Meet Lezzy Osbourne

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lezzy Osbourne a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lezzy, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I draw my resilience from pain—both physical and emotional. Since early childhood, I’ve been dealing with multiple chronic health issues. I was often sick and missed out on a lot of fun, with headaches and migraines being the most debilitating. Decades later, I’m shockingly still dealing with them. This has forced me to develop an extreme pain tolerance, constantly pushing through high levels of discomfort to achieve my goals and live a relatively “normal” life.

Emotionally, I became severely depressed once the pain became chronic at around age 10, compounded by mistreatment from classmates throughout school. I was completely miserable and lonely while suffering physically. Those were by far the worst years of my life, but I knew there was so much more to life. We’re not meant to only suffer and never experience joy!

The easiest thing would have been to give up—drop out of school, go on financial support, not work, and do nothing with my life. But I just couldn’t. We all come into this world for a reason and a purpose, and despite the challenges I’ve faced, I have too much drive, passion, and ambition to let life pass me by without leaving a mark and inspiring others.

Thankfully, my hard work and resilience are paying off. No one who knew me back then would believe I’m the same person today! I went from being the shy, quiet, loner girl, to a rockstar in multiple bands, rapidly building a name for myself in Edmonton’s music scene in just 2 years since I started performing. It’s been a wild journey, but this is only the beginning!

Before my music career, I was (and still am) a self-employed Web Developer and Designer, constantly slammed with my existing workload. Juggling a high level of responsibility in web work with the world of music has been a huge challenge. But, I have to remember that work is what allows me to afford being in bands since gear, recording, merch, music video production, and traveling are all expensive investments. This necessity also builds more resilience.

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?

My number one passion in life is making music—playing in bands, writing, collaborating, and working on solo projects. My main band, Boneyard, plays melodic metal and hard rock and is female-fronted. I play bass, which is my favorite instrument, I sing backup vocals, and contribute to songwriting. Our universally liked sound has won over many people who don’t typically listen to rock genres, which has been incredibly rewarding to hear!

My secondary band, Sugarwash, is an all-female, riot grrrl, punk, and grunge band. Our lead singer lives in Vancouver, so our commitment is casual, yet we manage to play live shows about four times a year. In Sugarwash, I also play bass, sing backup vocals, and contribute to songwriting. I joined both bands after they were already established, but I have brought my unique touch and ideas to each, while also helping significantly with social media, video creations, and promotions, especially with Boneyard as we are extremely active.

When I’m not playing bass, I love singing with an acoustic guitar. Although I have very little time for it, I mostly play covers, and it always feels amazing whenever I get the chance!

As a member and advocate of the LGBTQ+ community, I run a local business directory called Queer YEG. YEG is the airport code here in Edmonton, and the directory offers links to resources, community groups, and owner-submitted businesses that prioritize safe and inclusive environments for their customers and employees. This initiative is a pro-bono project as a way to give back to the community, and I also do occasional event promotion through it. Recently, I partnered with Decimate Metalfest, a groundbreaking music festival that wholeheartedly welcomes all ages and all walks of life. That event happened earlier this month (June 7-8, 2024) and was an incredible experience! Boneyard also played in it and I already can’t wait to be involved in it again next year!

As for upcoming events, I have a Vancouver show with Sugarwash on June 21st, 2024, at Bully’s Studios in Metro Vancouver. After that, I play Shockerfest with Boneyard on August 3rd in Edmonton, then Schwabfest with Boneyard on August 17th in Morinville, which will be a fully outdoor, camping festival. I’m super stoked for all of these! There may be more show announcements, but my LinkTree is always up-to-date with upcoming gigs:

https://linktr.ee/lezzyosbourne

 

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?

1. Cultivate Gratitude: Train your brain to be grateful for everything. The positives are always there if you pay attention! Of course, grief and negative emotions have their place and are necessary to feel and move through, but we are not meant to stay there. The list of things that are working well in our lives is undeniably endless. It’s too easy to take everything for granted and only complain when something isn’t going right, instead of feeling immense gratitude for all of the things that are! Did you sleep in a bed last night? Is the heat or A/C working to keep you comfortable? Do you have access to a hot shower? Did the coffee maker work as expected when you poured your morning cup? Did you make it to work without getting into an accident? I could go on forever. Make gratitude a habit, and watch your life transform before your eyes!

2. Recognize Your Worth: Understand and remind yourself that other people’s hurtful treatment towards you is merely a projection of their own pain and has nothing to do with your worth as a valuable human being, no matter how much they want you to believe otherwise. As long as you’re putting in the work to be the best version of yourself, and treating yourself and others with kindness and respect, sleep easy knowing the truth about who you are. Love will always be a stronger force than hate.

3. Embrace Change and Growth: Be receptive to change and growth. People tend to fear change due to a lack of trust in the unknown, while finding comfort in familiarity…. even if it’s slowly killing us. We also tend to take a defensive stance when, in reality, feedback can be constructive and can truly ameliorate what we are trying to achieve if we open our minds. Sometimes there IS a better way of doing things! Sometimes we are too “zoomed in” to see the bigger picture. Remain open and trust the process!

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Over the past year, I’ve become much more comfortable and confident performing on stage, including talking to a crowd and doing live interviews. As an extremely introverted person, I’ve always been a behind-the-scenes, keep-to-myself kind of gal, so this has been quite a change! However, joining bands has pushed me to bring out and embrace a completely different side of myself. I still need a significant amount of solitude, but finding a healthy balance that works best for our unique needs is crucial.

For most of my life, as mentioned earlier, I was painfully shy and quiet. But, working in music with the right people who share the same passion and a greater purpose has skyrocketed my personal growth. Stepping outside of one’s comfort zone is definitely challenging, but each terrifying step becomes easier with experience. It’s important that we learn to believe in ourselves and keep going. It’s only upwards and onwards from here! 😊

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Whyte Wolf Photography
Patrick Powers

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