Olivia Jean, photo by CandySharp,
Jean performing at Women’s Music Festival in 2020

“What I write…about best,” she said,
“is frustration, stress and being angry…
I live a pretty easygoing, happy life,” she said, smiling.
“That just seems to be the only thing that inspires me,
is writing about sassy emotions.”
– excerpt from Reddit thread, “Olivia NY Times article.”

Olivia Jean Markel (b. 2/23/90) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She signed with Third Man Records in 2009, forming the all-female gothic rock band the Black Belles as lead vocalist and guitarist. Following their disbandment in 2012, Jean embarked on a solo career releasing three studio albums. She is also a session musician, collaborating with artists including Karen Elson, Wanda Jackson, and her husband, Jack White.

Early Years
Olivia was born and raised in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Her parents encouraged their four children to be creative. For her seventh birthday, Jean got her first guitar and started teaching herself to play. Shortly after that, as an Elmwood Elementary second grader, she formed her first band called Broken Glass.

On April 16, 2003, when she was 13, her mother took her to Detroit’s Masonic Temple for her first concert to see the White Stripes. That same year, she created a fan web page dedicated to the White Stripes called Olivia’s Peppermint Palace. As a 14-year-old freshman, along with her friend, Stephany, on bass and her younger brother Brent on drums, Jean formed the Yazuka Drag Queens. Playing original songs, they won their school’s talent show and went on to open at a gig for a local band, Genders.

By high school, Jean was a self-taught multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who spent her free time recording her own surf music using a computer microphone and layering the individual instrument recordings on top of each other using a free music editing program. At 16, she began playing small clubs around Detroit and handing out her homemade demo CDs to friends, family, and co-workers. “It was a hobby,” she stated to The New York Times in 2022. “I didn’t know you could make money off of music.”

As part of an elective course at South Lake High School, she enrolled in cosmetology classes. Speaking to Vogue in 2023 about her signature bouffant hairstyle, “When I was 16, I went to cosmetology school—it was one through my school, so it was not very high-end—and our textbooks were from the ’70s, so we were learning all the hairstyles from the ’60s. All of us in my cosmetology school had giant bouffants, and it just became a part of me.”

In 2006, she took part in the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) Spring Conference On-Site Contest and won 3rd place for her featured writing entry. In June 2008, she participated in the Detroit Festival of the Arts and replicated the Andy Warhol painting, Red Jackie, using chalk. In 2009, she enrolled in graphic design school and continued making surf inspired instrumental demos and performing under the name, Idee Fixe.

At 19 years old in 2009, after hearing that Jack White’s supergroup, the Dead Weather, was going to be playing a show in Detroit, Jean headed to the venue and laid a path of her demos from the band’s tour bus to the side door they used to enter the venue. A couple of weeks later, after listening to the demo, Jack White called her and invited her to his Nashville studio, Third Man Records, to record her songs with him. Jean would stay in Nashville to work on Third Man projects and then go home to Detroit during her down time. She moved to Nashville permanently in 2011. Jean appears in the Dead Weather’s 2009 music video for “I Cut Like a Buffalo.”Jean met Shelby Lynne, Ruby Rogers, and Erin Belle when they all appeared in the video. The women would go on to form the Black Belles, and the songs Jean wrote and recorded for her demo became the material for the band.

Jack White produced the Black Belles’ first single, “What Can I Do?” which was written by Jean and released on January 26, 2010. White also directed the single’s music video which premiered on February 17, 2010.[21] Later that year, White arranged for “What Can I Do?” to be used as the theme song for Elvira’s Movie Macabre, a revamping of the 1980s classic horror movie showcase hosted by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, which ran from 2010 to 2012.

In June 2011, Jack White produced the song “Charlene II (I’m Over You)“, a collaboration between the Black Belles and comedian and television show host Stephen Colbert. The song is a sequel to Colbert’s 2006 faux-eighties comedy tune “Charlene (I’m Right Behind You.)”

The Black Belles disbanded in 2012. Jean took about a year off before going back into the studio. Using previously recorded music that didn’t quite fit for the Black Belles, she had enough material for a solo album. Bathtub Love Killings was released on October 14, 2014. The title was inspired by a serial killer from the 1800’s who killed three women in a bathtub. Jean’s second solo album, Night Owl, was released on August 30, 2019. The title comes from Jean’s tendency to be an insomniac and the fact that her creativity tends to be amped up at night. In stark contrast to Bathtub Love Killings, Jean took on the task of producing Night Owl herself.

Jean’s third solo album, Raving Ghost, was released on May 5, 2023. She was once again in the producer’s chair for the album with Jack White credited as co-producer.

Personal
Jean suffers from social anxiety, which impacts her relationship with performing. “I’m still kind of getting the hang of [performing] even though I’ve been doing it for a long time,” she reflected in a 2014 interview with Elle. “I’m very shy so it’s difficult for me to perform. But I really enjoy doing it. Having social anxiety makes it a lot different than for the majority of musicians out there. So every show is an accomplishment.” Jean stated to Northern Transmissions in July 2019, “I am introverted and obsessed with art. I live every day with a lot of anxiety, guilt, doubt, and depression. I get completely obsessed with projects or completely imprisoned by fear of judgment.”

Jean’s relationship with Jack White has been speculated about ever since she began working with him in 2009. She revealed in an interview with The New York Times that she began dating White in 2014. “We were just really good friends,” she said. “You have to know that you can be friends for a while before you can date. It wasn’t really a transition. It was more, OK, this is happening. More like a continuation.” 

On April 8, 2022, White kicked off his Supply Chain Issues tour at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, Michigan with Jean as the opener. White brought Jean out on stage to sing the White Stripes’ song, “Hotel Yorba”. Right before the line, “Let’s get married/In a big cathedral by a priest”, White asked Markel to marry him. They got married immediately on stage with fellow Third Man Records co-founder, Ben Swank officiating along with White’s mother, Teresa Gillis and her father, Brent Markel by their sides.

Jean and Jack reside in Nashville. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jean converted the pool house into her own recording studio.

Discography
With the Black Belles = 1
Solo albums = 3

artist’s official website

Source: wikipedia