Olivia Dean – Messy

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Best Of 2023: Olivia Dean Mesmerizes On Debut Album, ‘Messy’
Steve Baltin
Dec 9, 2023,05:52am EST



British soul songstress Olivia Dean’s stunning debut album, Messy, is one of the best records of the year. That claim was backed up by the album’s nomination in her native Britain for the 2023 Mercury Prize (an honor ultimately won by Ezra Collective’s Where I’m Meant To Be).


As impressive as the record is though, it pales to seeing Dean bring songs like the title track, “Carmen” and “The Hardest Part” to life live. Her recent North America tour, which concluded at L.A.’s iconic Roxy Theater for a packed, sold-out performance, was masterful. She proved a compelling performer totally comfortable on stage. Dean is a star in the making.


She is just as comfortable in conversation as Sage Bava and I found when we sat down with her over Zoom recently. Bava led the interview as the two young singers had much to discuss, including finding your voice as an artist, playing live, her band and much more.

Steve Baltin: Since you're coming to L.A. next week, where are your favorite L.A. haunts?

Olivia Dean: I've only been to L.A. a couple times and to be quite frank, the first time I came I didn't like it that much. I don't drive, so I didn't know that was the thing that you needed to do. So, I was walking on these streets like, “Where is everybody? How do I get somewhere?” I learned that lesson very quickly, but last time I came I had a much better time and I ate at this delicious restaurant called Pine and Crane, I think in Silver Lake. But I need more L.A. haunts basically if you can tell me them. I was also going to say this isn't a cool spot, but I think it's cool because we don't have them in London. You know that bar where you get to ride the bull in L.A. (Saddle Ranch Chop House)? Personally, my favorite thing to do after a show, before a show, like on a day off, is play pool. I love pool.

Baltin: I did once go to a party at Prince’s house where Joni Mitchell was running the pool table.

Dean: Wow, okay, what a story. Love that Joni Mitchell plays pool. That makes me love playing pool.

Baltin: Who would you want to play pool against?

Dean: Who would I play pool with? What a crazy question! I don't know why this came to mind, but I think all of Earth, Wind and Fire [laughter] like doubles match. I’d double up with one of them and then it's like the others on the other team. I think that'd be a fun game.

Baltin: That's a great answer. But it's like a nine on one pool game.

Dean: I could take them [laughter].

Sage Bava: Congratulations on your debut album. I've been such a fan of your music for so many years, so to hear this whole culmination of work now is so special. And I love the idea of Messy. And I would love to hear where that came from and if that was a part of the beginning of the process or it just showed itself throughout making it.

Dean: Truthfully, it was something that came towards the end. For a while I was working with the title of Between Islands because I'd seen this exhibition in London at the Tate about the Wind Turbines generation. And I felt so seen [as] they were talking about cross culture and the stuff that gets made in the middle when people came over from the Caribbean. And I was just like, “Oh my God, that's me.” So, I was working with this title of Between Islands and thinking about the mixing of things. And then through the process of making the record, I went through this whole struggle with wanting to be excellent, so much so that I was able to make nothing [laughter]. Because I was so stressed about making the best thing I could possibly make, which is so reductive. I'd written all these songs, I was piecing them together and I was unsure about how to finish them. And then one day in the studio I was playing this guitar loop and I started writing the song “Messy.” And the only lyrics that were coming out was, “Messy, messy, messy.” And the producer I was working with, this guy Andrew Salo, was like, “That's a cool song.” I was like, “Yeah, that would be a cool song. But it stayed with only those lyrics for such a long time. Then I took it to this guy, Matt Hales, who I was producing the rest of the record with. We were working together, finishing stuff. I suddenly had this eureka moment and I was like, “Oh my God, this is the last song I need to finish for this album. This is a song about allowing myself to be messy and accepting that I'm this amalgamation of things. Both the way I look and who I am as a person.” But musically, I felt really insecure about not knowing what genre of music I was. I was like, “I love singer/songwriter stuff, but I love Motown.” But then I was listening to like psych folk at the time, and I love Neo Soul and R&B. I was like, “Who am I? Then I was like, “It doesn't matter, I'm a mess of things and that is okay.” As soon as I flipped that on its head and made it from a negative into a positive, I finished the song and the album. So that's my long answer to that question. [laughter]

Bava: Now that you're going into all these live shows, which songs are you most excited to be free in with all of your amazing musicians?

Dean: It's a good question. I have been very lucky to work with amazing musicians on this album. And my band is so incredible. U.K. jazz head guys, they just love it. They can't get enough. This morning on the tour bus, I came into this room and they were just in here watching some jazz stuff. I was like, “You guys are like not real humans.” Live, it's always nice to play the newer stuff. Some of the songs have been in the world for a while, so, you worked out all the kinks in them and I actually enjoy switching it up a little bit. Actually, “Messy” is the most fun to play for me. I feel like when I get to that part in the set, I'm relaxed. It's so funny, when you go to a gig everyone in the crowd thinks you can't see them, but I can see everybody at the same time. And when we sing that song, there's just a smile that comes on people's faces and you can see that they're just being really hugged by it. And that was my such the purpose of it for me. And to see that it does that for other people reminds you why you do it. That song feels like a blessing that came into my life, particularly when I play it live. I get to play the tambourine and I love the tambourine. So, I would say that one right now, I like the most.

Bava: Was there a turning point for this music? A question that I love to ask artists is are there certain songs that just happened in kind of a divine inspiration way, which is the antithesis of that wall that you were hitting while writing?

Dean: I've heard two metaphors for songwriting that really helped me, before I say the song that just came out that helped. One was my therapist was like, “Think about it like an old tap in an old house. You gotta run it and the water's probably gonna run brown first, but then it's gonna run clear, but you have to let the tap run.” I was like, “Yeah, you're right.” And then there's this other analogy about surfing and songwriting where it's like you can practice getting up on the board, but if there's no wave, you're not going to write a good song. You can see the good waves coming, but if you haven't practiced getting up on the board, you're not going to write a good song. So, both things have to happen at the same time. It's luck and skill. And I think one of those moments for me where it was luck and skill was a song on the record called “I Could Be A Florist,” a very short little song. That was just born out of such an innocent moment. We were writing another song and then I went off on a tangent, as you can tell that I can talk forever so please stop me if I'm talking too much. And I was talking about how I know I'm a singer and I love singing and it's my favorite thing, but there are so many things I want to do in my life. I would love to have a little flower shop and just sell flowers to people, then go home and sleep peacefully, and not have thoughts racing about trying to write an album. Then honestly, “I Could Be A Florist,” we wrote it and I was like, “That was a silly thing.” Now, it's one of my favorite songs on the album, and sometimes silly things, most of the time, turn into good songs, I found for me anyway, when you're not trying too hard.

Bava: I'd love to hear a little bit, if you don't mind, on your process of becoming you and finding your voice. And any advice that you have for women and girls navigating this industry or just in general.

Dean: It's quite difficult for me to have perspective on myself sometimes, because I'm the only person that can't encounter me, see me or even hear my music. That's the thing that I find crazy, when I listen to my music it sounds like me doing karaoke, like it doesn't sound like actual music to me [laughter]. So, I never really get to hear it. How did I get here? I think I have always had an unwavering stubbornness, but also delusional mind that was just like, “I'm a singer.” From age eight, I was like, “That's what I'm supposed to do.” I've genuinely never even seen myself doing anything else. I've been very lucky. There's luck involved, but I've had the tunnel vision towards music, writing, playing piano and guitar and singing since I was like 15, 16. And being a woman in this industry and coming up has ebbed and flowed, to say the least. But again, I've been very lucky, I met my manager when I was 17 and she's a young woman, not much older than me. And we have this hive mind, where we're completely transparent with each other. I like to think that I'm the front end and she's the back end of the costume donkey. I have a lot of women on my team. So that it is a pleasure to work with, and it's very fluid to work. My tour manager is a woman, so we all go to yoga classes together. We went to a yoga class in Chicago. I work well with women. So, I try to employ them wherever I can. I work with female video directors because my music, I feel, is through the female lens, even though it's for everybody, of course. So why not visually should it be first and foremost through that lens? My advice would be to surround yourself with people that make you feel comfortable. As an artist try to remember that you exist at the top of the pyramid, even though sometimes it feels like you work for the label and everybody else and you should just say yes to everything and just people please, because you're so lucky. But also sometimes say no. No is so powerful and sometimes really hard to say, but that's what I'm trying to get better at saying. “No, thank you. I don't want to do that.”

Bava: You have a pretty big tour coming. Are you most excited about any specific spaces?

Dean: I have a general overarching excitement about just being here. I feel like I'm very English. But then we were in Toronto and we played a show for almost 1000 people. That was my first time even playing there. And I'm like, “Guys, where did you come from?” And it just goes to show you never know who's listening. Guys came up and they were like, I guess in my mind, proper all-American dudes. And they were like, “Olivia, we listen to your music when we're fixing up the truck in the garage.” I was like, “That is awesome” [laughter]. Music is so powerful and can spread so far. So, I'm just generally excited for all of it. New York was something that I'll never forget. L.A will be cool and yeah, I'm very grateful to be doing it all.

Bava: It's so fascinating to hear from artists what rituals they have or the life that they've created to be connected to their truth. For each artist, it's very different, but there are so many similarities across the board. I’d love to hear what resonates for you.

Dean: That is a brilliant question. A simple way to put it is to try to be very present in life in general. I don't even know. That's so good. Sometimes I feel like I'm a sieve and the world's going in and I'm like, “This will be a song.” Sometimes it's annoying to view your life in that way because then you're like, “Oh, do I ever keep something for me?” But, it just feels like I have to turn it into a song and channel it and then give it back and then channel it and give it back. But how do you get into that zone? I think just being present and listening a lot to people. I enjoy small things and I can recognize that. I think that's what other people relate to the most, specificity, if that makes sense. Even though it's maybe specific to me, I think people believe in specificity because you're being truthful. Say the name of the pub that you were in when that thing happened to you or the street that you were on. Make it real cause otherwise, what's the point? Perhaps I'm quite existential, but sometimes I'm like, “The music that I'm putting out now, my great-great-great-great grandchildren will listen to it.” And they'll be like, “What was Olivia feeling when she was 24?” So, if I make it up, it’s a disservice to history because you're a time capsule. You're supposed to take a picture and leave it for the people that are coming after you.

Baltin: I absolutely love the song. “What Are You Gonna Do on Sundays?” As you were growing up, were there one or two songs that despite being so intimate, you felt like the song was speaking to you?

Dean: “A Case Of You,” Joni Mitchell. Who did she write that about? I want someone to write about me like that. That would be nice. I loved Paul Simon when that came across my radar when I was 16. “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.” I remember thinking, “This is so weird. What is he singing about? I want to know. [laughter] I want someone to say that I'm walking around, like I've got diamonds on the soles of her shoes.” And Carole King. I love Carole King so much. “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,” I wish I'd written that every day. I would say those and then Talking Heads as well. Like, I love the way that David Byrne writes like.

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