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Ashleigh Flynn set out to “elevate women in the music industry” with her all woman line up The Riveters. Their latest offering Good Morning, Sunshine presents almost a decade of work for the group, and their energy on stage has been inspiring young fans to take their own journey through the arts.

“The Riveters musically are like an army,” Flynn said. “We just keep recruiting them. We’ve got a small but mighty army of women, and self-identified women and non-binary people, and it’s been a really wonderful adventure so far.” 

Flynn said that part of their mission is to break through the gender stereotypes found entrenched in the music industry.

“We do it all,” Flynn said. “Our motto as the Riveters is ‘Songs Assembled Here.’”

Their latest release was made by an all woman team that included production, engineering, performing and promoting. Good Morning, Sunshine is their first release for the Blackbird Record Label.

“The work that we’re doing is meaningful on a whole bunch of levels,” Flynn said. “It’s just a real joyful experience to play music with these women.”

Growing up in Kentucky

Growing up in Louisville was “really where I sort of got turned on to music,” Flynn said about being raised in Kentucky. Each year she was immersed in bluegrass and music from around the world right in her own backyard on the Ohio River. 

“I just lived for those weekends down on the Belvedere listening to music,” Flynn said. 

As a child, Flynn spent time playing a baby grand piano that was in the family home. 

“I hung out by that piano a lot,” Flynn said.

Her grandfather was a working musician, and in her teenage years Flynn noticed her friends were forming bands and knew it was time to tap back into that inspiration.

“I feel like I got pretty lucky,” Flynn said about her early years and time as a solo performer. “It was me, my guitar and a harmonica.”

Making it as a songwriter “was fun, but it was also kind of lonesome,” Flynn said of her troubadour years. She found great success touring with legendary songwriters Nanci Griffith and Hayes Carll, but would often be pigeonholed into being seen as a quiet folk singer by the press, and often dreamed of breaking out of solo performing. 

Forming the Riveters

While taking a break from the road, Flynn attended a local concert with a friend and was immediately inspired by rocker Nancy Luca.

“She literally could play every rock and roll lick of every rock and roll song they played to the note,” Flynn said. “She was just a wailing guitar player and I was in such awe of how great this band was. It just sort of stuck with me.”  

The friends later attended Luca’s wedding, and the first ideas of the Riveters were formed. 

“I was a total opportunist and said ‘can I send you some songs,’” Flynn said. “I’ve got all these rock songs that wouldn’t really fly solo.” 

At the time Flynn had composed many songs that were envisioned for a group, and wanted the chance to harness that energy she saw while watching The Luca Band. They decided to pay homage to Rosie the Riveter with their name, and the all-female powerhouse was born.

“One of the greatest rewards is when we’re playing out and girls will come up sort of in awe,” Flynn said about some of the encounters at the all-ages shows they’ve played, “and their moms kind of taking us aside.”

It’s the joy of watching the young fans express the desire to pick up an instrument after watching the Riveters rock out that keeps them inspired.

“I have a lot more fun now playing in a band,” Flynn said. “Just the bigger sound and higher energy. The voicings that they bring feel better to my electromagnetic field.”

Love is an Ember

“Love is an Ember” is one of those songs that lets the crowd breathe and take a slow dance after rocking out.

This country ballad was a love song written for a complicated story. Some fellow musicians had the whirlwind of a June Carter and Johnny Cash romance that affected their lives and the lives of many around them. 

“The song is just about this notion of being star crossed,” Flynn said. “Sometimes that love isn’t meant to be realized in this lifetime, and how sad is that?”

It wrestles with the commitments to the nuclear family while finding those rare feelings of love at first sight and how those events tragically played out. 

“You don’t control who you fall in love with,” Flynn said. “It doesn’t surprise me that each of us might fall in love with more than one person, even at the same time. I feel a huge amount of compassion for all of the parties involved.”

Flynn said it was one of those songs that “basically wrote itself.” 

Support the Artist

The Riveters are currently performing “weekend warrior style” around their home base in Oregon. Many of the band members have other careers in the arts, but they “deeply love music and playing live.”

The Riveters plan to tour the album throughout the summer, and can be found hosting several record release performances in Salem with Kristen Grainger & True North and in Talent with the Rosa Lees.

More information about Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters can be found here.

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