Ashley Hicklin

Ashley Hicklin (born 1985) is a Multi-Platinum English singer, songwriter, and producer. He owns Hit-My-Heart-Songs, a UK based music publishing company and has written songs for artists such as Tiësto, Tom Dice and Waylon, including more than Ten No.1 chart releases and over twenty Top-10 chart releases.

Early life

Ashley Hicklin was raised in his parent's pub on the North-East coast of England in Scarborough, North Yorkshire and completed his secondary education at Lady Lumley's School in Pickering, North Yorkshire and Caistor Grammar School in Lincolnshire. He first began to perform at open mic nights in the pub, at the age of 13 and recorded early demos on a tape machine.

As a musician Hicklin plays the guitar, piano, clarinet and drums. He studied at Leeds College of Music where he began performing on the live circuit, winning the Leeds "Bright Young Things" Award in 2006.

As a writer

In late 2008, the European CEO of EMI Publishing (Peter Ende) saw a live video of Hicklin performing for BBC Introducing. Hicklin signed a deal with EMI Publishing and in less than six months had co-written several chart hits for other artists across Europe, including Johan Palm's single Emma-lee which reached No. 1 in Sweden.

In 2010, he also co-wrote the Belgium entry for the Eurovision Song Contest "Me and My Guitar", sung by Tom Dice. It was a No.1 hit in Belgium and also a top-ten chart hit in many countries across Europe. Hicklin has collaborated with the teams behind Lana Del Rey, Felix Jaehn, Tiesto, Natasha Bedingfield, James Morrison, Hurts, Amy Winehouse, Sugababes and various other international acts. He writes under various pseudonyms collectively known as Hit-My-Heart-Songs.

Credits as a writer