We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Olivia Knox . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Olivia below.
Hi Olivia , thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
When I was 18 I was on track to finish a music degree to become a music teacher. I was also chasing this crazy dream of wanting to be a songwriter and an artist. While I was attending music classes in college, I would travel to different studios in LA to work on different projects. It was the craziest 9 months of my life it felt like. Running on little sleep each day, rehearsing and performing college concerts while promoting my own songs. I also had to pick up a part time custodian job to stay afloat. It felt as though I was flying but falling at the same time. But right when I almost fell apart, all the hard work payed off right when my song “Gorgeous” had a viral moment on TikTok. It was the first time any of my original songs had a social media moment, and it honestly changed my life. All of a sudden I was being offered multiple publishing deals and talking to major labels, it was a dream come true. It was when I got offered to go on a small college tour that I had to take the risk. Do I stay in college, or go after this dream? Oh It was a risk I was so excited to take. Did I have a place to live? no. Any sort of income? nah. How about a car? nahhhhh. But I didn’t care. Although it looked like I had nothing, I still felt like I had everything I needed, a little faith, and a whole lotta songs. So I took the fulfilling path. I dropped out of college, signed a publishing deal, broke off from old management and moved to LA.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Getting in this industry was a combination of the right people at the right time and staying consistent at my craft and social media. When Gorgeous blew up on TikTok I had the most interest when it came to my artist project. But it was my duet videos on TikTok that got people interested in my songwriting. Before I moved to LA to study music I had a couple duet videos on TikTok go viral. One of these videos was a video with Charlie Puth that got over 3.5 million views. This video and many others caught the attention of my now publishing team, Livelihood Publishing. I am now signed to the amazing Jaime Zeluck-Hindlin, the founder and owner of Nonstop management and Livelihood Publishing. If it wasn’t for her, J Kash, and the incredible nonstop team I wouldn’t be where I am today. Jaime and Kash took a chance on me, and now I’m truly living my dream. It wasn’t just the social media that got me here though. I also had to prove myself in every writing session. I made sure to give it my best shot every time I met new people. And it not only made me a better writer, but valuable to the people around me. I slowly started to learn this whole songwriting career I knew little about, and fell deeply in love with it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like myself. I love making music, and I love creating with other people. There’s something so special about being able to create music with strangers. It really is a universal language. If there’s anything I’ve learned while being a songwriter it’s to stay creative always, and also stay true to yourself, there’s value in being different.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I think the main thing that has really tested my resilience is not having a car in LA. I basically spent all my money on Ubers when I first came to California. And when I had no more money to spend I had no choice but to take the train. I’m a small town girl, I shared a car with my triplet brothers growing up and they basically drove me everywhere so I had no real experience traveling on my own. The first few months of taking public transportation in LA was stressful as heck. I remember getting on wrong trains, being followed by creepy men and freaking out, and getting majorly lost all the time. But if anything, the train has shown me the importance of just simply showing up. It takes a lot out of me to get to a session these days. Hours of travel, constantly looking behind my back to make sure I’m safe. But I always show up. And I show up on time. I don’t care how far away the studio is, the journey is always worth it. And now I have the most amazing friends who offer to drive me all the time. I’ve also come to appreciate how impactful it is to get rides from people. Even if someone is just picking me up from the station, or driving me home, it always means the world. I’ve made some pretty close friendships out here because of the long car ride talks. And I’ve learned so much about myself while traveling on the bus for so many hours. Most importantly I learned I’m stronger than I think I am. So yeah I’ve had to push through some hard days, but its worth it every time. Every time I get up and show up somewhere, I get to create and sing my heart out, and that’s all that matters to me. If I had a car, I don’t think I would have made the connections with people that I have. Thats another thing I’ve learned about being in the music industry. What you think is a set back is most likely not a set back at all, but just a way God moves you in the right direction.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I’ve always seen social media as a free marketing tool. It’s by biggest resource, but also my biggest enemy. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with social media ever since I got my first phone freshman year of high school. Back then I didn’t wanna post singing videos. It actually made me fall apart every time I wanted to make one. I put too much pressure on every single video so I didn’t post much. After years of struggling to create music content my first ever TikTok singing video blew up with Charlie Puth. I gained 50K followers overnight, got major label attention and even made it on the Today Show. All of a sudden I was this “TikTok duet girl” and the pressure was ON. At least that’s how it felt. It was literally awesome. And I thought that was my moment, that right then I was gonna become famous. And that’s when I learned my first lesson about social media, that social media is always a resource, but never the answer. The second you start putting pressure on social media is the second you start losing creativity. (At least for me). After that huge moment I started posting more duet videos of course. And then somewhere between before graduation and moving to college, I stopped posting. I stopped all TikTok engagement completely and even deleted the app for about 3 months. I think it was a combination of not really knowing what I wanted as a musician, and overthinking every post that made me delete it. But I knew that wasn’t the right time for me. And that’s the second lesson I learned about social media, taking a break isn’t the end of the world. Theres a lot of pressure when it comes to staying consistent on TikTok. And I just have to say, when I took a break from TikTok, that’s actually the time my career moved the fastest, I just wasn’t posting about it. Again, social media is always a resource, but never the answer. After I downloaded TikTok again I started to find some fun it in. I loved showing off my outfits and sharing unreleased demos. The more I started to just do it, the more I found a rhythm with it. And if it wasn’t for my mom pushing me to post at least 1 TikTok a day, I don’t think my song Gorgeous would have blown up. So that’s another lesson I learned, staying consistent. If you are just starting out this battle with social media, I encourage you to post 1 thing a day. It could make your career take off (: After Gorgeous blew up I definitely took my TikTok game a little more seriously. To this day I post one video every day. I’ve had a lot of people tell me lots of things about how I post. “Oh you should do quality over quantity” and “post 6 times a day!” And stuff like “post the same video at least 3 times”… you can definitely do all that if you want. But what works for me is posting one video a day under these 4 topics: Personality, Trends, Demos, and Released Music. Following this format has pushed me to work harder at my music promotion and has given me lots of opportunities in the music world. Anyhoo, those are all my lessons on social media. Use it as a resource, don’t make it your everything, take breaks if you need, post once a day, and stay consistent. Do it for your art, it deserves to be seen. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/oliviaknoxofficial
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviaknoxmusic/?utm_medium=copy_link
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC44UqyYPoZBa0g0RuvDe5-A?app=desktop
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@oliviaknoxofficial?lang=en
Image Credits
Robin Banks Anna Azarov