Here’s a great video to start your day – exuberant and full of energy. Regan Ashton’s new single, “6 1/2 Billion Hearts”, is full of heart and full of life. He delivers rhythmic acoustic guitar and twanging banjo over a strong foot-stomping beat. There’s hope and humour in the lyrics, which you’ll want to sing along to. When Ashton sings that he, “Loves so much but still sometimes hates everyone,” we can probably all relate.
After Ashton’s Salt Lake City-based punk band, Problem Daughter, split up, he moved to Chicago for a romantic relationship that, sadly, didn’t last. For the video to “6 1/2 Billion Hearts”, Mark Ricks of Burro Borracho Records filmed Ashton in his apartment and out and about in the city as he explains: “I had a while where I was kind of mopey and stayed home and then it hit me…if Chicago is awesome and I’m just hiding in my apartment why am I still here? So for the video I really wanted to get out and show the city off a bit and make the most of it since I am still here.”
This is the final single from Ashton’s latest solo album, “Infinite Pest”, which was released earlier in 2024. Ashton says of the song: “A lot of the songs on the record are old songs of mine and I love them, but they’re about really tough times and that’s not where I’ve been for a minute. So, it’s been important for me to have songs like 6 Billion that reflect an idea for hope, or trying to be positive, or at least conveys some sort of will for happiness that Camus would approve of.” If you like a bit of punk in your folk, with an added splash of banjo twang, then this is for you. Enjoy.
