Ashes & Arrows Says Performing on 'America's Got Talent' Is a Dream Come True

The America’s Got Talent Season 19 semifinals happen tonight with 11 acts hoping to make it to the finals and join the four artists already confirmed thanks to winning a Live Golden Buzzer. Among the acts hoping to make the final Top 10 is country/rock band Ashes & Arrows , comprised of Ciaran McMeeken , Benjamin Voigt and Jonathan Calhoun , who are riding the success of their original single Wild Horses into tonight’s competition.

“In our audition we played a song [“Born to Love”] that was really meaningful to us, and it was sung with a lot of passion but it’s not necessarily the encore song that you would sing at a concert,” Ciaran tells Parade in this exclusive interview. “We really wanted to bring something that had a lot of energy to it.”

The upbeat “Wild Horses,” which charted as a result of its performance on AGT, is the song the band typically plays for its encore song, so they decided it was their best shot to make the cut from 11 performers to just the four that would move on.

“We did not expect to go through to the semifinals, so we were just like, ‘Let’s play our best song and we’ll call it a day. We’ll head back to North Carolina and we’ll pat our backs and job well done.’ Then when we got through we were like, ‘Well, that was our best song so what are we going to do next?’” Ciaran continues.

That's a great question. What are they going to do next?

“We can’t tell you the specifics, but it is an original song that’s unreleased by Ashes & Arrows,” Jonathan says. “It was supposed to come out around this time, but because we’re on the show we couldn’t release it. It’s another upbeat, inspirational song and we’re really excited about it."

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Whether or not Ashes & Arrows makes the finale—and it’s hard to imagine with their gorgeous harmonies and on-stage charisma that they won’t—performing in front of judge Simon Cowell has been a dream come true for Ben.

“We’ve all got our own backgrounds as individual artists,” he says. “My family was fairly musical, and we used to watch American Idol when I was a lot younger. I think I was 11 or 12 or 13. I remember seeing Simon say something to somebody on American Idol and just thinking, ‘I would really love to sing for that guy and see what he says one day.’ And I never lost that thought. So, it was cool 15-plus years later to get to sing for him and hear what he said.”

During our Zoom chat, Ashes & Arrows also talked about their writing process, how they don't want to be labeled, how they met and how they would spend the $1 million.

Is country rock your genre? Because “Born to Love,” your audition song, didn’t sound really country to me. How would you describe your music?

Ciaran: You’re right, we’re not really a country rock band. But everyone wants to know what genre you are. If we had to pick, it would be in that realm. But it’s definitely got flavors of singer-songwriter, folk music, Americana roots and some pop elements, as well.

When we came together, we had very different musical styles. So, Ashes & Arrows is an amalgamation of all of those different genres that we grew up listening to. We were individual songwriters and musicians before we met, so we had very different styles. It’s kind of come together to make Ashes & Arrows.

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Since you are performing original songs, let’s talk about the writing process. Does somebody have an idea? Is it a collaborative process?

Ciaran: Like anything, it’s not always the same how it plays out. Typically, we go away on these little writing retreats, the three of us. We get away from the busyness of life and we go away to a mountain house that Jonathan’s family’s kind enough for us to use. And we just sit around and often we just talk about what’s going on in each other’s lives. Generally, some idea bubbles up or some feeling, and we dive into that. But it can look like anything, as well. Sometimes Ben will pretty much have a fully formed idea or Jonathan will have a chorus that he’s really loving, and we’ll go from there.

We try not to be like, “We’re a country rock band, let’s write country rock music.” We just try to keep it as open as possible and try to be as honest and authentic as possible.

How did you guys come together? Jonathan and Ben are from the U.S., but Ciaran is from New Zealand, so this is kind of an international group.

Jonathan: We all met at an open mic night in Asheville, N.C. We were there separately to do our own thing. Then we saw each other play and to make a really long story short, we decided to hang out pretty shortly after meeting. We wrote our first song together by accident. From there, it’s been a roller coaster ride of knowing one song together and being asked to play shows. And then learning new songs, then writing new songs. Now here we are.

How do you write a song by accident?

Jonathan: Well, we came together for the intention of just kind of hanging out. We enjoyed each other’s company. At that time Ciaran had moved over to the States trying to figure out what his place was in the music industry. His goal was to expand into a larger market. It’s a super tough market, as well. He was finding himself in this place of: Is this going to work? Am I going to make the dream come true, so to speak?

Ben had been writing and recording music for a little while. But at that time when we met him, he had actually kind of just given up on music as a whole. He was about to just call it a day and leave it in the past. Me, I’m just a player, so I just went out and played all the time. I didn’t really have any career before, so I never really wanted to go at music as a thing for my life. But it was cool.

When I met these guys, it was more out of the place of these are just good guys, let’s hang out. Then randomly we started chatting and getting a little bit deeper about our thoughts and feelings. Then it was like, “Oh, here’s a song out of that.” We just let it happen and that’s how the song accidentally was written.

Ciaran: Yeah, we didn’t intend to put the band together. After we wrote the song, we performed it a week later at the same open mic. It was pretty clear that something cool and special was happening. It was a few months later that we decided to put the band together.

The accolades that you got for Wild Horses for the live show were so positive. What fabulous things have happened since that performance? Did the song chart? Have you been invited to perform somewhere?

Jonathan: The song did chart. I don’t remember all the numbers. I know that it charted on one of the larger all-genre charts on iTunes. It was pretty far up there. And then on country charts, it was pretty far up there. And now it’s charting in Belgium, it was like No. 1 in Belgium yesterday or something like that. It’s been wild just watching it do its thing. The song’s out there, we’re not really in charge of what it does now so we just get to watch it.

As far as shows and things that have happened to the band itself as a result, we’ve had a lot more inquiries about us playing new shows in other places. We’re starting to look further into next year just to build up a real push. A lot of the stuff that we’re getting inquiries for are going into 2025, which is pretty exciting. So, that’s what we’ve seen so far from the show, from this past round.

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Ciaran: One thing I’d add to that really quickly is I think all of us have had some experience of someone representing our school reach out to us to just say congratulations or they’re really proud or something like that. That’s really meaningful, for me, anyway. I’ve had my hometown school back in New Zealand reach out and they did a newspaper article. I just think it’s really cool how big a reach America’s Got Talent has and it’s such a prestigious name. So, to be affiliated with the show, I think people are really excited and people are really proud. We’ve all come from pretty humble beginnings, so to be making our way through the show and competition, especially because we didn’t expect to get this far, it’s been pretty cool.

The prize for winning is a million dollars. Have you thought about how you would spend it? Would you reinvest it in your career? Or is there something special you’ve always wanted to do that you would use the money for?

Ciaran: We really didn’t get into this show with the idea of winning it. The further we get along, the more that possibility is there, so, of course, we’re thinking about it. And it’s only wise to start thinking about how we would want to spend the money. Because we’re all individuals, there’s that individual component of our own personal lives, but then obviously wanting for the band to develop, as well.

I’m sure you are aware the entertainment and music industry is a very strange road. There’s certainly no easy way to go about it. So, I think from the band’s standpoint, one of the big issues we have is we now have this pretty large audience around the world. The internet has opened that up. But we have no real way of being able to get to them, to financially be able to actually get on the road to these people and take a band out.

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Who are your musical icons? Is there somebody whose career you emulate as part of the dream?

Ciaran: There’s certainly some bands that we really like the way they’ve gone about it—bands like Need to Breathe and Judah and the Lion . They’re not super big, mainstream bands, but they seem to have created these pretty successful careers for themselves. If you walked past them in a Walmart, you’d probably never know who they were. They’re these kind of undercover agents that are able to share their music and have these long careers.

And some more local bands. There’s a band we played a show with last week called Scythian . They’re just great guys. They’re real people, they’ve got kids, they’re trying to figure it out and thriving at being an independent band, making good careers for themselves and their families.

We’re all in our late 20s, 30s now. We’re still young, but we do have our heads screwed on and we really want to take this opportunity and really make it work and be able to just keep doing this for a long time.

America's Got Talent airs Wednesday and Thursday this week only at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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