August 2010

Is For Olivia

A showbiz veteran at just 24 years old, Singaporean singer Olivia Ong talks about finding fame after a decade of hard work

WORDS CATHERINE SHU

When Olivia Ong was five years old, she caught a glimpse of a Mariah Carey concert on television. Entranced by the pop star’s soaring vocals and thousands of fans, Ong made a wish. “I was quite dramatic about it. I went up to the screen and I said ‘I’m going to be a superstar!’” she remembers with a laugh.

With the release of her latest record, Olivia, Ong seems poised to achieve her dream of stardom. Though she is only 24 years old, Ong is already a seasoned show-business veteran. The singer got her start when she was 15 in her home country of Singapore with the Japanese-language pop group Mirai. Two years later, she moved to Japan, where a string of bossa nova cover records earned Ong a cult following. An appearance on Taiwan’s One Million Star and her warm, sultry vocals for the theme of Singaporean hit series The Little Nyonya gained her more devoted fans.

But the soft-spoken, approachable Ong is no diva. Dressed in an electric blue sleeveless shift and black Converse sneakers with no make-up, the willowy singer looks like a hip art student. Her demeanour is endearingly self-effacing: during the interview, Ong apologises for her “boring” answers, admits that she feels like she “could have done a better job” on The Little Nyonya and blushes when asked about how it feels to find fame in Singapore after so many years working abroad. “Fame is a big, big word. Honestly, I feel like I don’t think much about it now,” she says.

Ong grew up with a supportive family, and a cousin who took her on regular trips to see local productions of musicals such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Annie. At school, she enrolled in theatre classes and sang in a choir. During a drama class lunch break, Ong spied an audition announcement while flipping through a magazine. “I tore out the page with the headline ‘Do You Want to Be a Star’ and went ‘Yay, that’s what I want!’”

She took a quick snapshot of herself in a Neoprint photo booth and ran home to get permission from her parents. Thinking it would be a good experience for her 14-year-old daughter, Ong’s mother signed the application. The audition landed Ong a spot in Mirai.

Though the girl group was only moderately successful, it heralded the beginning of Ong’s career. After Mirai disbanded, Ong moved to Japan when she was just 17. Her mum accompanied her for the first three months, during which Ong brushed up on her Japanese and “felt like a tourist”. After her mother returned to Singapore and Ong enrolled in an international high school, however, reality sank in.

“That’s when it hit me that I was alone,” says Ong. “I think I kept a lot to myself.” She missed her family and had few friends in Japan. Now, when talking about her social life and close friendships, Ong says, “I’m very happy to have those things, because I didn’t before.”

Despite her homesickness, Ong focused on her ambitions. She was in the middle of recording her J-pop debut album when her producer asked her to collaborate on a bossa nova record. “To tell the truth, for the first album I didn’t do much homework about bossa nova,” confesses Ong. “Of course, I’d heard ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, but that’s it.”

Girl Meets Bossa Nova became a hit despite very little publicity, and Ong’s career path swerved from Japanese dance pop to English-language bossa nova and jazz standards. By the time it came to record Girl Meets Bossa Nova 2, Ong felt intimidated by her own success. But her producer gave her advice that has stuck: “He said to me, ‘Why don’t you read each line of the entire song and try to really understand what it means?’”

One of her favourite covers is “Never Can Say Good-bye”. Ong worked with a composer to give a reggae inflection to the song’s arrangement, a change from the Jackson 5 Motown original and Gloria Gaynor’s famous disco version.

After returning to Singapore, Ong was asked by her record label to provide vocals for the theme song of The Little Nyonya, a dramatic series about a Peranakan Chinese family. Ong diligently researched Peranakan history and met with producers to gain a deeper understanding of Yueniang, the show’s protagonist.

“The song is really about the main character of the entire series, so when I recorded it, I tried to put myself into the story,” says Ong, whose paternal grandfather is Peranakan. “[Yueniang] is someone who is very genteel but inside she’s a strong and determined woman, so I tried to convey that.”

With its record-setting viewership and devoted following, The Little Nyonya was a major break for Ong. The song introduced her to the Mandarin-language music market and garnered Ong new opportunities in China, where the show is currently airing. “It’s been two years and I’m still performing the song. Every time I sing it, I feel like I’m doing more justice to the song,” she says.

Last year, Ong also appeared on the Taiwanese hit show One Million Star during the “player killer” (PK) round, where new singers are introduced to take on the remaining contestants. Despite earning stellar scores, Ong describes the experience as “nerve-wracking”. “You feel the competition and it’s pretty intense. I mean, you can feel the vibe from the rest of the contestants,” she laughs.

The music video for the first single off Olivia, “You and Me” was also filmed in Taiwan. Though the video shows Ong strolling with her guitar in a white summer frock and taking a leisurely soak in a bathtub, the shooting was actually done in the dead of winter in Miaoli and Yangmingshan. But Ong’s enthusiasm helped her survive the shivers and 16-hour days. “Ten years ago this was what I wanted, and now I get to experience this kind of filming.”

The song, one of two tracks on the album that Ong penned herself, was inspired by the movie Up, her grandparents and the elderly couples Ong sees walking hand-in-hand when she’s out jogging — appropriate enough for the singer, who seems like an old soul herself despite her young age. “I didn’t want to write a young couple’s typical love song,” says Ong. “When you are young, you want to have this, this and that, but when you are older it’s time to keep love simple and just appreciate your loved one.”

Holiday Destinations

Singapore: “If you want to understand Singapore, one way is to eat the local food.” Ong loves hitting hawker centres, cafés in the Siglap area and the famous bakery Bengawan Solo for pandan cakes. She also recommends the Peranakan Museum, Sentosa’s beaches and Zouk nightclub.

Tokyo: “Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden is big and very beautiful. If you like shopping, I recommend the Shinjuku area. I used to go to Kichijoji every weekend, where there are lots of restaurants and cool little cafés. You can also people-watch in Inokashira Park.”

Taipei: Ong shops at Awa, a boutique owned by her stylist, and eats at the sushi bar in Bellavita mall. She also recommends Ramen Makoto-Ya near Breeze Center.