Ahead of her performance at C2C Festival, we interview Robyn Ottolini about her viral TikTok success, her latest EP release and her experience from Canada to Nashville.
Hello. How are you?
Not too bad.
You must be so excited that C2C is finally happening!
I am so excited. I’ve never been to Europe or England, but my family is from England – my grandpa was born in Yorkshire – so my dad’s gonna come with me and he’s very excited because he’s going to see some family that he hasn’t seen in a while. I’m excited.
You’re going to have the best time – I’m so excited for you, particularly after the past few years of sitting in doors, you’re able to get to Europe and then go on tour with Tyler Rich. It must feel like all systems go.
It’s crazy, it feels good. I don’t know how I got here, but I’m really happy that I got here – C2C has been on my bucket list for forever, so I just can’t believe i and then I’m so excited about the Tyler Rich tour and I’m looking forward to new music.
Obviously you kicked off this year with the release of some new music with the ‘I’m Not Always Put Together’ EP. All your EPs have shown different sides of yourself, introducing yourself to your fans – was that your intention?
I just wanted to show people that I’m a human with all sorts of feelings. I’m not just a breakup girl, I like to live life and have fun and I have a good family around me. It’s really important for me as an artist to let them see that side of me too.
I feel like that’s the way that you build the biggest fan base. You’ve had amazing success on TikTok and all those things, but I feel like when people dive into your music, that’s when they can really get to know you and see the different sides of your personality.
Yeah, exactly. They may not be radio number ones, but they definitely showcase a part of me that you won’t get if you just listen to the singles. You’ll get to know me as a human on a more in-depth level.
Fans don’t just want one dimension – it’s more complicated than that.
Exactly.
Obviously you have spoken about TikTok briefly and it has been a huge part of your journey. You managed to harness its power in a way that so many are struggling to do. Can you talk about how you grew your following on the platform and how you think it’s shaped you?
It’s crazy, because I had released my music before ever knowing about TikTok. I put it out into the world and then the pandemic hit. I had a whole strategy to build fans organically through shows and stuff, because of the pandemic, I had to change the game plan. In this industry, you have to be flexible anyway. I turned to TikTok and I just started posting content – that felt true to me, because there’s nothing worse than not believing the person on the screen. Lucky for me, my music is just who I am. It’s very easy for me to just show up on TikTok and sing it how it is. It was a lot of fun and I feel like I’m still building my TikTok sometimes. F-150 had its’ own thing and people say ‘Oh, you’re the F-150 girl, you know?’ F-150 just blew up in such a crazy way on there, I’m very thankful for it.
It’s been two years now since F-150 was released. When you wrote that song did you have any idea that it would become this complete sensation that it has become? Can you talk about writing it because it must feel very strange to look back on the day you wrote it and think ‘wow, that song changed the game’?
Yeah, it’s crazy. It has accomplished so much for me, it’s absolutely insane. I remember at the time I wrote it, I definitely believed in that song from the second I wrote it, but it came from such a true place. It was a no brainer for me. I believe in it so much and even before it went viral on TikTok, because it was released in February 2020 and went viral in September 2020, in that six months period, when it wasn’t viral, it was still doing amazing things in my eyes. As an independent artist who had no backing, it had upwards of 100,000 to 200,000 streams and I never thought I could get this.
A lot of people don’t understand how much work goes into getting even 10,000 streams, that’s amazing. People don’t really understand just how much effort goes into then 100,000 and so to see it blow up even more must have been incredible.
On TikTok, I was just having fun and then it hit 3 million, it was just crazy.
I can imagine. Obviously, as part of the rest of this new project you’ve released a more stripped back version of ‘Tell You Everything.’ There’s so much heart in that song, can you talk about the three tracks that you’ve released in that recent EP and why you put them together?
That was three acoustic tracks of fans most favourited and streamed songs. There was F-150 and obviously there’s ‘Trust Issues’ which is my second most streamed song – I love that song, I wrote that one by myself. It was just something that flowed out of me one day, and was how I was feeling, it’s connected with so many people. When people love something, they love it and they’re going to tell their friends and stuff – that’s why I love ‘Trust Issues’ so much, because I didn’t put marketing behind it. I was an independent artist when I released that one, so people’s love for it made it do so well.
That success probably feels more real – it’s just the song itself that has made it have the success it did.
Yes, the only thing that’s behind it is my voice and my feelings. It was really cool to recreate that track – the original one, the fully produced one is kind of powerful. I was really excited to strip it back and it hit a different emotion with it. ‘Tell You Everything’ was my first love song that I ever released. I love that song so much, but it hits harder when it’s stripped back.You can feel the voice crack, you can feel the emotion behind it even more. I’m really proud of those songs.
You should be. We’ve talked about the way that you’ve released music as an independent artist, but you did sign a pretty big record deal during the pandemic. How big a step was that, because it is the ultimate goal for so many people. It must have been incredible.
It’s absolutely crazy, because I’m from Canada, so getting a US record deal is very unheard of, especially out of the gate when you’re a new artist. It was huge – I had never even lived in Nashville. I didn’t come here often, I was very much in Canada. I’m just one of those people, I write by myself and and I guess I could have just kept doing that and it slowly and carefully worked out. It’s a really great honour to be among so many artists on that label. I don’t know how I got here, but it seemed to work.
Obviously, you have moved from Nashville, you don’t have your base there full time. The Canadian country music scene has really taken off over the past few years. You’ve got so many incredible artists coming through it. What does it mean to be a part of that community of Canadian artists in Nashville?
I was so small when I was up in Canada. When I blew up, I had a relationship with James Barker band – I love those boys, they are dope. I knew like a few other artists, but I didn’t know personally many of the larger Canadian names, but now that I’m down here, I’m hopefully gonna hang out with Madeline Merlo. I feel like we do have a bit of a kinship. It is hard being Canadian and trying to break it in the US market. It’s nice to have people that know what you’re going through. Canadians are also killing it down here – Tenille Arts – go off number one!
For the rest of this year, I know you’re touring like a crazy person, you’ll be over in Europe and then you’ll be touring with Tyler Rich, but what is the plan for the rest of the year?
I really want to work on releasing new music and the marketing strategy that goes behind it. I’m very excited to get creative, because I just love being creative.
That’s exciting and we can’t wait to see you over here in the UK before too long!
I’ll eat all the Yorkshire puddings!
Thanks so much for your time today.
