Meet Rachel AO

We recently connected with Rachel AO and have shared our conversation below.

Rachel , so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I’ve found that experiences, especially ones that push me out of my comfort zone, help me have interesting stories to tell. I try to keep myself busy by traveling and meeting new people to collaborate with. Writing songs with other people is a good way to cultivate creativity collectively, rather than individually, and helps my music become relatable and stick with the audience. I love collaborating with various artists, producers, and musicians when I am able to find good creative connections.

I recently released a song in collaboration with a group of incredible women. We mostly worked remotely through video calls, but it was still so empowering and encouraging to work with this team on a song that I know so many could relate to. Typically I start with my own life experiences and write a song from scratch. Then write the melodies on piano, find a producer to arrange the track, record the vocals, the backing vocals, and plan the full release, and then the performance. It’s a lot of steps. This song was a bit different since it was already written and I was asked to be the vocalist. Although a little different from what I’m typically used to, having this collaborative group allowed me to focus on pouring my whole self into the performance. I took their lyrics and interpreted them vocally. I got to share my story through the quality of my voice, and it came together in a way that resonated with me, the artist.

The song, “I Broke It Too”, (Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/4F2tkBPvfrfYAtAiAyHWLt?si=bd3a7a38e9374400 Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/i-broke-it-too/1669390784?i=1669390785) is about remaining in a situation that is actively breaking your heart, but you know deep down that it isn’t good for you. You continue to stay anyway. You start to blame yourself because you stayed in those situations, knowing it is still breaking your own heart. I was going through some personal situations while working on this song that connected me to the theme, still heavy on my heart in the recording session. Even though I didn’t write these lyrics, I meant every word because I was going through it. It was crazy how my personal experiences affected the performance, I was really feeling it.

It’s relatable to relationships of course, but also to people stuck in a miserable job or toxic friendship. You know the ones you stick around even though you know they aren’t good for you. This makes it fairly accessible. As collaborators, we all poured our selves into the song and the end result is something that can be impactful and empowering to people who also resonate. That is really important fuel for my creativity.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a vocalist, song writer, actor, and artist. Singing is a deeply personal and unique form of expression because no one else can replicate my voice. Only I can be the “real-deal”. I find the writing process really exciting. To see something grow from a seed of an idea to a fully produced, polished, and mastered piece of music is magical. I crave hearing the mastered track for the first time through the studio’s speakers.

I moved to Los Angeles around 2021, and released my first single shortly after. That song, “Perfect” (Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/32JiBji1SBOpZs7EppTgAT?si=c57ca7b242c44258 Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/perfect/1605240165?i=1605240173) opened the doors to sync licensing for me and I found a path towards one of my goals; to write songs for film and TV. Being a signed PureSync artist has allowed me to pitch my songs to a global audience. Sending a track out for sync and having it contribute to a dramatic scene is so gratifying.

I continue to write and release music regularly. Keep an eye out for “Rachel AO” in the closing credits of your favorite film or TV show for one of my songs or on screen performances. I also perform my music around Los Angeles with my band, and you can often find me having fun in a Karaoke bar near you.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
There’s a few things that folks getting into song writing should know that will help them see their work get out in the world. The first thing is to work on building communication skills for respectful collaboration, this goes such a long way. Knowing and communicating your level of commitment can save a lot of grief, compared to mis-communications and mis-alignment of commitments. In turn, when you find collaborators who respect you, the work tends to flow out of that partnership. The next quality to cultivate is about follow through. Having an end goal in mind for the song or project can make progress happen faster. Setting a deadline for yourself can also help keep you on the path to follow through. Often this type of creative work doesn’t automatically have hard deadlines, and that can lead to work expanding infinitely. My favorite projects sometimes surprise me at how quickly they are to complete. It makes a difference when your group is committed to getting the project done. The third quality, and maybe the most important, is being able to release yourself from what holds you back. Not every collaboration will be right, not every song needs to be complete. Knowing when to move on isn’t easy, but ultimately you have to decide what is worth your time. You get to learn these things quickly, and there are so many more things to learn, but the biggest thing is to keep moving forward, experiment, and be yourself.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’m always looking to collaborate with new musicians, producers, song writers, and visual artists on creative projects. I’m still looking for my specific unique sound as an artist, which is why I work with so many different producers. They all have their own interpretation of my songs, which pushes me into expanding my sound. I like to experiment and play with different versions. As a song writer, having different versions of a song doesn’t only give more options for sync licensing, but also helps me uncover the truest version of a song. The one that communicates my story best to those listening.

I love working with producers who get the instrumentation to match what I hear in my head, and then translate that sound into the song. It can be hard to communicate those abstract qualities. I’ve been known to hum a string section or beatbox under a melody. Producers who can take the core idea I’m hearing in my head and expand on it with their own creativity to evolve the song into something greater than the sum of it’s parts are the best collaborators. Any producers reading this can reach out to me from my website [rachelao.com](http://rachelao.com/).

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Geremy Mumenthaler Kate Kotlyar

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