Olivia Jean Markel is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. She is best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the all-female "garage goth" rock band, The Black Belles, but more recently has made a name for herself as a solo artist.
Early life
Olivia Jean Markel was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 23, 1990. She was raised in a middle-class family with an older sister, a younger brother, and a younger sister. On Jean's 7th birthday, her parents gave her her first guitar. While attending Elmwood Elementary in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, Jean founded her first band, Broken Glass. While in middle school, Olivia, along with a girlfriend who played bass and her little brother Brent, formed the band Yakuza Drag Queens. In high school Jean became obsessed with surf music.
Career
The Black Belles
Olivia handed out demos she played all of the instruments on at a Dead Weather show. Jack White got one of them. He invited Jean to join the team at Third Man Records in Nashville. The Black Belles was formed by Jack White in 2009: he wanted to form an all-female rock band for his own record label, Third Man. Olivia Jean was chosen as the guitarist, accompanied by Shelby Lynne, Christina Norwood, and Ruby Rogers. The quartet released their untitled debut album in 2010. Leading up to the release of their debut album the band had released a handful of singles, including a song recorded with comedian Stephen Colbert. The band saw moderate success with touring; however, in 2012 the band was put on hiatus with Jean wanting pursue her career as a solo artist. In regards to touring with The Black Belles, Jean said “the road can do some crazy things to a girl band. That was the first band a lot of us actually full-on toured with. So we were just getting used to things. So new to everything that we were all kind of tense and didn’t know what was going on.... So we were very vulnerable and, you know, nervous. So we would take our nerves out on each other.”
Solo career
The moderate success of the Black Belles led her to a career as a solo artist. Being a multi-instrumentalist, she records most of her instruments on her own. Her debut solo album, Bathtub Love Killings, was released in 2014 by Third Man and featured more pop style than her prior works with the Black Belles, but still maintaining the sounds of garagerock. Jean's second solo album, Night Owl was released on August 30, 2019, again by Third Man. Jean has also collaborated with other Third Man recording artists such as Jack White, Karen Elson, The Secret Sisters, Wanda Jackson, among others.
