Bluebiird: Songwriting As Therapy

Emily Osment has grown up as a household name in everything from Hannah Montana to Young and Hungry to Young Sheldon and so much more. Now as she wraps Young Sheldon, she’s excited to share new music with the world under her artist moniker, Bluebiird. We talked to Emily about her new single Porcelain Doll, balancing her many creative ambitions, and her future plans for her music.

How did you initially come up with the artist named Bluebiird and decide to keep that as sort of a separate identity?

Emily: I used to make music under my own name when I was a teenager and at that point in my life, there were a lot of other hands in the mix. I started Bluebiird back in 2018 and I wanted to separate this music from the rest of it because it was just me. And I wanted to make sure people could also have the opportunity to find it authentically and not just because they knew me from television or previous music. I wanted it to be kind of a fresh start and bluebird was always just a nickname and felt appropriate. So it stuck.

How has your music and sound evolved since your last song, Black Coffee Morning, which was released in 2019, to now with Porcelain Doll?

Emily: I wrote Porcelain Doll two years after Black Coffee Morning and in between trying to write this new record, we had a global pandemic. So there was definitely a lot to think about and sit at home and write about. And I would always consider myself a writer before a musician. Music is something I love so dearly, but I've always just been a writer as my mother will tell you. But music is just such an easy expression of how I'm feeling. I produced it with [Grammy-winning engineer and producer] Sean O'Brien and we really took our time. It really was a very relaxed way to try and produce a song. There was no time limit. I don't have a label of any kind, so we just got to experiment with different sounds and not rush. So it sort of was a testament to the song that it was good enough to stick around. To see it through different versions of how it became what it is now is really cool. I'm really proud of it.

Did you work with any other co-writers or producers on this or your other upcoming songs or was it fully a solo project?

Emily: It's a solo project. I wrote everything myself on the album. Sean O'Brien produced Porcelain Doll and I produced it as well. And then myself and Alex Flagstad produced Real People and Paranoia Boys. 

Will this eventually be a full-length album or are these standalone songs?

Emily: It will live together as an EP. It's so wild to me that it's the way the music industry works now.

When I was releasing music as a teenager, it was like, you present the album and then you can slowly promote single after single and it’s already one solidified piece of work. And now because of the way that we consume new things all day long, it’s much easier to give somebody just one thing to focus on than an entire 12-15 song album. I don't mind it. It helps me focus on one song at a time which is great because now I get to throw all of my energy at Porcelain Doll and produce a video for it and really just focus on that one piece of it.

Is there a lyrical theme or common thread connecting all three of these songs?

Emily: Not really, if you listen to all three songs, they are sonically quite different. They were written pretty far apart from each other. But I like to think that I wrote it, I'm singing on it, I must be the glue. So that's good. If they sound different, I think that's okay. There's something for everybody.

A lot of these songs are comments on my relationships with people or with myself or with the state of the world. And it helps me figure out how I feel about certain things in life, it’s my sort of therapy. It makes me feel really good.

Congrats on just recently wrapping Young Sheldon, and on the upcoming spinoff! When you're balancing this new music and then also working on those projects, do you do anything personally to be in acting mode versus musician mode on a given day?

Emily: No, you know, this year seems to be the year where everything in my life has to happen at one time. Which is wonderful. That's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. Finishing Young Sheldon, starting this new show, trying to put out music, and I'm also getting married at the end of the year, it’s just sort of trying to manage my time as effectively as possible.

What are you listening to and watching right now?

Emily: I just heard the new Sylvan Esso track, I love them. I saw them at the Greek last summer and they just killed it. I just finished watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith. I thought that was so great, I ate it up in one day. I also just watched Fallout very quickly. My friend Moisés [Arias] is in that show. As we wait for all of our other supernatural shows to return, Fallout is hitting the spot.

Do you have any upcoming plans for touring this music?

Emily: That would be really great. I'm hoping that next year I'll have some more time after filming the Young Sheldon spinoff. Touring is one of my favorite things on earth. It's just so fun and I'd love for people to be able to see this music live.

Keep up with Bluebiird on Instagram and Spotify, and with Emily on Instagram.