Ashley McBryde Wrote a Song for Her Late Brother
Ashley McBryde has written a song in honor of her brother, Clay, who died in 2018. In an interview with About You Magazine, the singer says that she co-wrote the track with friend and frequent collaborator Nicolette Hayford, who shares her experience of losing a sibling.
"During one session, I said, 'We have something in common that I hate.' Nicolette and I are both members of the Dead Brother Club," McBryde explains. "And both of our brothers are veterans. They died very, very different ways, but both were army veterans nonetheless. And so she said, 'Yeah, what do you want to say about it?' And I was like, 'Well, I'm pissed off about it.' So she's like, 'Okay, let's grab our cigarettes.'"
McBryde's brother, who died on June 20, 2018 in Russellville, Ark., served in Iraq and was an officer with the Russellville Police Department for 25 years. At the time of his death, he was 53 years old, and had recently married his wife, Tanya, in November of 2017.
McBryde goes on to tell AY that the process of writing a song about Clay helped her process some of the difficult emotions of grief. "We went outside to talk a little longer. Four hours later, we had gotten off subject, and I cackled, and I went, 'Oh my God, I laugh just like my brother Clay.'" she recalls. "And she went, 'Oh my God, you're so angry because you're so hurt, and you're so hurt because you didn't know you were so much like him until he died.'
"And I started bawling. And she goes, 'Oh, sit down and grab your guitar,'" McBryde goes on to say. "And so we wrote a song called "Two Birds, One Stone," and it was for both of us. Very, very therapeutic. I didn't know I felt that way until we wrote that. Now we don't even write anything down 'til somebody tears up."
After her brother's death, McBryde didn't say much about the event on social media, except to "thank her bandmates for "[holding] me up through something I couldn't even imagine ... [and] getting me to my family as fast as we can do it."
The singer has enjoyed a busy 2019 so far, opening dates for George Strait and Little Big Town before heading back into the studio to begin work on her second album, the follow up to Girl Going Nowhere.
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