We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Olivia Castriota a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Olivia , appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

My entire life all I’ve wanted to do was make music. I grew up singing and trying to emulate my favorite vocalists; Christina Aguilera, Etta James, Alanis Morissette and Jessie J. I still have my lyric binder in my childhood bedroom, which contains about 200 sheets of computer paper with printed out lyrics on them. I loved learning songs and I would be in my bedroom singing for hours at a time learning new music. Since I spent to much time there doing that I also decided to cover ever inch of my walls with magazine photos to create my own “audience.” All that to say I’ve wanted to do what I do now, my entire life.

Olivia , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Before the pandemic I was working as a bartender, Airbnb Host, Dog Sitter and an Artist performing live all over NYC. I had a lot of jobs to fund my creative dreams basically. During the pandemic I started to think more about how I could make music full time. That lead me to buying my first microphone and Logic and learning how to record vocals at home. Until that point I had always gone to the studio to record vocals and because it was so financially draining and I had 3 other jobs, I would really only record a few songs a year. Once I decided I was going to learn the art of recording at home, my whole world opened up. For the last year and a half I have been working from home making music full-time. And it all started because one day I felt brave enough to think “why not me?” With the help of a few amazingly patient friends and mentors and many hours of Logic Support, fast forward to now and I spend my days working on a plethora of creative projects and learning new things everyday. I write and record vocals all day long and it’s an absolute dream. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I write competition cheer songs, children’s nursery rhymes, music for sync libraries (Warner Chapel, Hit Music Lab, APM, Labhits), Commercial Jingles and I do a lot of vocal recording for clients via Fiverr. Just this year my music has played on TNT, TBS, WeTV, TruTV and Netflix. I feel really excited to wake up and create everyday and proud of myself for never giving up. I feel grateful to wake up everyday and work with such amazingly talented and inspiring creative too.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part is getting to create things I love with people I love, respect and admire.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I learned this year, that I apply everyday, was said by my friend Ossi Bashiri at FPM Music… he said something like “There are no egos here. We can change anything.” I loved that and I think about it everyday as I’m creating. Yes, music is personal but for me it’s not something I hold on to with a death grip. I write so many songs for so many different things and I think allowing room for my collaborators input and revisions is so important to the process of music creation. It ultimately get’s us closer to the overall goal which is finding a home our musical creations. As someone who writes 100+ songs a year for TV, it’s important to be open to changes and not take things personal… to keep the ultimate goal in mind which is making the most sync-able music we can!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.oliviacastriota.com/about
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviacastriota/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oliviacastriota
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=olivia+castriota+youtube+music
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5VdTraeHBTaJhW9OZPnrPm?si=KwYNvup9R9CO79StsCODfQ