Rising Star Olivia Dean Is Ready To Come To Aotearoa

As she prepares to head to New Zealand for Laneway Festival and play a sold-out show at Auckland’s Powerstation, English singer Olivia Dean - whose 2023 album Messy became a top contender for the Mercury Prize - talks to Tom Rose about how she feels ahead of her big year.

Olivia Dean is in rainy New York City when we connect over Zoom, but in less than two months, she’ll be basking in the New Zealand sunshine.

Olivia will join a sea of stars - such as Charli XCX, Clairo, Djo and Beabadoobee - who are performing at one of Australia and New Zealand’s hottest touring festivals. St Jerome’s Laneway Festival takes place at Western Springs Stadium in Tāmaki Makaurau on Waitangi Day next year.

Although she’s visited Australia, she’s been “desperate” to get to our side of the Tasman for “a long time.”

“I feel like people from Australia and New Zealand are really vibey, from my experience,” Olivia says, explaining how she has “loads of Kiwi friends in London” who have moved over in recent years. “They’re great people. Great sense of humour, easygoing, super fun, stylish.”

Olivia’s debut album, Messy, was released in 2023 and became shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. The amalgamation of her work helped inspire the title. “It was written over the course of a couple of years, and I think it’s ironic that it was called Messy because I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing."

“And then I realised that I didn’t need to know and that it was just my thoughts in musical form, which are a mess most of the time. So I think I got away with it because I was like, ‘If I could call it Messy, then nobody could say that it needs to be put together'."

She says her only ambition is to “make music for your heart”.

The UK artist’s work straddles genres from soul to pop, but “mostly it’s about feelings and helping people understand their feelings.”

With her parents' “great music taste”, Olivia was fascinated by music growing up - still is even. “I think it just came from inside me, but also from listening and enjoying everything from a really young age.”

Despite being a self-described shy child, Olivia began her career in musical theatre. “I didn’t really like singing about myself, but I like singing, so I was like, ‘This is great. I can pretend to be somebody else’.”

She reflects on her first live performance before an audience, where she sang Tomorrow from Annie for a competition. She cried “all the way through” and stood with her back facing the audience while dealing with terrible stage fright. “I came second place, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”

But after joining the BRIT School at 15 to study theatre, Olivia realised in her “angsty teenage years” that she had things she wanted to say. “Music is so therapeutic and writing it saved my life again and again and again. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t write it.”

After BRIT School, Olivia was at college, where she wrote music but “wasn’t really doing much”. She met her now-manager at one of her shows, who was also working with Rudimental. A backing vocalist position opened up on the band and her manager asked if she was interested.

With a mantra of “you don’t shoot, you don’t score”, Olivia went for it and got the slot, joining Rudimental at 17 years old. “I came out of college and it was the first thing I did,” she says. “I got to come to New York, I did Jimmy Fallon with them, and I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m down for the ride'.”

When it comes to songwriting, Olivia loves how - like any art form - “you can wake up one morning and by the end of the day have created something that didn’t exist before, that perfectly encapsulates how you’re feeling in that moment, and then lasts forever.”

Olivia believes music is “one of the most timeless things” we have. “It travels around the world and people relate it to their own lives”.

She looks up to and is inspired by artists like Aretha Franklin, Carole King and Lauryn Hill.

“They never get old, they’re in my car, that’s what I’m singing”. She also praises fellow Laneway artist Clairo - “I think she’s so fab” - while highlighting contemporary artists Alice Phoebe Lou and Chappell Roan. “She’s killing it and it’s so fun.”

Like Chappell and Charli, Olivia’s fluent in fashion.

“It’s so fun to play with, I love dressing up and feeling glamorous”. She highlights her Glastonbury outfit as one of her “favourite things” she’s ever worn. “It was this custom Chopova Lowena punky, bedazzled [piece] and it had a photo of my granny impressed on the middle of it.”

“The album was dedicated to her, so that was a great full-circle moment.”

She’s also just learned to drive and fills her time with cycling, yoga, knitting and reading. “I’m somebody that tries to do that more than being online ... online scares me.”

While she works a lot - “I love my job and it’s fun, so I’m often doing it” - there’s also time for family and friends, hanging out with her mother, granny, and aunty or going to the pub with friends.

Looking forward to her Laneway stop in Aotearoa and skipping “horrible UK February time”, Olivia also has a show booked at The Powerstation the night before, which has already sold out. She “was absolutely flabbergasted” upon finding that out. “I said, ‘What’s going on? There must be a mistake'.”

Before 2025 rolls over though, Olivia is releasing a live album which she says will hopefully come with video, so fans can watch it at home. “It’s nice because not all the time people get to come to shows ... and I feel like my songs live are a completely different experience to the record.”

While we count down the weeks until Laneway, Olivia is looking forward to seeing everyone there. “I feel like it’s going to be really wholesome.”

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