O’Neill grew up in Dallas, TX, where her parents ran a household brimming with music. O’Neill’s mother shared her love of rock and pop acts like the Rolling Stones and James Taylor, while her father introduced her to a bevy of women songwriters, including Carole King, Susan Tedeschi and Bonnie Raitt. The pair’s tastes intersect when it comes to their mutual love for Texas country artists, like Hayes Carll, Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett. Both of her parents play the guitar and her sister sings choral music, while O’Neill first came to music as part of her school’s marching band, for which she played French horn and was part of the drumline.

“My parents are children of the ‘60s and they love music,” O’Neill says. “Music was always on in the house. We were always going to concerts. We were always going to songwriter festivals. I was just constantly surrounded by music — and, in my opinion, good music. They loved good songwriters and storytellers. So, they were always really passionate about the art form.”

Her parents bought O’Neill her first guitar, a baby Taylor signed by none other than The Chicks. In her mid-teens, she began learning to play simple chords and songs, though at the time she only considered her musical ambitions as suited to high school talent shows or bedroom singalongs.

“You don't see a way forward in music unless you know someone that's done it,” she says. “And I didn't know anyone that had made a career of it. So, I had no idea how. I didn't even think it was really possible. It seemed like kind of like a pipe dream.”

Though O’Neill’s family encouraged her interest in music, before pursuing a career as an artist she attended college at the University of Texas at Austin, earning a degree in communications. Upon graduation, O’Neill moved back to Dallas and took a job working in financial services, which she describes as having been “a blessing but also dreadfully boring.” She knew she needed to make a change but wasn’t sure which direction to take, when she began to reflect on the weekends in Austin she’d spend performing in 6th Street bars.

A brief detour for an internship in Chicago connected O’Neill, by chance, with Richard Casper, the founder of the non-profit organization CreatiVets, which helps veterans process trauma through visual art and music. O’Neill spent time working with Casper while in Chicago, and years later he called her out of the blue to suggest she move to Nashville to pursue music in earnest.

“I was like, ‘What?’” she says of the phone call. “And he said, ‘Come out. Stay with my wife and I for a few days I'll show you around town. If you hate it, I’ll leave you alone. I'll never call you about it again.’ So, I came up here for five days in 2016, after I graduated. I was like, ‘I've got to move there.’”

O’Neill followed her gut and moved to Nashville in 2018, a decision she remains proud of to this day. “I always call it ‘listening to the universe,’” she says of trusting her intuition. “You have to be open to that kind of stuff for it to happen. I had to take his call in order to be invited to come out. And sometimes I feel like that's the hardest part, just letting yourself be open.”

After putting down roots in Nashville, O’Neill began finding ways into the local music scene, trying out co-writes and finding gigs to play around town. After posting a performance video to TikTok in 2022— far from being a regular TikToker, O’Neill had only dabbled with the platform — O’Neill got a text claiming to be from Jody Williams, the renowned publishing executive and former head of BMI known for working with everyone from Maren Morris to Carrie Underwood. Williams texted O’Neill on April 1st, so she couldn’t help but think it was a prank. They arranged a meeting for the following week and Williams signed O’Neill to his Jody Williams Songs on the spot.