A conversation with Olivia Austin, AKA Operelly.
Operelly discusses her inspirations, songwriting process, and future projects.
Olivia Austin, known creatively as Operelly, is a junior majoring in Anthropology at UC Berkeley (she gained admission through lyrics she penned herself). The Berkely native crafts multilayered indie rock tracks, featuring ethereal vocals and catchy guitar melodies, uploading them most expansively to SoundCloud. She describes her latest single, “Cozy”, as an ode to the desire to be secure in oneself. Written at a time when she felt that others’ perceptions of her were keeping her from feeling comfortable in her skin, she uses the word cozy as a replacement for the words “comfortable” and “secure.” We were lucky enough to chat with the up-and-coming artist about her musical inspiration, songwriting process, and what the world can expect next from Operelly.
Jordyn Smith: So our first question is, who is your biggest musical inspiration?
Operelly: Umm, I love Stereolab and Broadcast. Sort of the 90s electronic art pop bands, POiSON GiRL FRiEND, too.
JS: We saw that you posted a demo of a Pinback cover. That’s not even a question, I just like Pinback.
O: Me too, I love Pinback so much. Well, I kind of use Pinback as inspiration for melodies sometimes because they like to do things in the round, and I love starting a melody and then having it trail on a little bit after, almost creating an in-the-round scenario. Actually, I should have said Pinback for one of my influences, so you kind of helped me out with that one.
Kayla Schvartzman: That’s okay, I love Stereolab and Broadcast, too. Those are good picks.
O: They're the best. Like, I'm definitely trying to steal their swag sometimes.
KS: Do you have a favorite Stereolab album?
O: Well, Dots and Loops was like my favorite album in high school, but I think as I get older I like Cobra and Phases more.
KS: How did you get into writing music? Did it start as a hobby, or what was your motivation in starting?
O: I’ve always been a writer. I would write poems a lot or short stories and then incorporate them into melodies and then figure out chords. In terms of lyrics, I guess I started writing lyrics before making music, so that kind of progressed into making instrumentals.
JS: Are you a big reader as well?
O: Well, I love reading, and I love writing. I think I'm more into writing than I am reading to be honest. I'm sure you guys can understand that with school. When you’re assigned so many readings, you start to lose the motivation to read for enjoyment. So, I've just been trying to consistently write, and a lot of my writing is in the form of a poem or lyrics. It’s funny because sometimes it would be nice to go back and look at a journal entry of my regular thoughts but it's just in little poem structures.
JS: Do you have any book recs?
O: Dude yes! Well I love Vonnegut—The Sirens of Titan. Cat’s Cradle is like my favorite book. I love Anaïs Nin; start with A Spy in the House of Love. It’s so good. The book that I’m reading right now is kind of really heady but it’s made me question everything recently. It’s called Girl Online: A User Manual. It’s about being a woman online through the feminist lens. It’s hard to get through sometimes, but I’ve been really having epiphany moments of like, “Holy shit, I should delete everything. I should delete all social media and never talk online again.” But then also being like, “I can’t do that.” [laughs]
JS: What does the songwriting process look like for you? Has that changed since you started writing music?
O: Sometimes I'll come up with a melody in my head and then come up with lyrics for it. Other times I will have written something out but not the melody for it. And then I try and try again to come up with something that I can fit it into. If I'm working with samples—say I’ve already done some production aspects of the song and have not come up with lyrics—and I want to write over an instrumental, then I'll go through the writing process like that.
JS: Cool. Are there any specific experiences or people in your life that you derive the most creative inspiration from?
O: Ooh, that's a really good question because I don't want to say just myself. Because it’s not like I only get inspiration from myself, but I guess the things that inspire me most to write are my own experiences. I think– I don't know. I will write or want to make music about anything that happens to me. It’s not really like someone pushes me. But everyone I’ve worked with musically inspires me. My friend Zach of Junior Varsity—he inspires me a lot from a production standpoint.
KS: Do you collaborate with your friends often when creating songs?
O: Well, I self-produced two of the three songs on Spotify right now and ended up being reached out to by a couple of people in SoCal to work with them on instrumentals, and that's been really really cool because I'm not the best producer. Having people who understand that sort of language is really nice.
JS: Do you have a dream artist you’d like to collaborate with?
O: Oh my gosh. Dream artist! I wish I had thought about this. Um, it would be really cool to do something with an electronic artist like Four Tet or Datalist. Just someone who also does sample-heavy electronic music. I think it’d be less of a singing collab and more of me trying to write something over their instrumental.
JS: I was on Bandcamp and I saw “The Widespread Hack.”
O: Ooh. That was before any of the Operelly stuff was made and that was all me on Ableton trying to figure out production. It used to be on Spotify under Warren Peace which was my old artist name, but I felt like everything sounded unpolished. It doesn’t really sound like what I’m trying to go for anymore, so I keep it on Bandcamp just in case there are people who previously liked it and want to listen or if they deep dive and end up really liking it. I don't think it'll end up on any streaming services anytime soon.
JS: Is Warren Peace a Sky High reference?
O: When I came up with the name I was like seventeen, I had never seen Sky High, and I thought I was the first person to come up with “Warren Peace” as a phrase, which is funny because you can get there pretty easily. [laughs]
KS: To be fair I’ve never seen Sky High.
JS: Woah! It’s a really good movie.
O: Me neither! I'm actually surprised I haven't seen it because I was a Disney kid. I definitely saw the other original movies but I guess that one I just wasn’t into.
KS: Out of curiosity, why the name Operelly? What is the meaning behind that?
O: It was so random. If I'm being so real, on a whim I just really wanted a name that started with an O because my name is Olivia, and I guess it kind of just came in. At the time, I was notes apping a bunch of random names that involved random things. I think at one point it was gonna be “operation something,” and I was like no. So, Operelly just came into the air, and I was like “Oh my God, wait, that's actually really cool!” So it stuck. Weirdly it feels kind of like a second name, but I'm sure that's how a lot of people feel about their artist name.
JS: Speaking of your name being Olivia, we saw your Olivia tattoo, and we love it. Could you tell us about your tattoos?
O: Yeah for sure! The Olivia the Pig one I actually regret. I was actually going to get a matching tattoo with my friend of a Blank Banshee Album cover but last minute I chickened out. I was like “I think you like Blank Banshee way more than I do. Let me do an Olivia the Pig tattoo because she has the same name as me.” But it’s kind of huge. Like the red is so big on my arm, so I kind of wish that I hid it a little better.
JS: Could you tell us a little about the “Pinch Me” demo or if there are any new things in the works?
O: I wrote the “Pinch Me” demo last week and decided to turn it into a little demo. I’ve been doing a lot of demos like that where it's just guitars layered one over the other and vocal stacks. I wait to produce it until I have a couple of people around me who would help me with drums and bass. Hopefully, I can turn it into a “real song,” but I thought it was cute enough to share with the public right now—however big the public may be. Hopefully, the other demos I have will be available soon in all of their glory, in like a real polished form.
JS: Well we’re definitely spreading the word within Firebird!
O: That’s lovely.
KS: You should tell the story about how you first heard her music!
JS: Oh yeah [laughs]. I met this kid on Tinder. And I never really hang out with my Tinder matches, especially not when I’m home. Anyway, we hung out, and he was playing music in his car, and I was sneaky Shazaming stuff, and “Cozy” was one of the songs! I listened to it a lot, and the next day I was like “Oh my God, this song is so good,” so I texted him and he was like, “I know her!” So yeah, his name is [redacted].
O: Oh my God! Wait no way, I know exactly who you’re talking about! So this was a Tinder date?
JS: Yeah.
O: Wait, that's crazy. That’s so funny. That’s so random ‘cause that’s just like a mutual of mine. We were mutuals on TikTok two years ago or something, but that’s awesome that he listens to my music!
JS: Yeah, he put me on! I texted my friends and I was like, “Listen to this song. It’s so good.”
KS: Yeah, [Jordyn] put me on, and I’ve been listening to the three songs on Spotify.
O: That’s funny. Isn’t that the way things go? That’s so crazy.
KS: Do you have anything you want to plug?
O: Right now, I’m working on an EP! I’m trying to put out a five to six-song EP by the middle of the summer. I’m gonna give myself, like, a July cutoff date. But I have so many songs written and only a few produced as of now. So a project coming out in the summer is what I’m hoping to end up having happen. I don’t know if I have anything to “plug plug,” but yeah that’s it.
JS: Perfect. Thank you so much!
KS: Thanks again!
O: Yeah, of course!
Be sure to check out Operelly’s work wherever you stream your music (and even dive into her Bandcamp and SoundCloud for unreleased tracks). We promise you won’t regret it!
edited by Campbell Conard.