Indie-pop princess OSTON has grazed festival stages, shared an extensive collection of heartfelt songs with the world, and has likely caused the replay buttons for many fans to glitch out. But since the LA-based singer/songwriter’s first official release back in 2019, there’s one thing she had yet to do… perform a headline show.
On September 13, OSTON got the job done, playing songs from her new EP Melancholia to a packed house at The Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles. OSTON and I caught up before the show to celebrate the marvelous occasion, her new project, and discuss the struggles of getting by in a big city.
(Oh yeah, and we did it all in the bathroom in the green room. It didn’t stink, and the noise level was great! You’ve gotta do what you gotta do.)
We’re literally in a bathroom right now talking…
We’re literally in a single stall bathroom at the Moroccan Lounge.
Like this is so interesting!!
The most interesting interview I’ve ever done.
LA COOL GIRL!!! This is so LA Cool Girl… it’s like what, 90 degrees in here? We’re keeping the heat wave going.
It is pretty warm.
You know, it’s been so hot in LA, like it was 100 degrees last week. I don’t know how I made it through, but *shrugs*
I didn’t go outside one time. Not once.
That’s amazing.
Yeah. I just couldn’t.
Literally, it was so bad. But we made it through, and we’re here! We’re here. We are here. Purr.
Purr.
Well first, congratulations on your first headlining show in LA! This is such a big deal.
Thank you!
I’m so excited for you! How are you feeling right now? I know you’ve got to be excited, but let’s narrow down the emotions.
I’m feeling good. I’m in a bathroom, which is exciting. That’s great… I’ve never done an interview in a bathroom, so that’s exciting. I snuck my rosé in the dressing room, so I’ve been subtly drinking all night… so I feel a little bit vibed out. For the most part, I’m very excited. This is my first ever like official headlining show. I’ve never headlined LA, I’ve never ‘risked it for the biscuit’ and seen how many tickets I can sell, which is terrifying. I’m excited to see how many people show up, I’m excited to see how many lyrics I forgot, it’s great!
Honestly! You’ve done so many different shows, but you haven’t done *THIS* yet.
I haven’t! Everyone keeps asking like, is this really your first headline show? I’ve done things where it’s been me as the main person on the bill. I did a show in West Virginia where I was doing a concert in the park series, and I was the person. But I’ve never had a headline show where somebody opened for me, where I was the thing. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s exciting. It’s the first step in the right direction.
That’s very very very exciting. But like you mentioned, it’s a lot of pressure. What are some of the ways you’ve been dealing with, coping with that pressure? Getting prepared for this. I hope that (bathroom) door didn’t knock.
My parents are in town, so it’s been nice to have their support. My mom has been doing a lot of breathing exercises with me, telling me to calm down and manifest positive things. I’ve really been trying to picture myself succeeding, which is not something that I am normally able to do. I always picture the worst. I’ve been making handmade bracelets that I’ve give away every night and I sell at the merch table, so that’s been really calming. Every night, that’s how I decompress. I don’t deal with anxiety that well to be honest, I’m always kind of a mess… but I feel like that makes for good art.
And you just dropped a new EP, Melancholia, so we’ve gotta spill some tea about that!
Let’s spill some tea. Let’s spill all the tea.
Some milk tea…
And all of it goes in the toilet.
I know the EP came together over the course of a year. Were your emotions really changing over the course of that year, or were you like nah, I’m gonna stay in this mindset for the duration of this project?
I feel like the range of emotions throughout the record… like on the record, I have like the emotional arc set in order of how I was feeling them, because it’s kind of the way I wrote them. I was feeling different every single day as we do as humans… we like have really good months and we have really bad months. I wrote so many songs in that time period. I think I wrote the first song “Hard to Love” in April 2021, and then “Mouthwash” was a couple of months ago. It was very, very recent. In that time period, I wrote so many songs that absolutely didn’t make the record, which was kind of easy for us to make it what it is. We narrowed it down to my absolute favorite songs that nailed how I was feeling during that time, and stuck with it. I’m really happy with how it turned out… and I’m just sweating right now!
Maybe it’s because we’re talking about this HEAT record? Spicyyyy. Literally, it just rose like 10 degrees and now I’m starting to sweat. There’s so many gems on this EP though, like “Whatshisface.” I was headbanging in the car, I was like AHHHHH. That’s the vibe! But, I wanted to ask you… how do you REALLY narrow the tracklist down? I feel like if I were to come up with an EP, and then I had like 100 songs, I wouldn’t be able to narrow it down. I’d feel so sad like, these songs are like kids and they’re never going to see the light of day. It’s so sad!
Well it’s nice having a team, because a I feel like a lot of the time as artists, we’re just so used to liking the thing we wrote most recently. A lot of times, I forget stuff that I did in the past because I’m really excited about what I’m doing currently, things that I wrote last week, blah blah blah. It’s really nice having a team to sit you down and say hey, what about this song you wrote a year ago? Also, I feel like for this record, one of the songs that actually happened with was “Whatshisface.” I wasn’t actually thinking of putting that out at all, until my team was like, you’re an idiot. We kept it on the record. But all the other songs… I just knew. They just felt so good to me, and it was like exactly what I wanted to say. It’s not to say that my other songs that I’ve written over the past year aren’t good and won’t still see the light of day, I just don’t think they were meant to be on the same project together.
That’s valid! But also… you’re about to go on stage in a few. I want to know about your process of curating a setlist because curating an EP and choosing those songs, that’s one thing. Now, you’re going to have to play these songs for a crowd.
Well it’s crazy how I’ve never curated a headline setlist before.
That’s true.
When I’ve done shows that have been like an hour long, it’s been like okay, I have to have every single song I’ve ever written and that’s what I’m going to sing. Now I have enough music out to where I really have to be selective. I tried to pick some songs that I know are fan favorites. I had some fans actually fly out from the east coast that are here tonight.
This is the thing you have to evaluate – if you have two songs that are very similar, like my song “Sour” that was on my last record is very similar to “20 nothing,” they have the same dynamic arc… it wouldn’t make sense in my opinion to play them on the same set. I had to cut “Sour,” which is really sad.
Rest in Peace.
RIP. It’s hard. There’s some songs that I really want to play that don’t make the cut, there’s songs I don’t necessarily love playing but other people want to hear, and you’ve gotta just sacrifice it, you know? It’s about balance.
It’s all about balance!
In the bathroom!
We’re trying to not like… end up in the toilet. So ummm… what’s next for you? Besides getting out of here and getting on stage?
I hope there’s cool things on the horizon. Just to be completely transparent, it’s so expensive to be an artist. I’m just trying to figure out my stuff every single day. I’d love to put out more music. I’d love to put out an album. I’d love to go on tour, and I’m making moves every day to try to make that happen and bring that to life. I think as of right now, I’m just trying to celebrate the fact my project came out, trying to fucking SLAY this headline show, and I don’t know… just take it from there! Kinda like, be happy, healthy, make enough money to pay for food and rent.
YEEAAAAH because it’s just so expensive to exist!
Especially here. And to die!
Funerals are expensive. Ugh.
Okay one last thing. I want you to manifest something right here, right now. Anything. Literally anything.
We’re gonna manifest… first of all, this show is gonna be fucking amazing. My agent who’s coming is gonna be blown away, his socks are gonna be knocked off. The other agent who my agent works under, his socks are gonna be knocked the fuck off. They’re gonna send me on tour with UPSAHL.
YASSSS.
I’m gonna tour with UPSAHL. We’re gonna manifest that. Where am I touring? The US and Europe. Then, everyone’s like “OSTON, you killed the UPSAHL tour! You should go on your own headline tour!” Meanwhile, I’m making an album, and I’m also surviving and making a living off the touring and the album. And that’s where we are.
And then you’re gonna sell out The Forum. And then-
Maybe not yet. But we’ll start out by selling out The Moroccan, and we’ll go from there.
That sounds like a plan!
Stream OSTON’s new project Melancholia below!
