“So Effortless And Magical”: Asha Jefferies On Working With Ball Park Music For Her Debut Album

Brisbane-based melancholic pop princess Asha Jefferies dropped her debut album, Ego Ride, last week, and is set to release the deluxe edition, Ego Ride (Route Extended), today (November 8). Building on the original album’s themes of growth, identity, and renewal, Ego Ride (Route Extended) provides fans an extra three tracks to get inside Jefferies’ mind.

“Looking back, I realised that a lot of the narratives throughout the album are tied to my ego - whether that’s moments where I felt on top of the world or totally crumbled,” she said in a press release.

Recording the album alongside Ball Park Music’s frontman Sam Cromack, at the band’s Brisbane studio, Prawn Records, Jefferies found herself working with a band she had admired for years. To celebrate, Jefferies is taking The Music through Ego Ride (Route Extended), track by track.

Stranger

Songwriting, for me, is ultimately a tool I use to learn more about myself and my relationship with the world. Stranger is a song I wrote that helped me understand how to create boundaries within relationships. During the time of writing I was asking myself, “How are we to know and share ourselves with someone if we’re never being given the space to explore or question it?” This song speaks to feeling lost and trapped inside of a relationship. It felt really new and exciting, writing and dipping my toes into themes around codependency, identity, voice and the desire for freedom.

Keep My Shit Together

This song was written one hot and sweaty day on my piano around Christmas time. I was feeling stuck and existential and inspired to make fun of myself. The goal was to bring lightness to hot and heavy stressful feelings around Christmas time. We recorded in mid-December 2022, aircon cranking and all in organised matching white tank tops.

Baby Don’t Fight It

Baby Don’t Fight It was the first song we recorded with Sam back in December 2021. I remember pinching myself driving to the studio with Kaleah (Ball Park Music’s drummer), having listened to Ball Park Music since I was a young teen. The day in the studio was so effortless and magical, I think we all knew there’d be more of it to come. This song has a pretty sparse band arrangement which I think, speaks to the song’s story - it’s about accepting the light and dark parts of a relationship and not fighting any emotion that comes up. I’d like to see it as a really sad birthday card in song format, missing, hating and celebrating someone all at the same time.

Growing Pains 

Growing Pains is a song about growing out of a relationship and reflecting on the aftermath. When you’ve closed a chapter in your life and are yet to enter a new one, the in-between stages can be filled with both loss/loneliness and freedom/renewal. It’s electrifying and exhausting. I find the term growing pains so interesting, it is inherently a good problem. It means you’re growing and getting stronger. As painful as it can be, it is a hopeful thing.

Golden Hour

This was one of the first songs I wrote for the album in September 2021! It feels like a lifetime ago, where I was writing just to make sense of heartbreak and life, changing so rapidly. I remember showing it to Sam when I came into the studio by myself to talk about making an album. It always felt like a half-written, oddly structured song until the band put new life into it. My favourite section is the free, soaring, violin-heavy outro where the song finally gets its relief and closure of having to let go of the past.

Tank Tops

I wrote the pre-chorus to Tank Tops originally as a joke. I was falling in love with a girl for the first time and wrote the first four lines: I’m in love / I’m over boys / And I’m wearing tank tops / And I’m talking to George.

It’s a song that ended up meaning so much to me and reminds me of a very pivotal stage in my life. I was discovering a new part of my identity and feeling the joy of celebrating it with my community.

Spinning

I’ve never written a song like Spinning before and it is so special to me. It is hopeful and tender and attempts to showcase the gratitude I have for my life, hopefully in a not-too-cheesy way. I remember playing the piano after a band rehearsal at Prawn Studio by myself one night in May 2022. Alone at the studio where we were making the album, it gave me a moment to reflect on how stoked a younger version of myself would be if they saw me now. Time can feel so slow and stiff and then one day you wake up and you’re living a totally different life where you can feel heartache ending and love beginning.

Brand New Bitch

Brand New Bitch is about the exciting yet nauseous feeling of starting again. I had just seen Parcels play live at The Tivoli in Brisbane and was really inspired to write music that felt up-beat and uplifting! Recording this song with Sam and the band at Ball Park Music’s studios was one of the best times I’ve had in the studio. I think we allowed ourselves to get as crazy and psycho as we wanted on the production for this one and it is my favourite song to play live. 

Reply

Is there anything worse than saying something you don’t mean, just for a reply? 

Crumble

I wrote Crumble in the final months of making Ego Ride. I was on a plane falling asleep to an episode of White Lotus and woke up to a melody in the show. The melody felt like loss but in a relieving, hopeful way and it inspired me to write the leadline for Crumble. In this song, I’m reflecting on the times I’ve wrapped up and lost myself in desire, the male gaze, approval. This song sounds like the un-entanglement, the popping, the crumbling of this. It’s my gentle fuck-you to the patriarchy.

Cruise Control 

Cruise Control is about learning how to ride smoothly through the turbulence of harsh roads, lame parties and undesired romantic gestures. It’s a phrase I have kept close, after finding the confidence to trust my gut. This song is ultimately about celebrating being comfortable in my skin and learning how to communicate boundaries.

Whatever You Like

Whatever You Like is the last song I wrote for the Ego Ride chapter. With significant highs and lows across the album, this song takes place in a moment of the grey, turbulent and uncertain in-between. It’s a song about beginning to predict the end of a relationship and the trials of resisting it. 

Ego Ride 

Ego Ride was the last song I wrote for the album in March 2023. I had been saying the album was finished even though it didn’t feel like it. When I wrote it, it felt like the perfect wrap up song, tying all of the stories of the album together without meaning to. It speaks to self-doubt and being able to see when your ego is driving. Each time the song’s dynamics rise, it feels like I’m popping the bubble of a spiral and coming back into myself. Sam and I had so much fun adding a pulse to this song as well as the subtle vocoder, which really makes the song breathe.

‘Ego Ride (Route Extended)’ is out on all streaming platforms now. In celebration, Asha Jefferies is heading on tour. Find the dates below.

ASHA JEFFERIES ‘EGO RIDE: ROUTE EXTENDED’ TOUR

Fri, 7 Feb 2025 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne

Sat, 8 Feb 2025 – Crown & Anchor, Adelaide

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 – King St Warehouse, Newcastle

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 – La La Las, Wollongong

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 – Trocadero Room, Sydney

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 – Brunswick Picture House, Byron Bay

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 – Sol Bar, Sunshine Coast

Find tickets and more information here.