DDR: Explain the name Worhol, and the reason for the choice.
Ashley: Worhol is my mine and my fathers last name. We are related to the late artist Andy Warhol. I believe he is my dad's second or third cousin. When I was working on my music degree at the University of St. Thomas, it was my composition professor that led me to think that we should keep my last name as the band name. He said you know with Andy Warhol, everyone already knows that name and it also stands out.
It's short and sweet and since my father and I are a team, we thought it would be a good idea to keep it in the family.
DDR: Tell me a bit about your training as a musician as well as others in the band.
AW: I play piano by ear and I started playing piano when I was three years old. There are pictures of me as a baby just banging at the keys. (laughing) I think I was about five years old when I started playing the theme to "Free
Willy" on the piano and my folks where somewhere in the house at the time. They both came out and saw me playing and I think thats when the realized I was going to have a very good ear for music. I also would sit under the piano when my father would practice and play, so my experience with music started at a very early age. I remember when I was 5 years old, the station 96.5, I think it was "Dean and Rog".
They did a call in for young talent and I actually got to play the piano on the morning radio station. In elementary, junior high and high school, I was always in the choir, and did talent shows. In high school during my freshman year, I made varsity choir which was kind of unique as not many freshman are able to make varsity choir. During the many talent shows I was in I had won both instrumental and vocalist catagories. When I entered college, I had pretty much decided that music was my passion, my dream, and wanted to pursue it as my career. I completed my degree in Music Composition and competed in various talent shows during that time as well. I had also studied the violin a little bit. What is funny, my violin teacher ended up being the violinist that is in our music video and did the songs on the album for us. I believe he will be playing at our album release show, so we are very excited for that and to have live strings during the performance.
My father, my goodness he has all kinds of stories to tell. (laughing) He grew up around music. He got his music degree at the University of St Thomas as well. He studied saxaphone, piano and guitar. He grew up playing in various rock bands since he was a child. He and his band had actually opened up for ZZ Top once. He and Billy from ZZ Top were really good friends, if only he had stayed in contact with him that would have been huge!(laughing) Maybe one day he will run into him again! (laughing) My father also did a recording on one of Willie Nelson's songs. My father was in the recording studio recording for someone and the they came in and asked him if he wanted to record for someone and make a few bucks. My father said "Yeah, of course!", then in came walking Willie Nelson, so my father got to do some piano work for Willie Nelson, which is pretty cool.
Upon occasion there are those bands that are hard to classify, and Worhol would be one of them. Melodic, symphonic, Victorian Gothic, Melodic Metal, call them what you will, or simply say they are WORHOl.! This band is destined for great things! Recently we had the pleasure of speaking with Ashley of WORHOL and it was a oppurtunity to get some idea to the talent, and training that goes into this band!