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Homepage: BRIAN OLIVE     Record label: ALIVE

BIOGRAPHY

The heart of industrial America – The Motor City, The Rubber City, The Blue Chip City, The Glass City – have all been a breeding ground for the outlaws of new millennium blues. An unofficial brotherhood of musicians played the same dingy clubs, stirred up a similar media buzz, and over the past decade, each has slowly gained national appeal. Detroit’s White Stripes hit the airwaves first, followed by Akron, Ohio’s The Black Keys, and finally, members of the Cincinnati-based Greenhornes joined Jack White for The Raconteurs in 2007. Then there’s the elusive Brian Olive. Under the stage name Oliver Henry, he served time for panhandling on street corners, he once wooed Meg White, and most importantly, he was the under-rated multi-instrumentalist for two seminal bands, The Greenhornes and Toledo’s Soledad Brothers. Oddly enough, he was right in the thick of the blues-rock resurgence when he went rogue, changed his name, and started a solo career. One might think that working with such prolific peers would inspire a parallel musical direction, but Olive claims the very opposite. On his history with The White Stripes, Olive politely shares, “creatively, I think those relationships have affected me in positive way”. Mostly by helping me realize what I don’t want to do”, he says. And so abandoning the alias of O. Henry helped give Olive the clean slate he was looking for. “It was a good time being Oliver Henry”, he recalls, “but now I’m in a more focused state of mind.” That newfound focus has led him to a hippie-like horizon, awakening listeners with a psychedelic sunrise full of fuzzy happy sunbeams. Olive’s new sound doesn’t come as a surprise – his background in piano and saxophone finds him better suited for soul shakedowns than the sad sack of blues he left behind. Releasing June 23rd on Alive Records, his debut solo album is an abrupt departure from that former self. The self-titled record is more gypsy pop than garage rock, more of a 60’s love-in than a nod to Howlin’ Wolf. – Audra Tracy / The Waster