Ember & Ash

Pull up a seat around the fire - we'd like to tell you a story.

It's our origin story, as we would tell it to our friends around the campfire.

If you are looking for a bio for promotional purposes, please refer to the EPK page. 

If our story interests you and you'd like to follow along on our journey, sign up to the email list  and find us on our social media sites. (links below). If you want to support us, leave some love in the tip jar. 

We are Alex Holycross (of The Native Howl) and Erin Zindle (of Erin Zindle & The Ragbirds) and together we are Ember & Ash.

Since we started writing songs together in 2019, we've been building a legend that feels so much bigger than just two people singing, with 10 strings vibrating between us. This music is electric, even when we are unplugged. It is amplified, even without microphones. It is stark and bold, and it is changing us both even as we create it.

From a casual glance we seem like opposites, and in many ways we are. Part of the secret magic we've stumbled upon lies in the extreme polarity between us. We bring out different sides of each other, and compliment each other by contrast.

Alex is heavy metal, muscle and wild animal energy - an Aries in full head-banging ferocity. He's a fast picker on the guitar and a quick-witted companion, with an edgy rasp to his voice, always dancing on the edge of a scream.

Erin is a secret powerhouse in her own right, but she has an airy disposition, light and graceful, known for twirling skirts and smiling eyes, while dazzling audiences with her fiddle. She sings with an earthy sweetness that soothes, even while the lyrical blades are cutting through the numbness to hit a nerve.

While it may seem that our differences create the intrigue, the truth is that it's actually in the shadows where our edges overlap that we have found our sound.

The common center we share is that we've both been through the proverbial fire in our own ways. We are both survivors of abuse, trauma, and great personal loss and we've had to build our lives up from the ashes. Through our pain we've each leaned into songwriting as our preferred way of expressing ourselves, in order to keep ourselves alive.

Rumi said:

"There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.

The hopers would feel slighted if they knew."

Music, and songwriting specifically, for both of us, is that secret medicine.

From the first realization of the deep, almost psychic musical connection we share we knew there was a deeper purpose in our meeting. Finding someone else who understood both the pain and the cure lit us both up and connected us on a deep level.

We wrote about burning things and about all that the fire tried to take from us. We wrote from our rage and grief. We wrote with all the passion and smoke we had in us.

We wrote songs together for 6 years as we each, in our own ways, ascended through the many levels of hell upwards in a path of healing. Just like gold is intentionally tested by fire, so we have been tested. Potential destruction is the only way the truth can be refined and its value proved and polished to a gleaming shine.

After ascending through those 6 hard years and finding a deeper level of trust and commitment to each other, we decided to start fresh with a new name, and finally record and release our music to the world. We chose the name Ember & Ash because these are two very different outcomes of a fire after it's had its way with you.

We both feel a sense of destiny, like we're here to share the story of what it's like to be on the other side of the pain and to be able to grieve that which has been turned to ash and to hold on to and nurture the glowing embers of hope. Our songs help us to sort through and make something beautiful out of our tragedies. They help us see the truth that is worth keeping after everything else is burned away.