On the Rise: OZ

After penning tracks with the likes of Ella Henderson and Gabrielle Aplin, Olivia Sebastianelli has one piece of advice for keeping imposter syndrome at bay – don't Google your collaborators.

“That used to freak me out a bit, because often I felt like, 'Oh my God, they've done all this and I'm just walking in here with my little guitar and my crap songs'. Then I realised you're only as good as your last record. At the end of the day, you can get in with someone who's your hero, and it just doesn't click. And sometimes you'll go with a new producer who has never done anything before and you'll make something magical.”

With a background as a songwriter, Olivia is now striding out under the moniker OZ, with a outlier brand of bold, bass-heavy pop. Singles “Foot Down” and “Money” are emotionally fraught and stadium-worthy, even if OZ herself – who wears her tattoos, scars and “busted teeth” with pride – is an atypical popstar. Having been originally signed to a major aged 15, she admits her early experiences in the music industry shaped her current desire to deviate from expectation.

“I've actually been writing a song about it today,” she smiles. “I was so unhappy at the label. I started out as 'the new Alanis Morrisette' and I ended up in kinda of Katy Perry, “California Girls” territory, with no idea how I got there.”

“My manager and I were both very green at the time. And... a major record deal just seemed like the best decision ever. But I very quickly realised – you think you've signed a deal and you've made it, but actually it was like starting all over again, and then having to convince 30 people, some older than my dad, that I knew what I was doing, which was completely bizarre.”

Olivia was born in Croydon, and hasn't lost any of her accent. Her early life experiences were framed equally by her grandparent's Italian restaurant, and the guitar and record shops of her South London stomping ground.

The restaurant in question was in Soho haunt frequented by many celebrities – not that Olivia's grandparents would have known. “They are the most Italian people ever: super strong accents, only ever watch Italian TV, only read Italian news, listen to Italian tenors ... That's why people liked to eat at the restaurant. My nonno wouldn't give anyone a big show or specialist treatment.”

“I remember Alison Moyet was in once, and my dad – who was working – said to his mate, 'OK don't say anything, but that's Alison Moyet over there.' And his mate just went 'Oi! That's Alison Moyet!' at the top of his lungs and my dad was just mortified.”

Olivia speaks of her granddad's generosity and kindness with adoration. “My nonno would make sure anyone who was outside, anyone who was homeless... he would bring a tray of espresso out to keep everyone warm and snug. In that way, he's very Italian – he just wanted to give everyone a bear hug and look after everybody.”

“And I think growing up in an environment like that allows you to be bit more open and enlightened at a really young age, because you meet people from all different walks of life. If you're surrounded by different types of people there's no fear of the unknown, because you've kinda seen it all.”

The other half of Olivia's cultural heritage is firmly rooted in Croydon, a place she's been glad to see wrestle its reputation back after years of being associated with violence and deprivation.

“There's a lot of things that I'm really proud of about Croydon,” she says. “It was an amazing place to grow up in terms of experiencing other cultures. I'd take my nonno – the most Italian man in the world – down to Surrey Street market, because there was a store there that sold curried goat and he loved it. 'Cause it can't make it!”

“We assume that London is a big melting pot you see, but it's only certain pockets and I think Croydon is one of those. The secret music scene was legendary.”

Before she was old enough to go to those gigs, Olivia's dad – affectionately known as 'Stef the drummer' – helped her develop a pretty genre-blind love of music.

“He'd buy the latest Britney album because he thought the drum beat was cool, and we'd also have punk and grunge and and some random Turkish artist on. Being around so much different music was one of the best things as a songwriter, as you're open to so many different melodies, and how words can sound in different accents – things that help you write outside the box.” Olivia and her dad used to bond over a milkshake and a cheese toastie after digging at Croydon's notorious record store, Beanos. “It was like heaven. Sadly it doesn't exist anymore, but we used to go every weekend and spend my pocket money. Anyone who grew up in Croydon and was vaguely into music will know it.”

Olivia sighs when I mention the recent influx of the kombucha crowd to Croydon's vibrant streets. She admits it's nice when there are nicer shops and places to go out, “...but what I don't like is when places price the locals out – then you're driving people out and forcing them outside. If you're going to build up an area, build it up with the people who are already there. Give them a shop! Putting a Boxpark in is fucking weird.”

When she was nine, Olivia's family were hit with two wrecking balls: her dad had major heart failure, and her mum lost her job. It was a time which Olivia seems to have synthesised into a personal mantra: nothing is ever safe. “Dad nearly died, and my mum was looking at having to raise two kids on her own, with no job, and no husband. And so we learned that you can't ever really rely on anything, as it can so easily be taken away from you.” Olivia's dad took a long time to recover, and had to hand over breadwinner duties to his partner. “I'm really proud of her for it,” says Olivia. “She started out as a receptionist and she's got her own business now. She's a proper boss bitch, so for me and my sister, she's been a really amazing role model and a female icon.”

Some of that inherited 'boss bitch' spirit might have been behind Olivia's decision to pick up a guitar. As well as being her chief writing instrument, it features front-and-centre on her singles – most recently, the stomping take-no-shit anthem “Foot Down”.

Betraying a slightly contrary nature, Olivia says the guitar also appealed because everyone else was playing “something really nice and adorable”. “I just knew I could be loud if I played guitar. I bought a cheapest, brightest pink electric guitar, an amp, turned it up, and annoyed my parents for about three months, not knowing how to play anything.” Did she get lessons? “I had to in the end,” she snorts. “It was awful... they couldn't bear it anymore.”

At 15, the thing that so many young artists fantasise about actually happened: she was discovered by a major label. But 18 months of artist development and no music pushed her and her manager – who she's still with – to ask to leave. It was a double-edged decision: instilling Olivia with far more artistic freedom, but also the dented confidence of being unsigned again.

“I almost felt like I'd been blacklisted by the industry,” she says. “I think there was still this feeling that if you've been signed and it didn't work out, then that's the be-all-and-end-all.” For a while, Olivia grafted away quietly, but found herself only writing songs that she thought everyone else wanted to hear. “But I realised it wasn't working because it wasn't authentic. So I decided, 'I'm going to stop messing around'.”

Cue a few years working in retail – which have gifted her, amongst other things, the ability to do her own make-up for her videos – and Olivia got her second break with a similar incidental twist to her first. Her manager was in LA repping another artist, and played one of her songs to a publisher – who loved it. “He was like 'Let's get her out here'. And in my head I'm going 'Yeah yeah yeah, I've heard this before...', thinking it's not going to happen. Anyway – my manager told me to keep my phone on so she could call me back about flying out the next day... and I fell asleep!”

“I woke up with 15 missed calls saying I was getting on a plane.”

Since that fateful nap, Olivia was offered a flurry of competing publishing deals and ended up signed to indie publisher Reservoir. But songwriting was “a weird transition” she admits, noting that, in a way, OZ's strident, idiosyncratic sound means she can keep something of herself back.

“I think luckily for me, my lyrics and my artist style as OZ is not something a lot of people would want to sing. And because I grew up with so much different music, I can write different stuff. I think that's my strength when I'm working with other artists – when I'm working with Gabrielle Aplin or Ella Henderson, I want to give them the best of them, rather than the best of me.” Today, one of her closest writing partners is Biff Stannard, one of pop's songwriting heavyweights, who has propelled the likes of Kylie, Ellie Goulding and Charlie XCX into chart history. “The key thing with my relationship with Biff is that he's been more of a mentor. When I'm having a meltdown, I call Biff 'cause he sorts me out. He's that uncle in the music industry you wish you'd had the whole time.”

Wheeling back to Olivia's own sound, she's right that it doesn't slot comfortably in alongside today's mainstream pop – which she labels, with a slight wrinkle of her nose, as “soft, feminine, passive.” With the exception of trap and hip hop, Olivia notes that there's a dearth of women artists who own their fears and their fury.

“A lot of the stuff that streams well is 'sad girl' stuff,” she says, adding: “And I write some of it! But when I was growing up you had your Gwens and your Avrils, who just packed a bit more punch. We don't really have that so much any more. And so I think there's space for a woman who, y'know, shows her ovaries.”

When I ask why it's so important for Olivia to take up that space, she takes a second. “Well... I've experienced a lot in my life so far that I'd kind of had to stare my fears down. I've never stared a shark in the face ... so I guess you could say I have a fear of sharks?” she smiles. “Obviously, nearly losing my dad so young, and then him getting more and more unwell... There's all kinds of things that have happened to me, or to friends of mine, and the more you experience in life the braver you get, because you know you're strong enough to face it.”

More broadly, having survived some of the harshest aspects of the music industry in her teens, Olivia has galvanised herself against a lot of personal criticism. “People have always told me I'm not good enough – it's not the right time for this, you're not thin enough, you're not pop enough, you're not pretty enough... And you either allow those things to destroy you or your grow a thicker skin.” It now seems she's looking to transfer that confidence – that sense of being a proud underdog – over to her listeners. “I'm just excited that people are connecting with it the way they are – I mean, my expectations could not have been any lower,” she laughs. “I get messages from people who are like... glad just to see someone who's not in fitness gear on their Instagram feed. That's really nice.”