Asha Banks

Asha Banks is the UK’s next big, multi-hyphenate superstar. With a global film (Prime Video’s My Fault: London) and hit TV show (Netflix’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder) under her belt, Banks is now setting her sights on a music takeover. Luckily, she’s already well on her way to accomplishing that.   “I feel very lucky to do both,” the 21-year-old says. Last fall, she self-released her first-ever single “So Green” and played her first headline show a week later to a crowd of 60 fans. Her debut EP Untie My Tongue dropped this spring, leading to a deal with Island and Polydor Records and a second EP titled How Real Was It? coming out this fall.   She’s kicking off the rollout of her second EP with “Rerun,” a sweet, upbeat cut she made with her writing partner and producer Josh Bruce Williams (DAVE, David Kushner). Much like the rest of How Real Was It?, “Rerun” sees Banks looking back on her past, reflecting instead of responding in the moment like she’s done on her past songs.   “It’s a fun, cheeky song whilst still recognising the hard truth. It’s about going back to someone you probably shouldn’t and hoping that the same outcome won’t happen”, she explains. “Rerun” was the first song Banks wrote for the EP during two weeks of writing sessions with Williams in Los Angeles this spring, shortly after My Fault: London premiered. “I found as soon as I got to LA that being in the sun and feeling some form of summer-y vibe really impacted my writing,” she says. “I'm used to writing in rainy London most of the time, so it changed the essence of my writing inspiration. I wanted something upbeat and slightly different for me.” For Banks, her love for both acting and singing are intertwined. At age 7, she started taking three-hour theater classes every weekend. An hour of each session was dedicated to either singing, acting, or dancing. The school was attached to an agency, so she jumpstarted her career early. She made her West End debut in Les Misérables as young Éponine and nabbed minor roles in established British TV series. When she was 8, Banks started to learn guitar. She found an unlikely musical mentor in the bartender at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, her local pub in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England. “Every Wednesday I would just go to this pub and they would section off a little area in the corner and I would basically learn his favorite songs,” she recalls, noting that some of the songs she learned were by Oasis, Johan Jett, Amy Winehouse and Johnny Cash. Banks and Martin, the bartender, soon began opening the Friday night open mics at the pub together, further igniting her itch to write and perform. As she got older, Banks’ acting career began to take off even more. Writing was always an escape and an act of re-finding herself after sinking into a character. “I've always found that the creativity and the inspiration that I find through acting and those projects that I've done just amplifies my love and inspiration for music,” she says. “After playing a character and in somebody else's world, it's nice to be able to come back to me and write a song. It feels very much like I'm returning to myself and have to do a deep dive in my brain for a second.” Unlike acting, music had less structure so she was never sure how to break in. She had begun writing more songs on her own but was nervous to share them publicly. Then one day she got the courage to post herself covering Labrinth on Instagram. The response gave her the confidence to share more videos of both covers and her originals. “It felt very much like it was myself that I was putting out there, rather than playing a character which is a different beat entirely,” she says. Putting herself out there has paid off well: her debut EP racked up over 7 million streams. She opened for Noah Kahan at his BST Hyde Park show this summer and will headline a show at Regents Park Open Air Theatre this fall, which sold out in under 24 hours. The rest of Banks’ year is packed: she’ll be filming the first of two confirmed sequels to My Fault: London back in the UK before releasing How Real Was It? After releasing the EP this November, she’ll set out on her first headlining tour around the UK, EU and US. She’s balancing it all with ease and watching her passions fuse in unlikely ways, like her song “Feel the Rush” playing over the credits of her film. “I love being able to do them both, and I'm so excited to see in the future ways that they can kind of overlap and intertwine,” Banks says. “That's definitely a massive dream for me.”