We recently connected with Ellie Oliver and have shared our conversation below.

Ellie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

So, I sing and write music for my band Old Feelings. It’s me and my incredibly talented friend Nam Le on the guitar. I bring him an idea and he makes it sound so much better than anything I could ever come up with. We met through a mutual friend and have been creating acoustic folk music since 2022, I think. But, before releasing our first EP last June, we had our first gig at The Republic of Pie in North Hollywood in May of 2024. It’s not so much a venue as it is a coffee shop. So anyone who happens to be there is forced to listen to your thirty minute set, whether they want to or not. You get assigned a time slot, you set out this metal box that has a piece of paper that says “Tips” taped to it, and then you just do your set and call it a day. So, that was the first place we played, and even though it sounds super low stakes, I was so unbelievably nervous. I grew up doing musical theatre, but I hadn’t performed in probably five years. After we got through our first song “Aspen Tree” I felt like I could finally relax and have fun with it. We played our entire EP, we did some covers of Amy Winehouse and Hozier, and after it was all said and done, I looked in the Tips Box and we made three whole dollars. And it was awesome. But from that first “paying gig” everything snowballed from there. We got asked to play at The Hotel Cafe, The Virgil, NBC Universal, House of Blues. It was definitely the tipping point to get us going to where we are today.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been surrounded by music my whole life, pretty much. I started taking piano lessons when I was five, I got involved in community theatre at a young age, and I knew that I always wanted to be involved with creation in that way. But when I was born, I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. I know my parents had a hard time navigating that at first, and I believe back in the 90s, my life expectancy was around 30. I’m 29 now though, and I don’t feel that time limit weighing on me quite as much. But subconsciously, feeling like I didn’t have a ton of time, I may have gone head first into the deep end, because why would I spend my short time on earth not trying to do what I loved?
But, I think that all ties into what I’m most proud of, and what I want people to know about me. Despite having odds stacked against you- and for me that looks like a never-ending ocean of pills and breathing treatments- there is a way to create a full, beautiful, meaningful life in the midst of all of that.
Our band Old Feelings writes a lot of music using nature as a metaphor. I grew up in Colorado, so go figure. We have songs called Alaska, Late Bloomer, Aspen Tree, and we’re working on our next album right now that, I’m sure, will have that vibe of comparing myself to a flower that hasn’t bloomed yet.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Having Cystic Fibrosis, I’ve managed a lot of setbacks. It was really exhausting as a kid having to miss school to go to doctor appointments, having to get my blood drawn, having to do my breathing treatments every day, dealing with lung infections and antibiotics every year. I must have been a lot more resilient as a kid, because listing these out feels exhausting in and of itself. I’m sure I threw a lot of fits and didn’t make it easy on my parents.
But all this to say- I’m still here, and I didn’t give up. I’ve always known I had to work harder than others to have a normal baseline. And as I mentioned before, I’m extremely inspired by nature. Being outside allows me to slow down and just be. But on the opposite side of that coin, if I don’t push my limits, especially the limits of my lungs, I can’t continue to grow. So as an avid hiker, rock climber, backpacker, music maker, I decided to push myself and hike The Grand Canyon rim to rim, I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite and watched the sunrise over the Sierras, I backpacked The Lost Coast and saw whales and bear tracks and seals. How can you not be inspired to write after experiencing that? Not to mention, the stronger my lungs are, the easier it is to sing. It all goes hand in hand, I think.
Sometimes I wonder if it really would be easier to give up, but there are so many more places to visit, and so many more songs to write that I really do want to keep trying, even if it feels hard some days.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

When we were writing our EP Late Bloomer, we would finish a demo of the song, send it out to get some production advice or just thoughts and opinions, and when the responses were, “I’m Happy is my favorite song” or “I related to Late Bloomer so much” or “We’ll Be Alright is amazing” I felt like we were doing something right. To me, I thought there was an obvious favorite, but everyone felt connected to a different song. Even if someone said, “I thought Alaska was garbage” I would be fine with it, because that’s what art is supposed to be. It’s supposed to make you feel something.
Creation can be scary because you may put something out there that someone doesn’t like. But if everyone likes it, I think you’re doing something wrong. You’re not taking risks, you’re not being honest with yourself, and maybe that’s simply out of fear. I know that if I wrote music based on what other people wanted, the album would probably mean nothing to us, and I wouldn’t enjoy sharing it with people. The reward is, of course, seeing the labor of all your hard work being well received. But, to be honest, after releasing it, it’s not like we became over night sensations and gained millions of listeners on Spotify. I was happy when we had 75. By no means did I feel like the EP was a failure, because we worked so hard on it and actually got it out there! I know that Nam and I are really happy with the hard work we put in, and we love performing those songs when we get the chance. That’s the reward to me. Being proud of something you worked on, no matter how it’s received. I feel very, very proud of what we created.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oldfeelingsmusic/

Image Credits

1.) Seth Connors
2.)Aaron Jackson
3.) Lauren Meyering
4.) Seth Connors