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Orchee Sorker | February 13, 2021
Delaware-raised pop singer-songwriter, Olivia Rubini began singing covers at the age of fifteen. This year, twenty-one-year-old Olivia released her debut LP ‘Silhouettes’ on January 29 which featured ten original songs with lush arrangements about an emotional journey after the end of a significant relationship.
Tell me about yourself
My lifelong hobby was always singing, but I guess now it's more of a job. So, I would say my hobby now it'd be like, you know, drawing and like other little artsy things. Growing up and stuff, I grew up in a super musical family. My dad's a producer and he actually is the one who produces all my music. I was just always around creative people. I would get picked up from school by my dad and like go straight to the studio cause he was producing other people. So, I'd be doing my homework in the studio and just like fun stuff like that. I'm an only child which says a lot about me because I feel like I wouldn't be doing any of this if there were other siblings around, because all the attention was always spotlighted on me.
Describe your music genre. Who are your musical influences? Is there another genre of music you’d like to try that you haven’t?
When I first started doing music as a teenager, I was much more like pop and slightly RnB. Influences that I had when I was a kid were more classic rock genre like the 60s and 70s, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. I feel like I'm just starting to like to play around with genres and stuff and I'm just kind of. Be down and do anything.
How do you get inspired to write your songs?
Every song on the album was definitely like a little bit of a different process. For some of them we would have a super basic vague idea of a song ever and I'll just call with a bunch of lyrics and we would throw it all together at a later time. Or we would have a full-blown arrangement, but I just didn't have any lyrics yet. So, it would kind of be tossed back and forth depending on the song. For some, I wasn't feeling that I couldn't write anything good and would revisit it later. For others, it was like lyrics and arrangement in twenty minutes. The creativity is just going. It was just a different thing for all the songs. I wrote probably about like 90% of the lyrics for the album. There were a couple of collaborative efforts.
How would you describe your creative process? Is there anything you’ve done differently due to COVID?
I think COVID definitely altered the process. I think it was for the best. Since I'm home and have been home for almost a year since COVID started, it gave me the opportunity to just be in the studio all the time which I wouldn't have been able to if I was on a campus full of college students, distractions, and craziness. I’ve also been having a lot of time alone which helped take time with my thoughts and write stuff. Writing the album, I didn't really put any pressure, like timelines, on myself.
How was your experience writing your new “Silhouettes” debut album versus writing your past singles?
I had 10 singles before the album and I feel like I wrote some of it here and there. And some of them were collaborative efforts where, you know, I would help move things along or like pitch little ideas. But for the most part, it wasn't like I have written 100% of this song. In this ‘Silhouettes’ album, this is totally my lyrics, my ideas, my vision, and everything. So I feel a lot closer to these songs because I was in a lot more control of this album. I was a lot more picky with everything. I'm just a lot more happy with the way that it came out in comparison to the stuff from when I was like 16. For this album, I was very particular, but I'm really happy that I was because there's like nothing that I would change on the album.
Obviously with COVID, touring has been put on a pause, but when everything’s back to normal again, where do you plan to tour? Any specific city/country you’d like to visit?
I hope that I get to a point where I start to have larger shows and get to travel a little bit outside to like the East Coast and all that stuff. I guess for right now, like the immediate future, I would say starting with doing places like Philly, New York, all that kind of stuff.
Your most streamed song on Spotify is “To You (Remix)”. What was your initial reaction to the feedback that this song has been receiving and what was your thought process when creating this song?
I mean the original song is also on Spotify and pretty much the remix is just a little additional percussion and stuff. The guy who did it, did an amazing job. We knew him and really talked to him about doing it. After releasing in 2019, the song got put on a few Spotify algorithmic playlists by 2020. I was totally shocked because we didn't do anything. It just kinda happened like that. It was really crazy because the streams went up and the listeners went off, and it was like all over the world. As far as writing it, I wrote that when I was at school and I was just messing around with GarageBand on my computer, because I never do it because I have a studio and I'm not the one doing all that stuff. I was in my dorm room, just like using the Apple microphone to like do some lyrics. When I came back for spring break, we recorded the real version in the studio. The remix wasn't really that serious either. So we were like, it's really funny that this is the one that's popping off the most, but yeah, that was a shock.
Do you have any specific goals for 2021, whether that’s music or personal goals?
I feel like I just want to keep releasing stuff and keep going. I would like to be able to do shows whether live or virtual. Another goal would be to make my social media a little better and kind of bolster it up a little bit. One of my personal goals is to get more flexible with my yoga.
If you can give one piece of advice to the world, what would it be? Just put your mind to it and give 10000% and just do it. If it's something that you really care about and. But don't do something just because somebody else might want you to. Just do things because you truly want to. I've gotten myself way too caught up in all other people’s goals they gave me. Actually find your own goals, it's much more satisfying for your own life. So I'll just say, do things that you enjoy, that you're passionate about. If you're going to do it, do it like 10000% and just go, that's how I feel.