Hey, I'm Ash Soan.
Welcome to my Windmill Studio.
I've been playing drums all my life
I moved to London when I was 21 and
I was very fortunate to move in the same
street as Pino Palladino.
He helped me a lot
with just playing and his sort of
approach to the business.
Then in 1994
he put me up for a Scottish band called Delamitri,
and that's really where my my
journey started from that point really.
I toured with them for 3 and 1/2 years
did a record with them but that started
my whole journey into sessions.
That producer, Mark Freegard
he then got me in to do another session
and then sessions slowly but surely
started to come from that
and over the years I've met many people
along the road and and the relationships
that I established with people in the
early 90s still exist now and I still work with those people,
And it still is building is great you know the business
is still certainly alive and well now.
Yes so some of the artists I have worked for
on their their records are
Adele, Seal, James Morrison, Robbie Williams
Billy Idol, Celine Dion, Ronan Keating, Boyzone.
Yeah a few!
Most of the James Morrison stuff that I've played on...
James's music sort of sums up my playing
the most in some respects.
My playing and my sound
that I'm most comfortable with.
It's kind of soulful
but rocky and poppy at the same time and
and the sound is very, it's kind of in a
lot of instances quite an organic
natural sounding kit.
The first big one of course was Broken Strings that
was a biggie I guess that at the time
was the biggest song I'd have played on.
The Adele track of course,
that will never change now that's
happened and if that was a big one on a
much bigger scale, obviously around the
world to play on that.
There's other things like, you know the fact that I
played with Jeff Lorber who is a smooth
jazz artist you know with Paul Jackson Jr.
and people and yet I played on
Billy Idol's last album which is a
completely different ballgame and so you
know Jeff Lorber here, Billy Idol here
and I've been very fortunate
enough to play on some soundtracks for movies
so I played on the Terminator Genisys soundtrack
and Kung Fu Panda 3
I played on, for Hanz Zimmer and Lorne Balfe.
When you start your career out you
have obviously have an idea of what
you're going to be or where you'd like
to be rather. I just wanted to be in a
band when I started like everybody does
and I did that and then session work
just opened up for me somehow.
I was never pigeonholed properly thankfully
and I'm really glad about that.
One of the things that I got from Pino really
is that well if you're a musician you
just play music you can play all sorts
of music, its fine, you know and I always
thought it was fine you can be into
hip-hop and the Who as Pino
demonstrates quite well,
being in DeAngelo and playing
for the Who. I think he sounds great
in both of those scenarios.
So early on it was fine for me to play all
different genres of music, and be
influenced by all sorts of different
stuff and it certainly helped in my
session work being able to sort of tap
into something that the producer might
be thinking "ahh this one's this one's
kind of rocky but it's kind of got like
a Brazilian vibe..." That's the sort of things
people will say to you you know it's
like punky but Steely Dan
Okay, you know that honestly that
they're the sort of things that some
people do say, and you've got to sort of try
and articulate that on your instrument
but as one of the most fun bits about
this business for me is to try and get
it right and I try and find a part for
someone or a sound for someone and that
they're looking for. This room and what's
going on in here for me is one of the most
exciting bits in my career so far really.
You know with the advent of the gear
that people are using and the fact that
you can get a very pro set up for a
reasonable amount of money and that's
enabling people like myself to set up
places like this and an offer a proper
Pro service to people. You know, I played on
some pretty big records, I guess, with big
producers and in big studios and now
there are some pretty big records
happening from here. I've had
number ones from here and the stuff that
played me has been up for Grammys and
things. It's like the thought of that ten
years ago, people would laugh at you.
What you mean you've got a little room where
you do drums there and you're up for a Grammy?
But now it's totally possible and
that's really exciting for me.