This week’s Local Spins Artist Spotlight shines on an 18-year-old, up-and-coming West Michigan artist with a new album and a tour under her belt. (Story, video, podcast)
Full Steam Ahead: Olivia Mainville wants to collaborate “with everybody.” (Photo/Anna Sink)
Not many Holland 18-year-olds get the opportunity to record an album that gets mixed in Nashville, play major festivals, go on tour and get a thumbs up from rock superstar Jack White.
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“He said, ‘Sounds great, you guys,’ ” singer-songwriter Olivia Mainville recalled of the impromptu performance of one of her songs with The Accidentals earlier this year in the Record Booth at White’s Third Man Records in Nashville. The refurbished 1947 machine records and dispenses a phonograph disc to users.
Mainville performing this week on Local Spins Live. (Photo/Anna Sink)
“We were playing ‘Full Steam Ahead’ at the time and the co-workers told Jack to come out (of his office) and listen, so he stepped out and introduced himself and asked if he could take a listen. So, he stepped inside the box when it was playing back the recording.”
If Mainville’s music already has caught the ear of Jack White, the future looks remarkably bright for this singer and musician who started attending West Ottawa High School but is now home-schooled so she can also focus on her music as she approaches graduation.
Enamored by such varied artists as Michigan singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, Norway’s baroque pop band Katzenjammer and Connecticut gypsy-swing quartet Caravan of Thieves, Mainville describes her own music as a combination of all those styles – something she dubs “gypsy swing folk.”
HANKERING TO PLAY ‘EVERY GENRE WITH EVERY LOCAL ACT’
And she exudes the ebullient exuberance of youth when it comes to that music while exploring collaborations with a variety of musicians.
“I honestly just want to play a bunch of shows with everybody. I want to play with every kind of person,” Mainville says. “I want to play every genre with every local act. I really enjoy collaborating. That’s my thing.”
Mainville’s “Full Steam Ahead”
With a voice that’s sometimes been compared to Ani DiFranco and Norah Jones – and maybe Delores O’Riordan of The Cranberries – Mainville met fellow teenagers The Accidentals at Blissfest in northern Michigan in 2013 and the musicians immediately hit it off.
They’ve since toured together extensively, with Mainville opening for The Accidentals at dozens of shows from Nashville to the East Coast, as well as performing with the Girls With Guitars ensemble.
Mainville has played solo sets at Michigan’s Blissfest and Holler Fest, and will play a headlining “homecoming” show at Holland’s Park Theatre on Sept. 13, with Brother Adams and Watching for Foxes opening the concert.
Earlier this week, she made an appearance on Local Spins Live at News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW) to talk about her music and perform the title track from her debut EP.
That debut recording, “Full Steam Ahead,” was released earlier this summer and displays that “gypsy swing folk” blend over five engaging tracks which also feature Savannah Buist and Katie Larson of The Accidentals, mandolinist Don Julin and guitarist Billy Strings and The Appleseed Collective’s Vince Russo.
Recorded over “countless hours” at Northwestern Michigan College Studio in Traverse City by Buist and Steve Quick, the album was mixed and mastered by Rob Feaster, of the Nashville-based Quad Studio. Mainville wrote all of the songs.
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Strangely enough, though, this musician who started by playing viola in the fifth-grade orchestra credits the 2010 “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” soundtrack and the “Guitar Hero” video game for really inspiring her to pick up the guitar and pursue music as avocation.
Mainville plays Park Theatre in September. (Photo/Anna Sink)
Her standout live performance may have come at Blissfest in northern Michigan earlier this year. “I got to have two percussionists, Vince Russo from The Appleseed Collective and Michael Dause from The Accidentals, and the two girls, Savannah and Katie. We were all just playing. It was just a fun and really cool show.”
It all adds up to an impressive resume for the teen who nervously played her first open-mic show at Spring Lake’s Seven Steps Up just two years ago.
“It’s definitely something I’ve adapted to. I remember the first time I played an open-mic, I was shaking and kind of freaking out,” she concedes. “Now, I don’t get nervous and it feels good. … I didn’t expect to get this far into music but I’m glad I did.”
For more information about Mainville and upcoming shows, visit oliviamainvillemusic.com.
Copyright 2014, Spins on Music
Cool story, I’ll have to check her out. I’d be happy if Jack told me he likes my shoes.