Ashley Kutcher graduates with nursing degree, record deal

By Rebecca Kirkman on May 24, 2021

As the pandemic took hold across the U.S., many of Ashley Kutcher’s Towson University nursing classmates graduated early to help on the frontlines. Kutcher, however, found another way to mend hearts and minds: writing and performing the aptly titled, “Love You From a Distance,” one of the biggest music streaming hits of the last year.

By the time she graduated in winter 2020, Kutcher had attracted the attention of major record labels, walking away from TU with a Bachelor of Science in nursing and a contract with Darkroom/Interscope Records.

“When I was able to feel like I was helping more people with music than I was with nursing, I was like, ‘This just seems like the career path I’m supposed to go toward,’” Kutcher says.

As a senior, she was taking remote classes, working as a student nurse at a women’s health outpatient center for Greater Baltimore Medical Center and wrapping up her nursing practicum at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Yet the Baltimore native still made time to record and share her original music on social media. 

Kutcher developed a loyal fanbase on TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, where a comment from a fan asking her to “write a song about not being able to be with someone anymore,” inspired her to pen her viral hit. When a video she recorded sitting on her bathroom floor took off on TikTok, Kutcher worked with producer Eric Taft to record the official version and released it Oct. 30 on multiple streaming platforms including Spotify and iTunes.

“The next day, I woke up, and I was charting iTunes on the pop charts, passing artists that I've only ever dreamed of being up there with,” Kutcher recalls. The song made it to the Top 100, alongside tracks from bona fide pop stars like Sam Smith and Bruno Mars. “We had over 130,000 streams in one day with absolutely no promotion behind it.” Today, the song has more than 16 million streams and counting.

The success felt surreal to Kutcher. “I woke up the next morning and went to my clinical, and it was like nothing ever really happened,” she says. Until the record labels came knocking.

“I would schedule the days I wasn’t at the clinic to do label meeting after label meeting, and my dad helped me since I didn't have a management team,” she recalls. At this point, Kutcher began to consider that her childhood dream of a career in music could be within reach. 

Leaving the health care world to follow her passion for music was bittersweet.

“I told my boss for my student nursing job, ‘I'm going to have to put in my two weeks. I found a job.’ She was like, ‘Oh, what hospital did you get a job at?’ And I stumbled over telling her I actually am signing to a music label,” she recalls. “As I was walking away from nursing as a career, they threw me an entire party dedicated to music. It was the sweetest thing ever.”

The strong support—from her nursing colleagues to faculty and staff at TU alongside her friends and family—made the decision easier.

“When you’re introduced to your dream job, you can’t turn that down,” she says. “I think there’s a moment, and you can’t let that moment go.”

After months of Zoom meetings, this spring Kutcher traveled to Los Angeles to record her first single of 2021—“If I Could,” which was inspired by the desire to take away the pain of someone suffering from cancer.

Especially during a time when people have been more isolated, Kutcher is most inspired by music’s ability to connect people and express emotion.

“I've seen people resonate with the lyrics and the concepts the most,” she says. “I think it’s extremely important to keep writing songs that make people feel something.”

While the pandemic was a time of experiencing immense growth and building a strong community of supporters through social media, Kutcher looks forward to getting back in front of fans and performing live. This time, though, the stage will be bigger than the former Greene Turtle in uptown Towson, where Kutcher got her start with live gigs while waitressing in 2019.

“I think when live music comes back, and I'm able to perform for everyone that's been watching me online, it's going to be awesome,” she says. “There's going to be nothing like being on stage and having people sing my songs back to me.”

While she never could have imagined this path four years ago, Kutcher hopes her story serves as a lesson in what can happen when you follow your passion.

“I want other people to know it’s never too late to do something that you want to do,” she says. “If you want something, and you work toward it, I really, truly believe that you're going to end up doing what you're supposed to be doing.”

What’s next for Kutcher? She’s looking forward to sharing her music with more people soon, through a tour and her EP, which will be released later this year.

“I have a great team behind me. I have so many songs that I've written, especially over quarantine. Even up to today, I'm still writing songs. I think my best songs are yet to come. So I couldn't be more excited.”