FEATURE: Spotlight: Olivia O’Brien

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Olivia O’Brien

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WHILST she is a rising artist…

PHOTO CREDIT: Jones Crow for EUPHORIA.

who already has a big backing and fanbase, I wanted to spotlight Olivia O’Brien, as she is someone who is going to be a major artist soon. I have tried to be quite eclectic when it comes to artists I include in this feature. This year, I have included a few young Pop artists. O’Brien, whilst maybe primed more for the mainstream and stations like BBC Radio 1 in the U.K., has the potential to win over an even broader demographic. Even though her debut E.P., It’s Not That Deep, came out in 2017, the last year or so have been the busiest. Whilst we wait for a second studio album, we can enjoy and hear 2021’s Episodes: Season 1. I am not sure when we might get a follow-up to that E.P. It is an exciting and busy time for her. Prior to getting to some interviews, AllMusic provide some biography. Although it is not up to date, it does show where O’Brien started and how her career has grown:

“California's Olivia O'Brien is a vocalist with a bent toward dance-oriented electronic pop and emotive balladry. O'Brien made her breakthrough in the late 2010s on her collaboration with gnash, "i hate u, i love u," which peaked in the Top Ten of the Hot 100. This paved the way for her debut album, 2019's Was It Even Real?, as well as EPs like 2020's The Results of My Poor Judgement and 2021's Episodes: Season 1.

Born in Thousand Oaks, California, in 1999, O'Brien grew up singing from a young age and taught herself to play guitar and piano. By her teens she was writing her own songs, as well as posting covers online. Eventually, she caught the ear of Los Angeles-based singer/rapper/producer gnash, whose song "Disposable" she had covered. He requested to hear her original material, and they began collaborating. In 2015, they posted their version of her song "i hate u, i love you" online. The following year, gnash included the song on his debut EP, us, and released it commercially as a single. It immediately caught on, hitting number one in Australia and landing in the Top Ten in the U.S.

In August of 2016, O'Brien released her debut solo single, "Trust Issues." Several more singles followed, including "Root Beer Float" featuring Blackbear, "Find What You're Looking For," "Empty," and "RIP." The latter two tracks appeared on her 2017 EP It's Not That Deep (Island). The following year, she hopped onto "Beg" with Jack & Jack, later recruiting G-Eazy and Drew Love for a remix of "RIP."

Late 2018 saw the arrival of the singles "UDK," "I Don't Exist," and "I Care More" ahead of the release of her first full-length effort, Was It Even Real?, which arrived in spring 2019. In 2020, O'Brien stayed busy releasing a handful of EPs, including The Results of My Poor Judgement, Josslyn, and Hope That It Was Worth It. During the early months of 2021, she delivered several singles including "Better Than Feeling Lonely" and "Sociopath," the latter of which was included on her fourth EP, Episodes: Season 1, along with the song "No More Friends" featuring Oliver Sykes of Bring Me the Horizon”.

I think Olivia O’Brien has the potential to be a major artist. Someone who could also transfer her talents to the small or big screen, we will see her flourish and expand her C.V. very soon. Last year’s terrific E.P., Episodes: Season 1, suggests a series of E.P.s from the twenty-two-year-old. EUPHORIA. spoke with her last year about that E.P. and what the future holds. I have chosen a few parts of that interview that are especially interesting:

“Episode 3: Tuning Into Episodes: Season 1

Olivia O’Brien has always been the main character, and the post-pandemic creative surge on the horizon in 2021 certainly won’t allow her to step away from the role. In a letter to fans and, really, herself on Instagram, O’Brien asks the question: “If I were to erase an episode from the story of my life, the plot would no longer make sense. Right?”

The answer comes in the form of a no-holds-barred, two-part storytime, and Episodes: Season 1 is a brilliant reflection of O’Brien’s acknowledgement that being the main character isn’t always a happy-go-lucky success story.

“You have the power to be so dumb and do dumb things and make your life into a movie,” O’Brien explains. “Also, if you’re really sad and horrible things are happening to you, that’s also like a movie. The main characters always have horrible shit happening to them. That’s always what happens. You can be the main character of a fucking sad movie. You’re still the main character. What’s the point of being here if you’re going to fucking die one day and you’re not taking advantage of the time that you have here?”

On Episodes, O’Brien unpacks the layers of being center stage in her own life, beginning with upbeat pop-horror crossover hit “Sociopath.” The track explores the aftermath of falling in love with someone who seems incapable of emotion as O’Brien sings, “Got an empty expression / Blood on your hands / You should feel something / But maybe you can’t.” In alignment with its visual, it takes a vintage horror approach to sound, using classic slasher film sound effects in its bridge to soundtrack the damage done by the song’s antagonist.

The second song on the track list, “Call Mom,” takes on a different kind of heartbreak: loneliness. “I’m too young to feel like my life’s already over,” O’Brien performs, using the writing as a therapeutic approach to unpacking the pressure that comes with life in the spotlight.

It’s O’Brien’s version of tapping her heels together three times to be taken back to where she was happiest in her youth, as well as a subtle love song for her mom whose voice is featured in voicemails throughout the track. With its rawness and dripping sadness in the recording, it feels hard to believe that the song was written two years ago for its 2021 release.

“I still feel all the emotions that I felt when I wrote that song,” O’Brien says. “Even though I wrote it so long ago, I still am able to connect with it because it is really emotional, versus if I’m writing about a guy, then I probably am fucking over that by two years later. I don’t care anymore.”

But “Call Mom” is evidence of Episodes replay value; the moment doesn’t need to be fresh to be impactful, a parallel that stays true to the real-life implications of being a main character. Much like the flow of human emotion — particularly in the way O’Brien experiences it — Episodes moves effortlessly through a stream of consciousness, even hitting on a touch of nihilism with “We’re All Gonna Die” and the big question of what’s next with “What Happens Now.”

That final track, O’Brien explains, acts as a cliffhanger between the seasons of Episodes; what will appear next in her cinematic universe?

“‘What Happens Now’ is the cinematic kind of song, and for me, it represents the ending credits. It’s very Breakfast Club, where the guy has his arm in the air and he’s walking off to the edge like, ‘What’s going to happen after this?’ That’s what it represents to me.”

It isn’t the first time that O’Brien has kept fans waiting, but the following iteration is always worth the pause — and if the visual promotion for the album is any indicator, there won’t be any shortage of O’Brien as the main character throughout the break.

Episode 4: Epilogue (and Coming Full Circle)

The cliffhanger of Episodes: Season 1, in this case, also marks the beginning of the epilogue while kick-starting a new era of Olivia O’Brien’s artistry. She gets to be front and center, all the time, through the most literal definition of introspective thick and thin.

The first major step in this era is adjusting to “the new normal” post-pandemic, which may be the catalyst for newfound creativity and motivation for her art. Right now, though, the prospect feels rather daunting after more than a year of decreased inspiration.

“I’m going to be able to do stuff again and feel like a normal fucking person again, and I think that’s going to really contribute to my creativity,” O’Brien says. “Because everything is based off of my own life, and nothing was happening for me. I was so fucking bored. Like, what am I supposed to write about? And I would try to write about other people and things but, if I’m not connecting to it, I’m not going to want to put it out even if it is kind of good.”

Part of the transition back to life as usual for the musician is live shows. Having just announced her rescheduled shows on The Olivia O’Brien Show tour, she is looking to the horizon for an in-person reminder that people are listening.

Here’s a spoiler: they are.

“You forget that people give a fuck about you,” O’Brien says. “Even if you see it on the internet, it’s a lot different than being there in person and seeing people in front of you and people coming up to you and crying. That really reminds you, ‘Okay, people give a fuck about me.’”

Live and within the bounds of the album, Episodes: Season 1 is a reflective piece of work; while it does mirror who O’Brien is as an artist in the present day, it also dives into flashbacks of a musician who doesn’t need to be a role model to find strife, but who still battles with meeting her own expectations for herself (and those that others impose) without burning out.

And recognizing that part of herself is just one piece of the puzzle that adds up to O’Brien becoming the artist she wants to be. “I just want to be able to make whatever I want, whenever I want, [and] be confident in it,” O’Brien explains. “To me, it’s all about confidence. I was so insecure for most of my life.”

Today’s O’Brien, though, was shaped by that insecurity, the aforementioned growing pains that raised her from making covers in her bedroom to writing songs about some of her most sensitive and sentimental experiences.

Perhaps it is those years of baring it all and finding herself on her own that make her idolize the “before times,” when she was a blithe, airy kid who just wanted to be a “triple-threat singer, actor, dancer… fashion designer” who was definitely going to marry Justin Bieber.

That version of O’Brien, frankly, didn’t “give a fuck.”

“You grow up and you meet all these fucking people that just tell you what you can and can’t do, especially in high school. Everyone’s shitty,” O’Brien explains. “Your confidence gets kind of knocked down. You have to be a special kind of person to not get affected by all that shit, and I am not that person. I will go home and cry. So, I’m trying to get back to like how I felt about myself as a kid and just not giving a fuck about things [and] just doing whatever I want to do.”

O’Brien continues, “And not in a selfish way. I mean, maybe it’s a little selfish, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be a little bit selfish.”

Episodes: Season 1 allows O’Brien to do just that: she gets to set the scene, choose the stories, and create a “show” that feels authentic to who she is and who she strives to be. It resembles both a television show and a photo album, and what better time to start from the beginning than after finishing the season?”.

Bringing things up to date, she recently collaborated with FLETCHER on Bitch Back. It is a combination and instant chemistry of two ambitious and incredibly popular artists who have a friendship and respect for one another. I get the impression, if there is a second studio album coming soon, there will be quite a few collaborations. INSIDER spoke with Olivia O’Brien about working on the song with FLETCHER:

“When O'Brien was only a freshman in high school, she posted a cover of a Gnash song on SoundCloud, which miraculously made its way to him. After they connected, she sent him an original song that he asked to produce and include on his next EP. The next thing she knew, "I Hate U, I Love U" was a top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

"It just randomly blew up," O'Brien said. "It was the first song I ever put out. So then I was like, 'Oh, OK. I guess I do music now.'"

The transition to Hollywood "wasn't that bad," O'Brien added. "I really was ready to leave Napa. No one was very nice to me, especially after I started doing music."

Now 22, with a debut album and hundreds of millions of Spotify streams under her belt, O'Brien continues to take everything in stride. Her new single "Bitch Back," featuring FLETCHER, is an ode to being untethered, carefree, and maybe a little reckless — especially with her newly single best friend riding shotgun.

She opened up to Insider about dealing with breakups, writing songs for "my girlies and my gays," and learning to separate beauty from self-worth.

PHOTO CREDIT: Island Records

“How did that friendship turn into a song?

I had this song that I originally wrote myself, and it was just for me. And then I was like, I just really think this song would be cool with a female feature because it's about having your friend come back from a relationship and being single and going out.

I just figured FLETCHER would be the perfect feature. We have similar fan bases. I really like her as a person. I'm obsessed with her music. I think she's super talented and it just made sense. So I asked her if she would be down.

She came to the studio and we rewrote the second verse for her. Well, she mainly wrote it, but we had to fit it into the song, right? So it ended up being her version of what I originally wrote, which I think is really cool.

While you two were in the studio, where did you imagine people listening to the song? What's the ideal environment for it to be played?

When I think of it, I think of best friends in a car jamming out. Maybe one of their friends is sad from a breakup and the other friends are like, "Let's fucking rage. Let's go have a good night." And they put it on and it just brightens the mood, or they're pregaming to go out. Something like that.

I just hope that it brings people a little bit of happiness and bad-bitch energy.

Similar to MARINA, female camaraderie and empowerment are really important themes in your music. When you sit down to write a song, do you begin with that intention or does it come through naturally?

It kind of depends on what I'm feeling that day. Sometimes I'm writing… not necessarily love songs, but I'll be writing songs about boys, and I still sneak in a "men suck, women are awesome" lyric. [Laughs]. Pretty much all of my songs are like that. I think that's just my energy all the time.

I wouldn't say that I am a man-hater. I have lots of guy friends and whatever, but at the end of the day, my loyalty lies with my girlies. My girlies and my gays. That's just my personality. And because I write all my own songs, it kind of comes out, no matter what I'm writing about.

You wrote a thread on Twitter recently about women being objectified by men and you described "the way we look" as "unimportant." I thought that was a really interesting word choice, especially since social media plays such a huge role in pop culture and the music industry in particular. Could you elaborate a bit more on what you meant by appearance is "unimportant" in this context?

Being a young woman in Hollywood, I've always felt like I notice the most insanely tiny minuscule flaws in myself and it causes huge insecurity. Things I feel like I should edit out of photos.

Like when I was 16, I had my nose done because I was constantly bullied from like sixth grade, when my nose hump first developed, I think I was like 9 or 10. And that was the No. 1 thing that I wanted to change about myself. It was an insecurity. I looked in the mirror every single day. Even when I was just walking around, I was like, "Oh my god, everyone's looking in my nose. It's so big and it's so horrible." And it sucks that a child has to think about that.

That is just the standard that society puts on women. I am very pro-plastic surgery — I've gotten things done, I'm very open and honest about that — if it is going to improve your quality of life and make you feel better about yourself”.

I am going to wrap things up there. Olivia O’Brien has grown a lot as an artist since her debut. Not just in terms of her sound, but her confidence and fanbase. She is someone who is not confined to Pop stations or a younger audience. Her music has a depth, relevance and range that means it can touch and resonate with a large audience. Check her out if you have not heard her music. She will be a huge name before too long! These are still early days for O’Brien, but she has kicked off her career…