Olivia Mitchell caught the songwriting bug at age 14. Naturally shy, she found comfort in writing songs about her life experiences. At first, she kept her musical passion a secret; not even her family knew that she was teaching herself guitar and writing songs in her bedroom late each night. When Olivia finally found the courage to begin posting her original songs on YouTube, she used a fake name and didn’t show her face…only her hands and a guitar or piano were visible. With increasing support from her YouTube followers, she was persuaded to show her face in her videos. Ironically, Olivia’s mom encountered her videos on YouTube and enthusiastically informed all who would listen! Although she was initially embarrassed, Olivia’s friends and classmates showered her with compliments about her songs and requested their MP3 recordings. With all of the support, Olivia developed the confidence to start performing in public—something she had always feared. Olivia has since performed at numerous venues including the Six String Café in Raleigh, NC, the Bluebird Café in Nashville, TN, and the Douglas Corner in Nashville, TN.
Bio:

An important moment came for Olivia when she was introduced to country music artist and songwriter, Mark McGuinn, who assisted Olivia in the production of some demos in Nashville during her sophomore year of high school. McGuinn also introduced Olivia to session bassist Don Kerce, who encouraged Olivia to keep writing and ended up producing some recordings of her newer songs.

During her third year of high school, Olivia gained a scholarship to the University of Southern California as a member of the school’s Resident Honors Program, which allowed her to skip her senior year of high school. At age 17, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Music Industry major and an Economics minor. When she first arrived at USC, she became friends with a talented film student, Kerry Furrh, who heard Olivia's music and suggested that they film a music video. With the help of friends and classmates, they filmed the original video “Hello Hollywood,” which enacted a song Olivia wrote about unrequited high school love. Despite no paid advertising or promotion, the video has gained over 300,000 views on YouTube. A follow-up video to a newer song, “High,” was posted this past summer and has over 100,000 views. Olivia has over 40,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, OliviaMitchellMusic, and stars including Lady Antebellum, Brad Paisley, and Gym Class Heroes have commented on her videos.

While Olivia was in Los Angeles, Kerce played recordings of Olivia’s songs to hit songwriter Peter McCann, who took an interest in Olivia's country/pop songwriting and unique vocal style. Olivia is currently studying and writing in Los Angeles, but frequently visits Nashville where she is mentored by Kerce and McCann.

My full name is Olivia Marie Mitchell and I was born on September 8th, 1992 in Michigan. I now live in North Carolina, am 17 years old, and have 2 dogs (a Boston Terrier named Oscar and an Australian Shepherd named Lexi) and a cat (Vinny). I am a big animal lover and I've always enjoyed playing with animals at local animal shelters. My favorite color is purple...I love love love it...and my lucky numbers are 9 and 13. I am 5' 6.5" and have brown hair and brown eyes. I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was in ninth grade and I've written over a hundred songs. I also play piano, which I started playing when I was around seven. The first complete song I ever wrote is called Spider. I started writing after hearing "Teardrops on my Guitar" by Taylor Swift. After finding out how young Taylor was and how she wrote all of her songs, I wanted to do the same thing. My favorite subjects in school are math and Spanish and my least favorite is definitely history...I very much dislike memorizing dates! I've played soccer my whole life and was on a very competitive travel team up until this year. I played varsity soccer from 8th grade on, and now that I'm going to college this year (USC-Southern Cal!), I will probably join a club team there. I love funny movies like Dodgeball and Happy Gilmore, and I really like the TV series "Pretty Little Liars." I love when I find a good pen that writes really easily and has a nice ink flow haha. What can I say, I like smooth-writing pens. Especially if they are purple :) Some of my favorite foods are pesto, spatzle with goulash (I am half German and my relatives make this German meal perfectly), shrimp tempura sushi, and basically all mexican food. I love to eat! I'll eat basically anything except for onions. I also love smoothies and the graham cracker crust that's on the bottom of cheesecake. I love it when it snows because not only is it beautiful, but I can also sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate while reading a good book. It can't get much better than that. Aside from food, I have two scars on my face that I got when I was two when my dog attacked me. I wrote a song about it called "Scarred." I hate the scars, but I'm hoping someday I'll get over them and accept that they're never going away. I love writing songs because it serves as an outlet for my feelings and also a creative way to make up stories. A song I wrote, Luna's Dream (originally called Goodnight on my youtube), is in the soundtrack for the movie Soulstice, which comes to theaters in 2011. It's on iTunes right now, recorded by Keana Texeira. I'm so excited about it! Last of all, I really really love getting nice messages from you guys. All of your comments and messages on my YouTube, my ReverbNation, and this website are read and appreciated. The best is when you guys defend me from the haters out there; it feels so good to know you guys are on my side and like my music that much! You guys are awesome, and your support gives me confidence and makes me feel good. You all are awesome!