“With this music coming out and the work in the future I plan on making my own path. It’s been said a lot of times and I get thrown into the group a lot and compared to a lot of people. That’s not what I’m interested in. I am interested in doing what I love and making my own path and not caring what other people think.”
Strong words coming from 17 year old Emily Osment, but as the sister of Oscar nominated child actor Haley Joel Osment and second banana to Miley Cyrus on the Hannah Montana TV series, it’s understandable. The beautiful 17 year old award-winning entertainer has worked under some pretty significant shadows for most of her life. And she wants to strike out on her own.
Osment wrote all the song's for her debut solo album which will be released next spring, although fans can get a taste of it on a teaser EP in October. The first single All the Way Up is on YouTube now.
AB - I’m glad to see you’re breaking out on your own, no longer the sidekick, or younger sister.
EO - This has been a dream of mine for a very longtime, a huge part of my life, my family is musical, and we all play instruments. My brother plays guitar and bass and drums and piano. My mum plays guitar, my dad plays the trumpet and I play guitar, drums and I have two opera singers in my family. We’re very musical!!!! I need a giant iPod to fit everything in because I love music so much. I wrote poetry when I was really little and learned to play guitar when I was 13 and I put them to music and decided it was time to share it. It’s been a long haul but im glad it’s finally out.
AB – You wrote all the songs on your album. How personal are they?
EO – They’re about private things. I think that’s the best kind of music there is when you can actually relate it to real life experiences. If you read my thank yous for the EP, I literally thanked everyone, thank you to ALL the people in this song and this song and this song, because you’re in this song and you know exactly who you are. It’s great!
AB – You’re life has changed so much in the past two years or so. How?
EO - We are going into season four of Hannah, and I’ll have the album next year, and hopefully go on tour and do live shows. I just got my band together and they are so cute! It’s great. We’re all having fun.
AB – Do you use social networking to get the word out?
EO - When I first got into this I was so against putting myself out there, even as a kid I didn’t have MySpace and Facebook, I didn’t even have a cell phone. I thought personal communication as the best way, right? I was popular in school, but I now realise it’s so completely viable. Twitter has taken the world by storm, Barack Obama has a twitter and a billion followers, because you can update instantly. You can relate to people and you can update constantly and it will pop up on your phone.
AB – Do you think Twitter will change the paparazzi? Will they lay off a bit because so much information is out there, from the celebs themselves?
EO - I don’t have a problem with paparazzi because I’m smart and I’m small and I hide well, but I don’t ever Tweet my location until after I’ve left. “Just saw the Incubus concert”. Never where I am. I hate to say I'm boring or typical because I’m not, but I’m not controversial enough to where they constantly follow me. But it’s entertaining at times.
AB – You do so much physical comedy in Hannah. That’s’ stagecraft. Do you think of doing theatre?
EO - I’ve considered it. My brother did Broadway last year, American Buffalo with John Leguizamo. It’s great! I feel like I grew up on a soundstage because I was on one for four years. You learn a lot in basics, I was always interested in the technology and how it works. We have pictures of me behind the camera trying to figure it out. Maybe in college I’ll take a film course.
AB – What’s a typical day for you?
EO - Everything changes. Today I got up at five for hair and makeup, the other day I got up went to band rehearsal and had dinner with my friends changes every day , no routine, its great about this business, it's never boring. Im going to college, they can work around the fact that I’m going to college. I have one I want to go to but I don’t want to jinx it. It’s perfect for me. My brother Haley goes to school in New York and his college allows him to work. He actually knows what he wants to do, and the let him do his job and come back. He works when he goes to college. If he can do it, I can do it.
AB - Are you two competitive?
EO - OMG. Oh yeah! (Dad pipes in – no!) What? Halo and ping-pong yes and mini croquet, carpet croquet. It’s really fun. Were not competitive in business or school, we're just typical brother and sister.
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