicians thinking I was a fraud. I was concerned about the public thinking it was a ‘bit.’ I guess at the end of the day, I have to just do what feels the most right and hope that it translates and works. And, so far, it feels like it has been, which is a relief,” she said.
So let’s take a minute to dig into Ash’s bona fides. It’s not like she became a famous sitcom star and decided to dabble in the rock and roll game. Since her early days growing up in Belleville, Ontario, music was an integral part of her life and a vehicle for self-expression.
“I got my first guitar when I was 13. I wrote music all through high school, Quinte Secondary School: very long emotional ballads on my acoustic guitar that I forced my classmates to listen to. I am pretty sure we got the guitar at Ardens Music because I took guitar lessons there. I do remember that. I was in a rock band in high school. I was also in the school band. I played bass guitar. And, you know, I would have rather been a rock star than an actor, especially when I was in high school. My dream was to sing in a band. And I loved that, but I thought acting was more practical and realistic. Although what a laugh it is to think that anything in the arts would be practical. But I always wrote music, and I guess this is something that most people don’t know about me. But for years, while working on Superstore, I’d get home after a 14-hour day, I’d pick up my guitar and write songs, write music and play music. That’s always been a part of almost everyday life, my entire life,” she explained, adding how she finally decided it was time to follow this dream for real.
“A couple of years ago, I decided to throw myself a birthday party where I was going to hire a band and we’d play a set of covers and I was going to treat it like a rock concert. I mean, I made merch for the show, I did a fake Rolling Stone cover shoot, I blew up the photos and stuff, and I did this hour-long set of cover songs. And it was quite honestly, the best night of my life, like, without question. I was, like, I’ve never felt more joyful. I’ve never felt more alive. So, why not? Why would I not try to do this, you know? And so it’s kind of just grown from there.
“It’s also been a bit of a silver lining for me because it’s been a very troubled film and TV industry in the United States lately. It’s been rocked over the last couple of years and I’ve had downtime for the first time in about 12, 13 years, which is an amazing blessing that I’ve worked so consistently. But it’s been great because it’s given me the time to really dive into this as a serious project.”
Ash is a Canadian kid of the 1990s, and her musical heroes, heroines and influences primarily come from that decade and profoundly shaped her own style as a performer, musician and songwriter.
“Courtney Love and Hole’s Live Through This was the first album I ever bought. And I still think it’s probably my favourite record of all time in some ways. I think it’s so messy and ugly and I mean that as a positive. I think it’s lyrically really dark in ways that I didn’t necessarily even really understand at the time when I was a kid. But I love that record even to this day. I was also a huge fan of Bif Naked. I loved her growing up. I’ve seen her live so many times. I went to a book signed she had in Vancouver a few years ago and fan-girled all over her. She and Courtney Love were two women that I saw who were doing something I’d never seen or heard before. And there was also this moved called Mad Love. It came out in 1995 with Drew Barrymore and Chris O’Donnell and in one scene they go to a punk rock club and there’s a band played called 7 Year Bitch and they showed the entirety of a song, ‘The Scratch.’ That was really a moment for me as a 12-year-old girl watching this all-female punk band. Truthfully, I just didn’t know that we were allowed to do that because I had never seen it before. I’d never even heard about it, and I found it so exhilarating. And that was a moment for me where I was like, ‘I want to do that. I want to do what they’re doing. I want to feel what that feels like,’” she explained.
‘As I got a little bit older, that’s when Blink 182 really hit, and that’s a favourite band of mine. But listen, my favourite genre of music is late-1990s Canadian alt-rock: Age of Electric, Treble Charger, Moist, Econoline Crush, I could list bands forever, bands like Rusty. That is my go-to. Oh, and Limblifter, obviously. I was always fascinated and impressed by Ryan Dahle [Age of Electric and Limblifter co-founder] and his lyrics, in both bands. Those lyrics are kind of batshit, and I say that with reverence. I always felt like his songs were written in ways that my brain would never think of. I feel like that was also an influence on me in the sense of what’s the more interesting way you can tell this story, or what’s a story that you maybe haven’t told that you wouldn’t ever think of telling. And in terms of more recent stuff, I’ve been a fan of Yungblud for years, and I love watching the evolution that he’s been on over the past few years. I love his latest album, Idols. I think what he’s doing is really interesting. I think it’s also really honest musically. I could rave forever, I just think he’s so cool and it’s so cool to see an actual new rock star. It’s been a minute. Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters, to me, was the last real rock band for a long time.”
Ash has made no secret that Call Me When You Get This is, in many ways, her Jagged Little Pill, referencing the now 30-year-old seminal badass break-up album by fellow Canadian Alanis Morrissette. While the process of writing the record began before her life and relationship was torn asunder in quite a devastatingly jarring and truly heart-rending way in September of 2024 (exactly a year before the record came out … the release date was not a coincidence!), it was the fallout and process of recovering from that epic emotional trauma that informed not only the content of the songs, but their order and even the way she chose to link some of them together.
“A couple months before, I had been connected with this producer duo Aaron Verdonk [drummer for The Stereos] and Jesse Colburn [who among other credits, has worked with Avril Lavigne, who grew up 20 minutes from Ash in nearby Napanee, Ontario] last summer. We had a couple of sessions getting to know each other and then we started writing together. And the first song we wrote together, and this was pre-split, was ‘Dumpster Fire,’ and we literally wrote it in an afternoon. They had sent me this piece of music and I came up with the lyrics and melody. So we realized we were kind of vibing and wanted to continue working. The second song we wrote was ‘Blow It Up’ which, although autobiographical in some ways, I have to say that I have not done the things I listed in that song. It was more about the feeling of those things. It was more about, I am in this relationship that is so wonderful, and this person is so amazing, and it’s making me panic, because it’s so good,” she said.
“And then the break-up happen. So at the time we joked that it was like, did I somehow know what was going to happen when writing that song? It’s like my subconscious knew that this was possibly coming. I remember after it happened, I came into the session and we had already kind of had the plan that we were going to write this whole album. I remember going in and turning to the guys and saying, ‘well, buckle in. It’s time for us to write my Jagged Little Pill. Here we go!’ And I really didn’t think about it hard. I didn’t spend a lot of time deciding that this record was going to be all about the break up. I think it was because we already had the plan in place. I was going back and forth between L.A. and Toronto. I am always looking for any excuse to come home, so I was committed to taking these trips back to Toronto to have writing sessions and record the songs and stuff like that. So we had the next one already on the books. It just never occurred to me to check in with myself about whether I was able and ready to do this. I just was going to kind of move forward with the project, no matter what. It because pretty obvious that there was just nothing else to write about. It was all consuming.
“And the thing I will say too, is that I’ve been through many relationships, many breakups. But this was a particular kind of blindsiding. And not to sound dramatic, but it was quite devastating. And I think it was the first time I really experienced heartbreak. And I remember saying to some of my girlfriends as we were in the thick of it, I was like, ‘oh my God, I get it now. This is what people write songs about. This is what people write poetry about.’ For me, without even kind of making the decision, I just felt compelled to explore what was happening. And consequently, what ended up happening was I started to document my grieving process. I was recording these video diaries. I just started doing it, and it was so funny because when we were getting the final mixes and masters back of the songs, I was listening to them and I kept feeling like there was something missing. I felt like it’s missing context or, I don’t know, something. So I started watching those videos and that’s when I got the idea for the little interludes. Whey don’t I pull little pieces of these? And it’s literally like they coincide. I was like I date stamped the flow of the album. It was this additional piece which I think in some ways was important to me because I didn’t want it to feel like I was, I don’t know the right wording, but I didn’t want it to feel like I was capitalizing on the breakup that I was going to use it as fodder. I wanted to give the truth, which is that I was going through something that has significantly rocked my life. And I wanted people to understand that it was like, no, no this is a serious journey that I went on, even if some of the songs, of course, are kind of comedic.”
What folks are hearing, then, in a sense, is a human being who has gone through blisteringly painful emotional torment, slowly pulling themselves out of it, getting to a place where they feel levelled and strong, and, in the end, coming through stronger, more self-aware, more triumphant. Each song is a step on the journey and makes listening to Call Me When You Get This of an episodic nature – kinda like a sitcom – that almost cries out to be binged in one sitting and in sequence, again, like a good TV show.
“We spent time looking at the tracks we had and trying to figure out the order. And we kind of kept going back and forth. The placement of ‘Diet Coke and Lexapro’ was the big debate because we wondered, do we just release the songs in the order that we wrote and recorded them? Because there is something about that because I was doing the writing sessions in these little bursts. Every time I went in, I was kind of in a different place emotionally. But ultimately, to me, I wanted to start on ‘Diet Coke and Lexapro’ because it feels like it’s the thesis statement of the record. It also sounds different than anything else on the record, which I love. I love it because it was the time when I was completely out of my mind and I wasn’t myself. To me, it made sense to write something that musically kind of reflected that as well as lyrically. When we looked at the rest of the tracks, I think we decided to put them in the order we wrote them and, again, it made sense to me. I felt like if we were going to commit to this theme, this story, I think it’s really the only way to do it by leaving them chronological,” Ash said, adding that there was always a bit of a concern as to how the songs, the album, the sentiments contained therein and the whole scope and theme of the album would be received.
“I think I had those moments throughout. I had that moment at many points, you know. And it was one of those things where, I feel like when we create art, I can’t be concerning myself with how it’s received. I remember hearing or reading someone saying something to the effect of you create art and how people perceive it is none of your business. Which I think is really interesting. So, I definitely had more than one experience of doubt. Like, the day before it was released, I was on the couch, with my heart beating out of my chest going, ‘what have you done? What are you doing? Are you sure? Well, it’s too late now!’ But I realized I’ve been in the middle of this thing for way too long. But yeah, I think it’s multilayered for me. I think I would have felt that way regardless. I think the fact that it’s, again, something that is far from what people know me for; I think that feels anxiety inducing and terrifying.
“But one thing I do know is that it could only really come about and live at this time in my life. Listen, when I was young, when I was in my 20s and I was coming up on the comedy scene in Toronto, I was doing things that were objectively brave. I would do a lot of sketch comedy [Ash attended both Second City in Toronto and later Chicago before moving to Los Angeles] and there was a sketch where I was onstage completely naked. I would do songs where I would call out men who had wronged me. I was definitely the punk rocker in some ways of the comedy world at that time. I was really fired up about women in comedy and the feedback that we were getting at that time with people saying women weren’t funny. I think there’s a world in which I would have tried to do something like this album at the time. I could see that. But I think, ultimately, the objectivity and wisdom that comes with age and understanding and experience as to what may be more effective, as opposed to just being shocking – what can be thoughtful and ways that it came become kind of accessible so that you can tell your story and feel authentic, but not doing it in a way that’s just to be, like a Riott Grrrl. I think that’s been beneficial to me, and why it’s turned out to be so more impactful.”
Returning to the subject of the songs on Call Me When You Get This, the aforementioned ‘Diet Coke and Lexapro’ is about as perfect a way of starting the album as you can get, in the sense that it is absolutely infused with Ash’s personality. It is a song that sounds like it’s being sung to her friends, to people who understand and empathize with her pain, but there’s that familiarity of dropping in the comedic sensibilities, much like gallows humour. He personality shines through so much, as does her evocative and dynamic vocals, making for an impressive and eminently memorable entry point to the emotional roller coaster that awaits the listener. And just an FYI, Lexapro is s the brand name of the medication escitalopram. It treats depression and anxiety by increasing the amount of serotonin in your brain. Diet Coke is a soft drink that you can drink straight or as a mix. Now you know.
“It’s my favourite thing I have ever written. When you play it live, the drum line is so driving and it’s just in that place where I refer to it like it’s your heartbeat getting a little elevated. It’s not racing yet, but it’s just kind of in that place because you’re so wound up. I see this is me as a performer getting into a character, for example. It’s like, what’s the weight of the piece? Where do you feel it in your body? And for me that song, as soon as I hear that opening, it’s like I’m back in that place. I’m back in that place when I wrote that song. I remember vividly what it felt like. That’s the song that I feel the most emotional, even now, even as time has progressed. Any time I perform that song, I feel like I’m right back in that writer’s room in that moment. ‘Walk Away’ is another one that I really like, because it sparked a lot of discussion in the writing room, which is great. It was all positive and necessary. I remember being in this state where I said, ‘I know this song sounds like I’m talking about this person so negatively. But that song to me is like a love song.’ That’s the love song on the record where I’m saying that I saw you exactly for who you were. I was aware of everything and I still loved you and I still was here for you. To me, I don’t see it as being mean or like a takedown. We all know that sort of person, and I feel for that person because that person is trying so hard and just can’t get there. So, that one’s special to me from a writing perspective,” Ash explained.
“And then, ‘The Day I Got Over You’ is probably my other favourite on the record. It was obviously the last song that we wrote and we wrote it after a little bit of time had passed and I was obviously in a better place. I really liked the idea of is saying, not that I am over you so I’m moving on to someone else. I like the concept of it saying that I just feel like myself again. It’s like, I’m so stoked to just feel like I want to make jokes again, I’m so stoked to just feel connected to who I am and that I’m not worried about any of that other shit. I’m just glad that I survived, that I made my way through it. And I’m still here watching Love Island and eating cold pizza in bed and totally content. Lyrically, that one to me is very obviously close to my personality and the way I would joke in general.”
‘Cool Story, Bro,’ has become a viral fan favourite, especially when it’s played live.
“I played a show in Toronto at The Phoenix Concert Theatre this past February. And most of these songs had not come out at that point, including that one. But by the end of us playing, ‘Cool Story, Bro,’ people were singing along in the choruses. And I remember thinking, ‘oh, this is okay! This is interesting. This is something.’ And the last line, ‘P.S., the dogs hate you too,’ people went nuts. And I was like, ‘holy shit, I’ve tapped into something here.’ We played a second show in May in Hamilton and that song had come out by that point, and that was the one, man. People want to scream along to that last line. It’s like the whole room just belts it out. And to be clear, for me, I’m someone who doesn’t ever want to be mean. I would never say the things I say in that song to somebody. But I absolutely would love to, you know. I’ve been in the place in the breakup, at that point where I was wanting to write him a letter and say the meanest shit possible. Again, it’s because when you really love somebody, you know the button to push that can really destroy them. You just choose not to because you really love them, right? For me, the process was how hard can I push that concept without doing something that was really nuclear, which to reiterate, I wouldn’t do. So I thought we struck a good balance, but still stuck the knife in a little by saying, yeah the dogs hate you too. I can’t think of a worse burn. I mean, it’s pretty devastating.”
As she mentioned above, Ash has played a few shows over the past year. But this fall, she is truly going to be fulfilling her rock and roll dreams by going on an actual rock and roll tour in front of rock and roll fans, rocking and rolling her way through Ontario and Quebec. The tour starts Oct. 2 at Rum Runners in London, ON, followed by shows in St. Catharines, Guelph, Kingson, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and Oshawa before her hometown show on Nov. 7 at the Empire Theatre in downtown Belleville. The tour wraps up Nov. 18 with a show at the Mod Club in Toronto.
“I am so excited. When I played my show at the Phoenix earlier this year, I came off stage and was like, ‘I’m enraged!’ And everybody was asking why, and I said, ‘because I don’t get to do it again tomorrow. This is an injustice.’ I think what’s great about this tour is we’ve kind of broken it into little chunks, so I’m able to get a taste of the rock star reality, but I’m also able to take some breaks in between. We’ve set it up in a way that I am pretty sure I’m not going to burn myself out. I don’t foresee there being any issues that way, but it’s definitely a different thing to train for, you know. It requires a level of cardiovascular health. I requires a level of breath work. So I’ve been doing my due diligence at home as much as I’ve been able to prep. I’m excited. I often say as an actor, I find that what we do is often a lot of output. We are entertaining, especially on camera, but you’re not really getting anything back in the moment from any sort of audience. Playing live music, man it’s something. I get it. I get why people get addicted to it because it’s really cool to feel like you’re having an exchange of energy with people, that you’re kind of creating the experience together and that it’ll never be the same experience twice,” she said, adding that there aren’t any U.S. tour dates planned at the moment, although she has been able to knock off a few rock star bucket list items in the heart of the L.A. music scene.
“A couple of years, when I first started, I did a few shows in L.A.. So I played the Whisky-A-Go-Go, I played the Viper Room and I played the Peppermint Club. For me, playing the Whisky and the Viper room – that’s a life moment. I can’t believe that I’ve done this. I could have died happy. In terms of doing anything in addition to the Canadian shows, I’m definitely open. You know, not only have I been just trying to spend more time at home in general, for a multitude of reasons, I really felt like, because this project was this kind of gift to my teenaged self, I’m doing the thing that I always wanted to do, I just felt really passionately about doing it in Canada. I very genuinely love the Canadian music scene. And I know it’s gone through many changes over the years, but it’s a thrill to be in the kind of space that those bands that I revered and loved so much all went through. It’s a very emotional choice to start here. It was the thing that felt the most right to me. And the enthusiasm here has been wonderful.”
For more information on tour dates, and the new album, visit https://laurenash.band.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
