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Oliver Crosby’s Dorm Studio, Dream Guests, and New Projects

Updated: 19 hours ago

Interview and Photos By Sarah Hyun | September 28, 2025
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Oliver Crosby | Interview & Photos by Sarah Hyun for HAZZE MEDIA
Oliver Crosby | Interview & Photos by Sarah Hyun for HAZZE MEDIA

When you think of a college dorm, the last thing that likely comes to mind is analog tape machines, vintage synthesizers, or tube TVs. For producer and University of Southern California student Oliver Crosby, transforming his freshman year dorm into a studio — complete with a drum kit, various basses, guitars, and keyboards, along with his own personal touch for decoration — was an uncompromisable project.


Also known by his solo project ANDRS, the 20-year-old has been rapidly gaining online traction with his unique approach to music production, amassing nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram.



His unique POV-style videos, which seamlessly combine jazz-fusion and jungle beats, coupled with his innovative blend of a digital audio workstation (DAW) with the warm, oversaturated tones of analog tape, captivated audiences in the similar music realms of Deaton Chris Anthony and PinkPantheress.


Between launching his own plugin company and sharing the stage with artists like Chappell Roan and Kaytranada, Crosby is proving that a music career is more achievable than ever with the right mindset and hard work.


Oliver Crosby | Interview & Photos by Sarah Hyun for HAZZE MEDIA


Q: How did you first get into music? Was there a specific moment or person that inspired you, or did it come naturally from growing up in a musical family?


Crosby: The first origin of it was basically my parents jamming me in piano lessons when I was a kid. So I started taking lessons when I was maybe seven or eight. I remember being in elementary school and discovering old music like The Beatles, the Eagles and The Doobie Brothers and being like, "Whoa, this is so cool. It sounds a lot different than the pop on the radio.” 


I started playing more, playing what I wanted. I never wanted to learn sheet music or theory or anything. So every time I sat at the piano, I kind of just played what I wanted, which I think has now helped me feel really comfortable with writing and just playing what I want instead of other people's songs. 


And then from there into actual music production. When I was 12, I discovered this dude Andrew Huang on YouTube and started watching his music production videos. And at the time, I had messed around a little bit in GarageBand on my computer, but I saw him using Ableton and making these sick videos where he was sampling stuff. I was like, "This looks sick,” so I begged my dad to buy me Ableton, and the rest is kinda history.



Q: Your freshman dorm studio was quite unique — how did creating music in that environment influence your creative process?


Crosby: It was interesting. Unfortunately for me, the dorm studio was kind of a downgrade from the setup I had before. Towards the end of COVID, when my family did not have any guests, I stole our guest bedroom and just built a completely free-range studio. I had no [constraints] really, so I just put all my equipment in there. 


But then when I came to the dorm, I had to kind of be considerate about other people's space. I was sharing that room with two other guys. Thankfully, they were both in music - both jazz bass players - which is probably about as chill as you can get. But it was really fun. I think just the social aspect of the dorm meant that there were always people coming in and out, so it was a very lively place. There was always energy, always good vibes around. 


I'd say the big downside was bringing artists in. When I came to LA as a music producer, I wanted to work with people from LA and just get into the scene. I would bring singers and songwriters and producers and whoever to the dorm. It was always such a weird vibe when I was guesting them in. 


We'd go up the elevator and have to walk past the communal bathrooms, and there was always a fight happening or people shouting. So, it was kind of not a very professional environment, but it was very fun and cool to have probably the most unique dorm I've ever seen.


Oliver Crosby | Interview & Photos by Sarah Hyun for HAZZE MEDIA

Q: Out of all the instruments and equipment you own, which is your favorite, and why? Does it have a story behind it?


Crosby: I probably have to go with my Rhodes, just because it's the first real, cool analog thing I got. I got it when I was 14, and I had found it kind of right before the prices started going insane on them. I just remember being so excited. I'd been playing Rhodes at that vintage shop in Seattle for a long time, and I scrounged together all the money I had saved in my whole life. 


To that point, I was like, “I need this Rhodes.” So it came from a studio, and I brought it back home. I played that thing nonstop for months, and I still play it all the time. It just has such a good feel to it, and it inspires so many people [who] come in here too. 


This is kind of a random tangent, but a big job of a producer is to curate a vibe in a room and make sure that people are really excited to make music and feel good about it. And 99 percent of the time that I bring keyboard players in here, the first thing they do is run over to the Rhodes like, “Turn this on, turn this on.” And that's how so many ideas have started. It's just a very inspiring instrument and it sounds beautiful. It's really fun to play. I don't see myself selling it, so shoutout to my 14-year-old self for locking in and making that happen.



Q: Who have been your favorite guests that you’ve brought to the studio?


Crosby: I met Blue DeTiger for the first time, and I've known about her for a long time. She's so badass. She came with her brother here. We filmed some stuff coming soon in the next couple [of] weeks. 


She's actually just the coolest person ever.  We ended up doing two sessions, almost back-to-back. That's my older sister right there. She calls me little bro. I call her older sis. She's super cool, very talented, and we were making some cool stuff.


Q: Do you have any dream guests that you'd love to bring to the studio?


Crosby: Oh my god, so many. I think that's kind of the job of a producer. I really want to start working with the artists that I look up to. PinkPantheress is probably my dream person to produce for. 


She's super sick and I love jungle music. A lot of my videos are very jungle and drum and bass focused, and I feel like her music is so unique. She's the only one out there as big as she is doing that and crossing pop with jungle, so I love that.



Q: You're only 20, but you've already accomplished so much — touring with Cherry Ferrari, working on your solo project ANDRS, starting your own plugin company, and more. What has been the most rewarding and the most challenging part of navigating the music industry at such a young age?


Crosby: First of all, thank you. I'd say most rewarding, probably being able to play shows, which I unfortunately haven't really been able to do for about a year now. I miss it so much. It's so rewarding because performing is just something I've always loved to do. Being able to meet the people after is probably my favorite part. 


It's still crazy to me that people will drive and pay money to come see me play music. I love meeting the people [who] like the music and having conversations with them. Even just through the ANDRS stuff, I've met some people in real life who are fans of the videos, and that always reminds me that it's real, you know? 


Sometimes I forget, I'm just kinda like sitting in my room and I'm posting from behind my phone and like, it doesn't really feel like anything real until you go in the world and you meet someone who knows it. And that kind of makes it tangible in a way. 


And then for challenging, I have a hard time trying to balance working in music and doing what I know I should be doing. Like I love doing music, but you know, it's still work and I have to dedicate a lot of time and I struggle with sacrificing other things for that. I'm not very good at drawing the line between being like, “Should I go hang out with friends or should I go do this and this and this?” I kind of have a wide variety of interests that kind of take away from music. 


So for me, I know I need to manage my time a little bit better. People are always in my comments section like, “Yo, when's new music coming?” And I keep saying, “Soon, soon, soon.” But I haven't released a song since January. So, I know I need to lock in, but sometimes it's hard because I'm having a lot of fun doing other stuff and trying to live the college experience a little bit. 



Q: I understand that your most recent release with Cherry Ferrari is “Better When Ur High.” What was it like working on this song, given that you're a bi-coastal band during the school year?


Crosby: It's incredibly hard having a band that is across the country. [Emma and I] used to live within walking distance from each other. It would take like 30 seconds in a car to get to her house (‘Emma’ refers to Oliver’s bandmate and the lead singer in Cherry Ferrari). So in high school, we were just hanging out all the time. 


It makes it easy to balance having fun and doing work because we'd be like, “All right, today's a content day. Today's a studio day. Today is just a have-fun-in-Seattle day.” We had a good balance of all that, but now that we're bi-coastal, it's almost impossible to write music because we're never sitting next to each other. 


It’s really hard to make content 'cause we're across the country from each other. Whenever she comes to visit, or whenever I visit her, which is kind of like, two or three times a year, we just wanna hang out instead of actually working on music. So she was here like a month and a half ago, only for like three or four days, and we were like, “All right, we're gonna do some content.” I think we filmed like two videos and just hung out the whole time. 'Cause it's just more important for us, I guess, to hang out and stay close. 


But that song, thankfully, is actually very old. A lot of the Cherry Ferrari songs sit in the files for a long time before they get released. That song was fully written, produced, and mixed at some point in the middle of senior year of high school. But now we're reaching the point where we know we wanna drop something else this fall, and we're gonna have to make content and lock in and finish a song. 


Q: What's next for both projects, Cherry Ferrari and ANDRS? Do you have any new music, tours, or other surprises coming up?


Crosby: Cherry Ferrari, we wanna release a song this fall. We have like a couple [of] contenders that we know we could drop. It's just kind of about getting distribution stuff ready and some content stuff ready. ANDRS' new music is definitely coming soon. I took a big break over the summer, stopped posting, but, as of this last Thursday, I am back on the weekly posting schedule. 


So a lot of more content from the new studio is coming out. There's gonna be definitely more singles this fall. And then for the Oliver Crosby jazz stuff I'm working on, [I have] some ideas [for] like a little jazz fusion EP maybe for this winter or in the spring that I would love to do, maybe play with an actual live band. 


I started working on some merch stuff for ANDRS. I might just do some limited runs of it, but I used to screen print everything for Cherry Ferrari, so I'm gonna start screen printing here at the crib and make some ANDRS Merch, and we'll see what happens.



Q: What has been the most surprising or unexpected lesson you've learned throughout your musical journey?


Crosby: That's a really good question. I think it took me a little while to realize, so much of music is having good connections as opposed to even being a very good musician in the first place. If you have the right friends and you meet the right people and you know, you show face and you’re in the scene, then that is how you'll do like 90 percent of the cool stuff that you end up doing. It’s all about those chance encounters and meeting the cool people and being friendly. 


You know, being a good hang. You have to be as much of a good hang as you are a good producer or a good instrumentalist of any kind. Even if you might not stack up in whatever room you're in, like, if I find myself in a room with Grammy-winning producers, I'm just trying to be cool. Even if I'm not doing that much, or contributing that much to the song, more like observing, it's always better to just be a good hang. 


Because then those are the people that you'll stay connected with. If they think you're cool, they'll have you around. So I think that's something that I've started to learn now that I've been in LA. I like the vibe of LA too. A lot of people are very open to just hang and make music and see where it goes. It's a great way of creating. Yeah, I'd say be a good hang.





At just twenty years old, Oliver Crosby has already accomplished more than most musicians who are twice his age.


Discovering his passion for music at an early age, he has toured with his band across the United States, worked on multiple artist projects of varying genres, and found himself sharing the studio with highly respected producers.


Yet if there’s one lesson to take away from this interview, it’s that music is just as much about the people as it is about the sound.


In an industry that appears daunting and oftentimes unnavigable, Crosby has proven that having a good attitude gets you far — on the stage, on a tour, and even in the studio with Blu DeTiger.


Be a good hang, and the rest will surely follow. 


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