Olivia Stevens leaves behind her stage name to perform as herself at the Festival of Chichester

Olivia Stevens is Ruby Tiger no more – and she celebrates it with a full band gig at The Chichester Inn in West Street for the Festival of Chichester.
Olivia StevensOlivia Stevens
Olivia Stevens

Olivia Stevens & Co will be at the venue on Friday, July 8 at 8pm, promising “a smokin' hot blend of bone-deep emotion and upbeat positivity as both a songwriter and performer.”

She will also be offering a solo gig for the Festival of Chichester on Saturday, June 25, 8pm. Bella! – again at The Chichester Inn, a show billed as "Billie meets Ella & Amy” as well as other legendary jazz icons.

She is promising “toe-tappers and torch song balladry.”

Linking both gigs is the fact that Ruby is no more.

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For a number of years Olivia performed under the name Ruby Tiger, but as Olivia says, the time came to put Ruby to bed.

“Ruby has gone to fly somewhere. She needed to be put into mothballs.

"She was a moth and I didn't want to be a moth any more.

"During lockdown I did a lot of thinking and I realised I just didn't need her any more. I wanted to be me. I write the material and I co-write the material and I spearhead everything.

“Really I had Ruby because I was lacking confidence at the beginning. I had a nervous breakdown but now I want to show people how you can come back from that.

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"The real crisis point was when I had an absolute panic attack when I was on stage when I was doing poetry and so then I became Ruby Tiger.

"I thought it might be easier to stand there under that moniker as something to hide behind.

“But that's why it's really important to me now to put Ruby to bed, to say thank you to her and say that now I am me because everybody else is taken! It's a very positive thing. It's very liberating but is also a bit scary.”

Olivia performed as Ruby & The Revelators.

“But the band fell apart. Sometimes I want to go back to Ruby but really I just want to be a creative singer songwriter and not just fronting a blues and soul band.

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"I want to be an artist and I was quite frightened to acknowledge that but now I'm not and I have realised that Olivia Stevens is enough.”

Olivia has been working with guitarist Stefan Rajic: “I met him when he was very young and very shy but I saw the talent. I watched him and I thought wow.

"He was really, really a cut above the rest and I've been working with Stefan for four years now. I think we had about a year and a bit before the lockdown.”

As for the songs: “The songs are all about the things that you would expect them to be about really, just moments and reflections on life and joy and fun.

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"I've written a song called Howl about a woman being seduced by a man with the metaphor of a wolf.

"It's a fun song that really tells a story. Most of the songs are true but sometimes there is nothing wrong with telling a story that is a little bit embroidered! But in all the songs there is always an element of my own life and my own experience.”

Tickets £12 and £10 from the Festival of Chichester website.

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