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Photos by Kate Liddy and Jenna Behrens

OSTON’s debut album is a culmination of the complicated experience of being a woman. As a female singer songwriter who’s shedding the absorbed opinions of men in the industry, she’s finally writing from a place that carries reflection and validation with the same weight. Her pen is intimate, her metaphors are completely singular, and her ability to convey complex emotions is impressive every time. Isn’t That Sweet? is a testament to the struggles of trusting yourself and accepting responsibility in one’s own happiness, told through the language of cathartic, glitchy, pop endurance. 

Candidly, this is a special piece for me as an interviewer. I’ve experienced the chapters of OSTON’s life that are detailed in this incredible album, both as a friend and a fan, since meeting in 2020 weeks before the world completely shut down. Since then, I’ve witnessed the peaks and valleys of finding yourself as a female songwriter through her eyes and absorbed the evolution of her artistry through her music soundtracking my life. When the time was finally right for the release of her debut album Isn’t That Sweet?, I couldn’t wait to sit down and dissect every inch of it. We chat about how the female experience is reflected throughout the record in a kaleidoscope of nuance, how instrumental close collaborators are for making the most truthful music of her career, and how it feels to hold her debut record in her hands after years of working towards it: 

OnesToWatch: How does it feel to finally be releasing your debut album, Isn’t That Sweet?

OSTON: Really awesome. I’m really fucking proud of it. I'm happy that there were multiple times in the past – that we even talked about – where I wanted to make my debut album. But I wasn’t ready, both maturity and skill level wise. It took me a long time to get to a place where I feel like I know myself. It was a hard process, but felt so right. Having it in my hands and being so satisfied with it is the best feeling. 

To me, that’s what the album is really about. You touch on so many things that have happened to you and you're coming at it with such wisdom, but it doesn't lose its rawness. That’s a very special thing. 

There's a very clear arc from the beginning to the end of the project of maturity. “I think the drugs are working now” is a pivotal moment in that journey. She's medicated. She's older. She’s wise. 

This record reflects on the complexities of the female experience, especially on feeling misunderstood in your relationships, both platonic and romantic, with men. How do you want people to feel after listening?

I hope that anybody listening to this record reflects on the dichotomy of being a woman. I was inspired by the records that I was listening to as I was writing this, like Gracie’s The Secret Of Us, a lot of Sabrina, The Marías and Not For Radio, and the way that they express this feeling of being labeled a fucking crazy bitch, leaning into it, and finding the humor in it. I wanted to lean into not having a filter about the craziness you feel when you're in a toxic relationship. “Sorta, kinda” is not something that I would typically write, but I really wanted to let myself go there. “True-ish” is also over the top in that way. On the other end of the spectrum, there's “I used to like that girl,” which is very mature and reflective. So to the women listening to my record, I hope they take away that you can be as big or as small as you want to be and all of it makes you beautiful. 

We have to talk about “Unstuck,” which might be my favorite song in your discography. Was it scary to write?

Definitely. I always wanted to write a song about sexual trauma from toxic relationships in my past. I tried to write it many times and always got overwhelmed and gave up. It's such a heavy, personal subject, so obviously it’s scary thinking about people I know listening to it. I knew I didn’t want to come out and say these things unless it's on my own terms. I feel really lucky that through the process of writing the whole record, I got really close with my collaborators. I felt like I could open up and say, “I want to write about this very hard topic that's been fucking me up for years. It's really awkward to talk about, but I'm going to say it out loud.” They helped me put it into words. It’s on the nose, but people can also interpret it in their own lives. 

Your listeners know you’ve been in a long-term relationship making this record, which is an interesting perspective for an album with so many “break-up songs.” How do you feel that affected your process?

It felt a little silly at times going back and reading through text messages and reliving situations. My main co-writer on the project, Michael Blum, was trying to bring me back to those places, asking questions like “How did that make you feel?” And I'm like, “Fuck if I know!” It was so long ago, so I had to really get into my old brain and be like, I used to care…what did that feel like? It was really healing, honestly. Because a lot of it I never went back and reflected on. When it was happening, it felt so heavy and affected me so much. 

It must be nice to feel a little silly about it. 

Definitely. It’s funny because I’m obviously so close with my boyfriend's family and sometimes we'll be at family get-togethers and they're like, “So what's up with you and Drew? Is he treating you okay?” I have to be like, “It’s not about him!” [Laughs] I have friends that will text me after a song drops and be like, “Are you good? Did you guys break up?” But, if you look at the credits, you'll see that he produced it.

That’s such an interesting approach people have specifically with music. They think the lyrics of a song are exactly how the artist feels right now. Most of the time, lyrics are written months or years before the song actually comes out. 

It's really important for my process that my partner is also a songwriter. When I come to him with these songs, he’s like “It’s so crazy that this happened to you. Great song.”

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do for a trailer. I watched Fleabag for the first time and thought it was such a cool perspective. I love how she breaks the fourth wall. I was looking to make something that encapsulates the main point of the project: being a girl belittled by men and not standing for it. It was interesting how it was received because it’s almost like people were commenting as if they were watching a real situation play out…

I read the comments. It’s wild. 

Social media is such a weird place because a lot of new people saw it, which is a good thing. But do they think that this is real? At least it affected people, but it was just really interesting. People were like, “Girl, leave!” And I'm like, this is not real…this is a piece of art. [Laughs] 

The internet is so weird. Which brings me back to “I used to like that girl.” As women on the internet, we’re getting feedback about who we are and what we're doing wrong, constantly.  

All the time. No matter where you are on the internet, what you look like, what you do with your life, how you hold yourself, there's always gonna be some kind of commentary on it. I'm really scared for young people growing up with access to the insanity that is the internet. 

How did that song end up playing with glitch-pop?

The original song was called “Tomboy,” which I wrote at the same time as “Molly.” I remember putting a verse of it on TikTok and some songwriters I think are really cool commented complimenting the lyrics. I kept coming back to it, took it to Drew because we wrote it together and was like this needs to be broken down, it needs a vocoder and it needs to feel really intimate. The new Lorde album inspired me to make it more intimate. I'm really happy with where it ended up because the original version just wasn't me.

Drugs come up a lot on this album, both in the context of medicine and recreationally. Was it intentional or just something that found its way onto so many of the songs?

I was reflecting on the way that I've written over the years and I think I tend to gloss over things because I'm scared of saying things that I do in my real life. I do drugs. I smoke weed, I drink and I do other things on occasion. [Laughs] With this record I was just like, fuck it, this is a part of the storyline because it’s true. A lot of people have a phase where they're going out and falling in love while doing all these crazy things that are changing your brain chemistry and making your serotonin levels spike, so when you're not with that person it crashes and you feel really codependent. That was something that I realized [happened to me] once I grew up more. 

Completely separate from that, something was off in my brain. I always knew that I was anxious, but I never realized that I had an anxiety disorder and depression until I went to the doctor and started taking my mental health seriously, when I realized I can actually do something about it. There's this pivot in the record after “I think the drugs are working now” where I finally feel more like myself. 

Did you ever think about calling the album “I think the drugs are working now”? 

I actually didn't! I almost called it “I'm so happy I can't stop crying.” That was the running name for a while. I don't know what happened, but one day I just knew it wasn’t the name anymore. One of my managers was listening through and pulled some lyrics from different songs that she thought could work. I never thought of making it a lyric and not a song title, but I love it. 

Let’s talk about “I’m so happy I can’t stop crying,” which is such an interesting song lyrically and structurally. What was the writing process like?

That was a whirlwind experience. I put a lot of pressure on building that song out from when I thought it would be the title of the album. It used to be pretty stripped. Then I had that aha moment where I was like, no, this needs to be like Charli-fied.

I love how there are moments of hyperpop influence on the record, but it doesn’t overpower the cohesion. 

I'm glad you think so. I wrote most of these songs on guitar, so at first I was like am I going to make a whole acoustic guitar album?

That’s so not you. 

Exactly. So I wanted to find a way to marry the two parts of myself. After we had the whole structure, we went back and decided which songs were going to be more produced. I just knew that song needed to get angrier. 

I know that you worked with so many of your friends on this record, which must have been really special. And you've been working with so many of them for so long. 

It feels so good to have people that I can trust. I spent a year working with only my core people, which was so necessary. Before that, I was falling out of love with writing which is such a weird thing. For so many years of my career, I was told by men that I am a songwriter and not an artist. 

But isn't a songwriter an artist? Like what? 

I just was so convinced that I needed to be writing for other people because when people tell you that, you start to adopt those ideas about yourself. Especially from people that have important accolades or whatever. It feels like you should listen to them. Something that I also want to emphasize with this album is being more open about the shit that I've been through and encouraging young women to not base your worth on what men in the [music] industry tell you that you should be doing. Figure out what you want, what you're good at and find your people. I know it's not huge, but I am giving a small master percentage to every songwriter on the project. 

I know that it's been a whirlwind to get here, but I hope you feel so proud. 

I am. And I’m excited to play the album on tour with Maddie Zahm soon.

And of course I have to ask, who are your OnesToWatch? 

GUS. His song “Out of Water” is so good. I’ve also been listening to Kate Stephenson like crazy. 

Listen to Isn’t That Sweet? below: