With over 140 voice acting rolls, four albums with Hey Ocean! and her own solo work, it is safe to say that you’ve probably heard Ashleigh Ball’s voice somewhere.

On June 25, Ashleigh Ball released her first solo album titled Before All the Magic’s Gone and Nerd Girl News caught up with this gem of a human being to talk music and her voice acting career.

Before All the Magic’s Gone is a retro funky vibe that explores Ball’s family lineage in Winnipeg as well as snippets of the singer’s life.

“There wasn’t a main theme really in mind,” said Ball. “… I ended up just writing about some family stuff that came up for me – it’s just moments, things about my parents and grandparents, this lineage that I have in Winnipeg that I hadn’t really thought of but I was there, so I was thinking about it more.”

“So, some of the songs are about that and missing home and travel – all kinds of little snip bits from my life.”

The album was produced in Winnipeg with a double dose of Matt – Matt Schellenberg and Matt Peters, who are members of the band Royal Canoe – and Ball said that while she had some songs she was working on prior to working with the Matts, she scrapped them and started fresh.

“I had always kind of lived in the indie pop world with my band and just wanted to break away from any constraints that I had put on myself to do pop music … I just wanted to let the songs be whatever they were,” she said.

“We just started with looping flute lines, we played some ukulele parts I had been working on … we just built-up songs really organically and treated each one as its own little universe.”

For example, the fourth track on the album, Lavender sprouted from a flute line Ball came up with in a dream.

“It was a flute line that I wanted to be a horn line because I don’t play horns, but I play the flute – we just dove in and wanted that retro-like Amy Winehouse’y kind of feel to it,” said Ball.

Asked what song on the album she was most proud of, Ball replied that Tried to Tell You, which is the second track, was the one she was most excited about due to the opportunity to write from her mother’s perspective during a tumultuous time in her life.

“It was like seeing this little glimpse into my mom’s world as a 30-something-year old who was caught between a rock and a hard place – it’s a big decision she has to make.” she said. “So, putting myself in her shoes at that point and writing from that perspective was a super satisfying new experience to me as a songwriter.”

While Ball doesn’t know when she will be going back on tour as she is expecting her first child this summer, she said she is so excited to have an album out in the world.

“I’m just really proud of it … it’s been a bit of a journey to get it out and with the pandemic and uncertainty moving forward in music, it feels good to have it out there.”

Let’s talk voice acting

Most iconic in this decade, Ashleigh Ball is known for her voice work as Rainbow Dash and Applejack in Hasbro’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series which ran for nine seasons and basically blew up on the global stage.

“It’s been kind of next level,” said Ball of the My Little Pony fandom. “It was like this totally new thing that nobody knew how to deal with at first. The producers were like, ‘um, there’s these guys called Bronies,’ and we were all very confused about it.”

“It was a pretty cool world to get a taste of and getting to go to conventions all over the world – it’s definitely been a trip.”

However, it’s not just My Little Pony, a couple other series Ball voices a character for has developed fandoms as well.

“There’s a show called The Hollow and there’s lots of fanfiction getting written about that and really cute fans who have Instagram pages dedicated to the characters …”

When it comes to voice acting, Ball said she knew she preferred it over film and T.V. right away.

“Animation was so much more freeing and so cool to go into an audition and you’re auditioning for the same role but you’re all from different walks of life,” she said. “And it didn’t really matter what you looked like at all. It mattered what you sounded like, and I just fell in love with the world …”

At Nerd Girl News, we believe that voice acting is an absolute art form and the level of talent the actors bring to a character is powerful – the actors create characters that really resonate with their fans.

When it comes to video game voicework, Ball said those sessions can be intense.

“If I book a video game, I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ve gotta’ drink tea and honey and have at least a day off afterwards,’” she explained, adding that you’re using your vocal cords full on in those types of sessions.

“I feel like there’s a lot of violence in video games, it’s like you’re getting punched continuous times and you need all these different sound effects,” she said. “I played a zombie in a video game, and it was like, ‘we need more blood in your scream,’ and it’s just such an intense session.”

Her latest voice acting gig puts her in the paws of Darma, a rock and roll vixen in the movie Rock Dog 2 which was released June 11.

“I ended up filling the boots of this Hollywood actress they wanted a voice match for. I ended up getting that role which is cool because it’s like the two worlds of my band history colliding with the voice world,” said Ball.

For women or girls who may want to get into voice acting but have no idea where to start, Ball said that it is a competitive world but with the age of social media, there are many ways to start.

“A lot of it is about getting weird and not being afraid – that was a huge thing for me is when you get in the studio and you know have to be a character, you can’t be scared to look like a crazy person and contort your face into the weirdest shape possible because that’s how you get to that character,” she said.

“So, I think being free and not being afraid to let yourself go to those weird, weird places that maybe you wouldn’t otherwise. If you’re passionate and you have the gusto, you can get there.”

So to quote the epic Ms. Ball, “Stay weird.”