The Favors feel like an instant classic – and for good reason. Speaking with Atwood Magazine, Ashe discusses the special band she formed with FINNEAS and the joy, trust, and creative freedom behind their quietly breathtaking debut album ‘The Dream,’ a harmony-rich record born of friendship and rooted in the timeless magic of making music together.

“The Little Mess You Made” – The Favors

Individually, they’re successful artists. Together, they’re living The Dream.

FINNEAS and Ashe did not need to start a band – and that, alone, may be part of what makes The Favors feel so vital. In an era of algorithm-friendly features and one-off collaborations designed to spike attention, The Favors arrived from a deeper place: Friendship, trust, creative risk, and the rare chemistry that only happens when two artists stop protecting their own corners and meet in the middle. The result is warm, wounded, lived-in, and unmistakably human.

From the moment their debut single “The Little Mess You Made” appeared last summer, The Favors felt like more than a side project. The song carried the ache of a classic duet and the immediacy of something happening in real time, with Ashe and FINNEAS trading lines not as star and supporting player, but as equal storytellers working through the same emotional wreckage from opposite ends. That push and pull runs through the whole of The Dream – a richly collaborative record shaped by shared authorship, old-school sensibilities, a love for timeless songwriting and radiant harmonies, and a palpable desire to make something lasting.

Released September 19, 2025 via Darkroom Records, The Dream taps into the sun-soaked spirit of classic ’70s pop while grounding it in the lived experiences of two modern singer/songwriters – both of whom know heartbreak, ambition, and reinvention all too well. Written largely between Nashville and Los Angeles and recorded in FINNEAS’ living room alongside bandmates David Marinelli and Matthew “Ricky ‘Rat’ Gourmet” Fildy, the album grew from a simple premise: Make music the old-fashioned way, together in a room.

Ashe recalls the process with fondness. “This is the way every artist dreams of making an album,” she says. “People don’t sing together anymore when they’re recording, but it was so romantic and fun.”

For both artists, the project represented something deeper than a collaboration. Finneas O’Connell, the Grammy-winning songwriter, producer, and solo artist known for shaping some of the most recognizable pop records of the past decade, and Ashlyn Rae Willson, the multi-platinum singer/songwriter behind beloved hits like “Moral of the Story” and “Till Forever Falls Apart,” had spent years orbiting each other creatively. But The Favors offered something new: A band built on equal footing.

For Ashe especially, the experience became a kind of artistic reset. “I had lost the plot,” she admits candidly. “I really had lost a sense of joy. And every time Finneas and I have ever connected – just as friends or creating music together – it’s always been so joyful and fulfilling.”

It started, as many good ideas do, almost by accident.

Burned out after completing her album trilogy and unsure what she wanted to write next, Ashe found herself drafting something unexpected – a play about a band forming and navigating life together. But somewhere in the middle of imagining those characters, a realization hit. “I was getting jealous of these people that I was writing about,” she recalls. “And I just stopped myself and thought, why don’t I just see if I can actually put this together?”

The next day, she texted FINNEAS with the idea. His response was immediate. “He was so cute,” Ashe laughs. “He said, ‘This solves all my problems.’” What began as a passing thought quickly became something real – a band, a record, and a creative revival neither artist knew they needed.

That spirit animates the album’s many highlights. The title track, “The Dream,” balances humor and heartbreak, sketching the familiar image of a struggling artist chasing success while quietly unraveling behind the scenes. “I loved that image of someone being in their basement and pretending to have it all,” Ashe says with a laugh, describing the song’s origins. “Each of us in that room had felt a sense of rejection in some way.” The tension builds toward a dramatic crescendo as Ashe and FINNEAS join voices in unison – “On Monday morning / You get so lonely / Don’t be so boring / You’re not the only one” – a feverish release that hits hard and lingers long after the final note.

Elsewhere, “The Hudson” stands as one of the record’s most quietly devastating moments – a love song tangled up in memory and distance, inspired by Ashe’s complicated relationship with New York and the person it once represented. The gorgeously tender “Necessary Evils” leans into romantic vulnerability, a track Ashe calls one of her personal favorites. “It’s one of the most romantic songs Finneas and I have ever written,” she says. “The bridge will make me tear up every time if I let it.” In that moment, the song’s emotional center surfaces in stark clarity: “No I’d never feel blue if I’d never met you / And I’d never be wrong cause you’d never be true / If you’d never been born I’d avoid every storm / I drive for you.” It’s a quietly devastating admission – that the heartbreak we carry is inseparable from the love that made it meaningful in the first place.

The album’s other corners reveal just how wide The Favors’ emotional palette can stretch. Songs like “Times Square Jesus” bring a sharper edge to the record’s palette, a wry and confessional meditation on love, temptation, and the strange moral theater of New York City. Elsewhere, the aching “David’s Brother” captures the familiar sting of running into someone you once loved and realizing how much still lingers beneath the surface.

By the time the album reaches its final moments, that same honesty softens into reflection. The closing track “Home Sweet Home” circles back to the album’s central themes of belonging, connection, and the fragile beauty of building something with people you trust. “And it all comes back, it all comes back / It all comes back to you,” Ashe and FINNEAS sing together, the line landing less like a resolution than a quiet acceptance – that love, memory, and longing have a way of finding their way back to us, no matter how far we roam.

But the album’s centerpiece remains “The Little Mess You Made” – the song that best captures what makes The Favors so compelling. Originally written by FINNEAS as a piano ballad, Ashe immediately heard something more dramatic unfolding within it. “I could hear us screaming at each other and having this back and forth like our first fight,” she recalls. That emotional tension – the intimacy born from conflict, honesty, and resolution – ultimately became the song’s beating heart. Structured as a slow-burning duet, the track lets each voice step forward before colliding in harmony, turning a private argument into a cinematic, cathartic release. By the time Ashe and FINNEAS begin echoing each other’s lines, the song feels less like a conversation and more like the unraveling of one – two perspectives circling the same heartbreak, unable (or unwilling) to let the other have the final word.

The little mess you made
Is filling up our room
A little bit of rain
Is filling up our shoes
Maybe second place
Is just the first to lose
You can have your cake
You can have mine too

Say when
You’ll never see me again

I kind of hope it inspires more artists to make a record with your friend! You don’t have to commit to forever, but try it out and see how it fits on you.

* * *

In a musical landscape that moves faster than ever, The Favors feel almost radical in their simplicity: Two artists stepping out from behind their own carefully built worlds to meet each other as equals.

That spirit – collaborative, generous, and disarmingly human – is what makes The Dream resonate so deeply. Whether this band continues for years or remains a singular spark in both artists’ careers, The Favors have already accomplished something rare: A record that feels timeless without trying to be, intimate without shrinking from grand emotion, and alive with the unmistakable joy of two musicians rediscovering why they fell in love with music in the first place. If this truly is a one-off, it’s a beautiful one – the kind that leaves its mark long after the final note fades.

In conversation with Atwood Magazine, Ashe reflects on the joy and renewal that gave birth to The Favors, the freedom of building a band instead of carrying a project alone, and the friendship at the heart of an album that feels both classic and beautifully of-the-moment. Released September 19 via Darkroom Records, The Dream is, true to its title, a wistful, harmonious, and deeply felt labor of love – one that revives the romance of making music together.

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:: stream/purchase The Dream here ::

:: connect with The Favors here ::

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Stream: ‘The Dream’ – The Favors

A CONVERSATION WITH THE FAVORS

Ashe: Four months does not seem like that long. I haven’t heard that number, and it’s strange ’cause I feel like we put it out 3,000 years ago, but I think that’s also how time is moving these days. And they also say as you get older, time moves faster, in relation to how long you’ve been alive. So maybe I’m just aging. Man, slow it down.

I couldn’t love what we made an ounce more. I’m so proud of it. The way we made it was special. I just started writing again and it’s funny as I start writing again for my own solo stuff, I’m thinking, how dreamy was it that I got to do that first? And how it’s informing how I write now, that’s a really special thing. But how does it feel? I love it. I love the record. I miss it already. And it’s funny, it’s only been four months and I could just put the record on, but because… I think psychologically because we released it in September and then I got married in October, and then it was Thanksgiving.

Ashe: Thank you. Thanks. That was a good day too. And then it was the holidays and then it’s the new year. And so maybe that’s kind of creating this psychological separation as well ’cause there were other big things that sort of followed it. But Finn and I were talking every single day. I mean, I know he got so sick of me… We just caught up maybe a week and a half ago on a FaceTime, but it was strange. I didn’t talk to him for maybe two weeks. And I’m sorry, are we fighting? Like, did we fight? Did I blow it? ‘Cause before we were talking literally every day. So it’s been a surreal, good experience!

Ashe: We could not be more in business bed together at this point. He’s my publisher. I signed to his publishing company last year. So we are in business. So it’s probably good that we took a little bit of a break for a second in the chat. Let him miss me.

Ashe: Well, for me, which I have a very deeply intimate relationship with The Favors would be friendship. The name also was sort of derived of the favors you’d only do for your closest friends or those you love the most. So that was true before we started the project and we were just naming it. And now that we have really gone through this whole experience together, The Favors is completely encapsulated in friendship to me and relationship.

Ashe: Well, I brought up the idea to him before I had even started working on my third studio album. So they sort of started to work in tandem. I hadn’t started working on my solo record Wilson yet, and I wasn’t ready to write period. So Finn and I sort of agreed we wouldn’t start the project until the fall of that year, which was 2023. But it really was at least on my side, and I know Finneas has his reasons for doing it, but it was born for me from a place of really depletion and needing to feel sort of revived again. And not only revived, but reminded why I love making music and why I chose this not only as something I like to do and spend my time but my career, my whole life. So much of my life gets swallowed up by this world. And I really had lost… To me, I had lost the plot. And I hope that it didn’t completely seem like that to the rest of the world externally, but internally I really had lost a sense of joy. And every time Finneas and I have ever connected, just as friends or creating music together, it’s always been so joyful and fulfilling.

Silly enough, I had started writing this play… And I don’t write plays. This is me being, “I’m a creative, and I don’t want to make an album, so I’m gonna make a play.” I started working on this script about a band and forming a band and getting together and whatnot and of all of that. And then as I was doing it, I was getting jealous of these sort of characters that I was working on. And I just stopped myself and I was like, “Why don’t I just see if I can actually put this together?” And I think the next day I texted Finneas and he was so cute and said, “This solves all my problems.” And I was like, “I didn’t know that I could be a source of solving problems for you, but let’s go.” So, yeah, that’s basically the context behind the beginning of it.

Ashe: 1 billion percent. I’m still Ashe. I’m still a music artist, I’m still a songwriter in the context of this thing we’re creating, but all eyes are not on me and eyes are on me in a different way. So not only are they 50/50 on me, but the eyes that are on me are now different, or in a way, because he’s pulling a completely different audience. I know there’s… We obviously have some crossover in our song “Till Forever Falls Apart.” If you’re a big fan of Finneas, you’ve probably heard of Ashe. If you’re a big fan of me, you definitely know Finneas. But there were these new eyeballs, this new audience that I got to be introduced to that was also a challenge of like, all right, are you gonna love me too? And that was really fun. It was a really fun challenge.

Finneas uses this sort of analogy of when you’re moving and you’re lifting furniture, the insane difference that it makes when someone else is holding the other two legs of the chair. And it really felt like we were lifting the furniture together. It was a really shared experience, which there’s a lot of people on my team that work their asses off for me as the solo artist Ashe but at the end of the day, I’m the only one front and center on that stage. And it is a much more isolating experience. So, yeah, it’s special.

Ashe: Yeah. I mean, even just think of the context of this interview. Had Finneas been in it with me, I’d be talking half the time. And listen, I love to talk so don’t get me wrong. Being a solo artist suits me in a lot of ways, and I got to experience that side of it, too, where Finneas and I would… I mean, honestly, we didn’t butt heads that much. I think we’re both reasonable people. We also didn’t start a band as teenagers. We’re adults who love each other. I think that makes a huge difference. But he’s used to being the boss in so many ways, and I’m used to being the boss. I don’t answer to anybody, typically. And so we had an obligation to answer to each other, which was completely new. And so that taught me a lot. But also it also taught me that I am good on my own and I am good on making decisions, isolated from somebody else. So I don’t know if I just answered your question.

Ashe: Yeah, absolutely, I feel that way.

Ashe: I mean, I think the simplest answer is “Moral of the Story” and “Till Forever Falls Apart” are Ashe songs. They were largely written by me and brought in to Finneas. So, “Moral of the Story” was written and mostly produced before Finn got his hands on it. And then he sort of worked his magic and had these beautiful tweaks and tasteful tweaks here and there and then “Till Forever” I had sort of written the whole song, including a second verse that he ended up rewriting, which thank God, because of course. But the DNA of those songs at the end of the day are very Ashe-coded, whereas we had never collaborated in a way where it was so co-writer, he’s writing this line, I’m writing this line.

There were two songs on the record, “The Little Mess You Made” and “The Hudson,” which, I mean, funny enough, are two of my favorite songs on the album. But those were pretty much separately written. I had brought in “The Hudson,” he had brought in “The Little Mess.” But other than that, there was a real, true collaborative experience. And a lot of the songs were written with our friends David Marinelli, and Matthew Fildy, who we also call Rat or Ricky. Why does he have 4 million names? Only he can tell you. And we were writing the records in a room together where David was at the drum kit and Ricky was on bass or guitar, Finn was sitting… He was either on bass or guitar, and then I was at keys. And so as we’re actually arranging the records, it’s sort of a living, breathing organism where like, “Oh, I love what you just did there. Try this groove instead, play this chord instead.” I make the comment that it was kind of how you dream albums are made – “I bet that’s how it happens.” And you’re like, no, it’s never that way. But we really sort of got this dreamy movie experience out of it.

Ashe: We did sort of limit ourselves sonically in terms of, we were like, we’re not going to use any instruments or sounds made after 1980. The keyboard sounds I’m playing is on a keyboard called the CP80. And it’s on every single song on the record, I think, except maybe “Times Square Jesus,” which is a pretty guitar-forward song. And that just helped sort of define the palette. Again, we wanted to make something that has existed forever or sounds like it has always been around. So, that timeless – I need to come up with a different word for timeless ’cause it is so my North Star in so many ways, but I’m repetitive. There was a very clear direction from the get of that. We didn’t have an idea in mind of what kind of story we wanted to tell. That sort of slowly developed and we etched away at that as the songs were made. But yeah, it was a very cool way to make a record with your friends, where we had each instrument in mind.

Ashe: Well, I’m very simply put similar to sort of what I’ve been talking about, the way we made the record was so dreamy. I think for me, it was the dream to get to not only make a record that I believed in in this very traditional sort of old school way, but with people I loved and make me laugh so regularly. That was a very unique experience and that was the dream for me. And then, of course, we wrote the song ‘The Dream’ and that immediately just solidified things. But yeah, that’s my side. If I had to guess, I think Finneas would probably give you a different answer, but I don’t know what he would say.

Ashe: Well, that was one that we were all four in the room together writing, and it was almost a joke. I think half the time we were making that record we were all cracking up. The boys are very witty and I will give them a laugh for free. I’m pretty easy to please in that regard. So I’m cracking up the whole time. And I just loved that image of someone being in their basement and pretending to have it all and lying to your mother and just being like “everything’s fine and everything’s together” and “I’m a famous person in Hollywood,” but actually, you’re sort of selling your soul to make these videos to send to the studio, and you’re never going to get the part, and you’re never going to get the play, and or ever going to get the record deal.

And we’ve all felt to an extent, not maybe as specifically as our song writes, but each of us in that room had felt a sense of rejection. I mean, even Finneas at the beginning, he was in bands growing up and they were bad. The Favors is arguably his first good band. So, he got to experience a level of trying and failing. And so yeah, it felt like a very relatable and human experience, and it was a good laugh.

Ashe: You’re in the band. You’re one of us.

Ashe: Yeah, largely written as a ballad. He played the song for me at piano and I immediately I was just sold. And he had played me maybe two or three songs, including this one, but this was the one that made the record. And I think that was because I could hear it in The Favors’ world, and it wasn’t just a Finneas record. And I think he felt the same sort of with “The Hudson” in that regard, but I wanted to hear it as a full band. So he presents this piano ballad and immediately I could sort of hear us screaming at each other and having this sort of back and forth like our first fight. And there’s something that in a relationship, when you actually have your first fight, there’s an intimacy that’s created from that that I don’t think maybe we talk about enough. We talk about the butterflies when things are wonderful and good, but less so when there’s a disagreement – and the resolve of that actually creates this real intimacy. So I loved exploring that together.

And you know in the music video, you see us in each other’s faces. And so for me, less lyrically, more on the side of how I could see us in relationship together, making this record together, exploring another side of our friendship and our artistry ’cause everything has been much more sweet. “Till Forever Falls Apart” is a sweet song. So yeah, that was that song for me.

Ashe: “The Hudson” was born from a place of sort of love and loss for me. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with New York. It’s always been sort of embodied by a person in a relationship that I had. And so I love it differently now because I have separated myself a little bit and I’ve written a lot of songs now about this freaking heartbreak. But yeah, that record was one where I started to sort of delve a little bit more into those feelings. And I brought it to Finn and he wrote the line about take my coat and I’ll catch a cold if it keeps you warm. And that was just this heartbreaking sweetness. That’s really what it is.

Ashe: “Bed’s wrapped in plastic, in slippers, and supper’s at noon. Cards and balloons fill up your room like floats on parade.” I’m so proud of this imagery, I really felt like I could imagine myself an old woman, losing my mind a little with the one I love. It’s bleak but also full of so much love.

Ashe: “Necessary Evils” remains one of my favorites. I think it’s one of the most romantic songs Finneas and I have ever written and the bridge will make me tear up every time I listen to it if I let it.

Ashe: What can I share? I mean, Finneas and I are always going to make music and music together. I think the less elusive answer is that we love making this album together. I would be very surprised if we didn’t touch this world again. That’s about all I know.

Ashe: I mean, my takeaway was that there is real joy and fulfillment in creating music with your friend. And I needed to understand that again. As I said, I sort of needed that revival, if you will. And I guess for other people… I mean, the band is not dead. And we do live in a strange time. I mean, there’s so much music and there’s so much oversaturation and noise and wonderful songs and really shitty songs and such a mixed bag happening right now. But I feel like we got to do something that really felt unique, and that it was in its own lane.

And so I don’t know, I kind of hope it inspires more artists to make a record with your friend. You don’t have to commit to forever, but try it out and see how it fits on you and, yeah, the duet, the band is not dead.

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