O5EAN (Ocean) is an Ottawa singer, songwriter and perhaps most of all a performer with an acute and even striking sense of style and image. His music videos engage all your senses, as he appears in masks of every variety, dark suits with a matching dark demeanor, shiny black dress shoes – and sometimes even in handcuffs. The visuals draw you in as much as the lyrics, the message or the music itself. And it’s abundantly clear that O5EAN seeks to offer a performance that you won’t easily forget.
Photo: Ottawa Reflections
There’s a severity to O5EAN that is in line with the style in his music and videos. He arrived to the Ottawa Reflections interview with a signature seriousness and the air of a professional who is intentional about his image and brand. Except for a white collar shirt underneath a dark jacket, he appeared in all black, down to his Michael Kors dress socks and his jet black hair.
O5EAN started singing and writing in middle school, but the writing came first. Poetry served as a way to escape from everyday reality. “I was looking for something to really lose myself in and while I enjoyed sports, I found that my real love was music and writing lyrics. It all started when I met a girl and really came to like her. I wanted to use the Internet to find poems to send her, but I soon realized that it was better for me to just write them instead. As I learned more about poetry in school and as I listened to more and more hip hop, I felt that my life was my story. Writers usually see a part of themselves in what they write, and I came to understand how true that really was. Writing poetry and writing songs was in many ways like writing a journal – only without the actual journal,” he explained.
“I find that I have many ideas, and writing, producing copy or creating music are vehicles for me to get these out,” he added. O5EAN admitted to being something of a perfectionist, but he also shared that when he was younger and just starting out with writing, it was the self-confidence that he often lacked. “You absolutely need to gain that confidence, you can’t produce without it,” O5EAN said.
Performance artists and musicians put themselves out there and whether wittingly or unwittingly, they find themselves in a situation where they’re unmasked. In O5EAN’s case, that’s quite literally true. Some of his videos begin with him being unmasked – as eerie facemasks are removed from his face and something of his identity is revealed. There’s often a dark mystery to his work, some of which have a period piece quality to it. This may be most evident in his video Sword.
“I’m a quiet person and I like to keep to myself. But I also realize that in music these days you can’t just be strong, silent and private. So I wear a mask as a form of irony. I cover my face, even though you know who I am, and I know that I can’t hide from my audience,” O5EAN shared.
Photo: Ottawa Reflections
When O5EAN writes a new song, he has to check where he is at that moment in his own life. There’s no way for him to totally divorce what he writes from who he is and from where he is at that time. Sometimes he’ll be in a dark place and someone happens to send him a beat that he’s inspired to write to. One example, and with over 13,000 views on YouTube one of his most popular pieces, is entitled Violence. “When I write songs like Violence, I’m trying to capture an emotion and I know I’m not the only one feeling like that. I’m not the only one who gets anxious or feels as though people are out to get you, to harm you or to take something from you. The music I make now reflects the fact that I feel very uncertain about the future. It’s not just a matter of what’s going on in the wider world, but also what’s in my own life. I’m ready to make music that reflects that, while before I would make music that someone else would tell me is current, modern or popular. Now, I’m never too concerned about whatever the current trend happens to be,” O5EAN said. “Music can be harder to produce when everything in your life is relaxed or when you’re complacent,” he added.
“Everything you need to know about life has already been written in a book. All these emotions, as much as I have an ego and sometimes think it’s all about me, I know that there is someone else who at the same time is feeling just like I am. If I can channel that and put that into a song for people, I know I’m communicating something relevant and meaningful that people can relate to,” O5EAN explained.
Music as a powerful vehicle for communication and for sharing the human experience – that’s what I get out of what O5EAN is telling me. “Sometimes music possesses you,” he adds with emphasis. “I try to at least keep my music honest, so that you see the highs and lows in my experience. You can’t say I’m glorifying drug use or whatever it is. I’m telling you and showing you that when I’m up everything is up and I’ll tell you how gold it is. But when it’s down, it’s really down. People suffer and everyone knows what suffering feels like.”
While O5CEAN involves other performers in his music videos and often cultivates a team approach, the writing itself is generally a solitary exercise that he does alone, with his phone and whilst pacing in a darkened room. His best time for writing is in the early morning, at 6 am or earlier. “When I’m writing I feel that nobody should hear me, so that I can be as honest as I want to be,” he said. “Sometimes it all starts off with venting, and nobody needs to hear that but me.”
But the life of an indie writer and musician is hardly only about writing the music itself. It’s at least and maybe even more about producing the press kit or managing social media or creating the visual elements. O5CEAN will sometimes find himself working on the branding and promotional aspects until 3 am. When it comes to his music videos, O5CEAN writes his own scripts and then reaches out to others with whom he’s looking to collaborate.
“I find it’s hard to shock people these days. I had this idea that maybe I’ll hang from the ceiling or jump out of a moving car and create the craziest music video. But people can be so de-sensitized that they’ll just watch it and then go about their day. So I have to consider how much risk I’ll take,” he explains. That said, while his videos may not always shock, the gripping scenes and the darkness do leave a strong impression.
O5CEAN has a presence on a multitude of platforms – Twitter (X), YouTube and Instagram being the key ones. His audience is comprised in large measure of the 25 to 35 year old demographic. But a much broader group of other artists reach out to him to express admiration for his striking visuals – something he clearly puts much effort into. He continues to build relationships with studio owners in Ottawa and is keen to conduct himself in a way that demonstrates how seriously he takes his writing and music. The quality of many of his videos are certainly a testimony to that effort, commitment and seriousness.