Ashlei Priest has only recently stepped into the art of songwriting. Yet she already knows it’s a path she wants to pursue for the rest of her life.

Originally from Australia, she moved to Colorado when she was 21 with a boy she met while travelling to Europe. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, so she decided to follow him.

The two broke up in 2017. The outcome of their relationship inspired her to start working on her own songs.

Priest has been musical for her entire life, but she was often shy about performing in front of people. She would perform her music behind closed doors as a kid. She was nervous about the idea of performing in front of those she loved.

As Priest grew older, she realized that the admiration she had for certain artists was more than just a respect for their craft, it was a desire to follow in their footsteps. She also realized that performing in front of strangers that you would most likely never see again alleviated a lot of personal stress. She performed her first solo set at The Laughing Goat, a coffee shop in Boulder, in November 2018.

Even now, she still gets nervous going on stage, but she knows that pursuing a career in music is something that she wants to continue doing. Her drive to follow through on her dream is one that compels her to keep going. Priest knows she will be unsatisfied if she gives up.

She has not officially released any of her solo material yet, although she has been attempting to find the right time to record her songs for a while.

She also sings for a funk band called B-Love Experience. They are performing at the Fox Theatre in Boulder on Friday, August 20, 2021, at 8:30 p.m. to open for the band Banshee Tree.

Priest had intended to focus the majority of her time performing live shows in 2020 before COVID regulations stopped everything in the live music industry. This year, she plans to get back into the swing of things and perform many more shows. It is doing the thing she loves the most and doing it as much as she possibly can.

Catch Ashlei Priest live at The Jamestown Mercantile, 108 Main Street in Jamestown, from 12 - 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 22, 2021. For more information about Ashlei Priest, chack out https://www.facebook.com/ ashleipriestmusic. For more information about the Jamestown Merc, check out https://www.jamestownmercantile.com/