Rising Stars: Meet Ryan David Orr

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan David Orr.

Hi Ryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started playing music at a young age. My mother was a folk singer and my father was a photographer and painter, so art and music were always around. I began on violin and later picked up a guitar when I got into rock music, then instruments sort of just became tools to build with. For years I created original music, performed, recorded, and did the whole DIY indie musician thing. I guess I still do that today, but my audience has grown a bit. In undergrad, I studied film and media studies, and the goal of this was to make music videos for the songs I was writing. Since then, I have recorded several more albums and produced a series of music videos to accompany a number of the songs featured on the albums. I recently released my 10th studio album called New Imperials on physical formats (Vinyl, CD) and for download, and it will release on streaming platforms in December of 2022.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been plenty of challenges. Most of them involve money in some way or another. I had a timing belt go out on tour one time in California, and on another tour, I had my car impounded by NYPD for parking in the wrong spot. I’ve had ups and downs with bandmates and relationships along the way. But I would say the biggest challenge has been reframing my idea of success. I often get stuck in my own head and struggle to feel like I’ve accomplished anything. None of the other obstacles seem to matter in the long run, but losing your sense of confidence in what you create can feel immobilizing.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My main focus is my songwriting and musical performance. My style is a hybrid of indie-folk and rock with some influence from alt-country and blues. Most of my works place heavy emphasis on lyrical content, and I am most known by my fans for the poetic narrative in my songs. I also experiment with other genres and approaches, sometimes creating in the electronica, spoken word, and beat-driven styles. At times I like to write epic rock songs. One thing that I am proud of in my music, but that may also hurt me commercially at times, is the complexity of the content in the writing. I definitely write songs that may take the listener a few spins to really hear and understand, and I know that’s a tough ask in this day and age. Much of my writing is about how we shed layers of ourselves in an ongoing evolutionary process. I realize that’s a pretty broad and ambiguous description, but it comes in different forms at different times. For example, my latest record, New Imperials, is largely about how we try to control our little universes and exercise control over the world, and how that can often lead to more problems than solutions. I also recently released a video to accompany a song from this album called “Mr. Anderson”. I wrote and directed the piece, and also acted as DP and editor. This emotional, narrative short has been screened at a couple of film festivals and can be seen on my YouTube channel.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
That’s a tough one. There are many of them, but the one that comes to mind right away was when I was about twelve years old, I was selected from the choir I was in to be a choir boy in the opera Tosca by Puccini. I had never performed on such a huge stage, and we got to act and sing with incredible, classical opera singers in Italian. The show ran for several weeks at the Angus Bowmer theatre in Ashland, Oregon where they hold the Shakespeare festival.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.RyanDavidOrr.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryandavidorr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ryandavidorrmusic
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ryandavidorr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ryandavidorrmusic

Image Credits
Mike Mahoney
Eric Drury