For UC Santa Cruz graduate, Marty O’Reilly, being a professional musician has always been the dream. Now he’s taking that dream to the national stage–competing on this year’s season of The Voice. It all started when O’Reilly was a teenager. His parents got him a guitar for Christmas and he fell in love with old american blues and folk music. “I started playing music and singing during a difficult time in my adolescence. It was something to help me get through it. So for me it’s a calming and meditative thing,” said O’Reilly. With idols like Otis Redding, Joe Cocker, Aretha Franklin inspiring his passion for music and hunger to authentically connect with the crowd. “I feel like it’s my job to feel something real, feel something valuable, and to share that with people and try to take them there with me,” he said. Something he’s been doing for years now. The 36-year-old began touring the country with his band The Old Soul Orchestra full time shortly after graduating from UCSC. Now he plays roughly 100 shows a year. “When I graduated, I always knew what I wanted to do, I was going to be a touring musician. So I just started hitting the road super hard. Santa Cruz is where we would come and land and rest and recuperate after these really ambitious tours.” Now his newest endeavor–competing on this year’s season of The Voice. “It’s intimidating to sing alongside singers of that quality from all over the country. For me it was really a journey about confidence and I feel rewarded with the confidence–maybe there is a reason I’m here.” O’Reilly certainly made his mark, making it through the first round with three chair turns, and choosing Michael Buble as his coach. “It meant a lot that the show understood me and appreciated me because I’m not a normal kind of singer. When Michael Buble chose me for his team, he said you’re a character voice; the character that you hear when you hear somebody sing and that’s what’s important to me is to just share who I am and share what I feel,” O’Reilly explained. O’Reilly won the battle round but unfortunately got voted off in the knockout round. He says he will take the lessons he learned on The Voice with him back on tour. “Has this (The Voice) made a difference? Is it going to change my career? I don’t know–but it was fun and I’d do it again,” he said.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —
For UC Santa Cruz graduate, Marty O’Reilly, being a professional musician has always been the dream. Now he’s taking that dream to the national stage–competing on this year’s season of The Voice.
It all started when O’Reilly was a teenager. His parents got him a guitar for Christmas and he fell in love with old american blues and folk music. “I started playing music and singing during a difficult time in my adolescence. It was something to help me get through it. So for me it’s a calming and meditative thing,” said O’Reilly.
With idols like Otis Redding, Joe Cocker, Aretha Franklin inspiring his passion for music and hunger to authentically connect with the crowd. “I feel like it’s my job to feel something real, feel something valuable, and to share that with people and try to take them there with me,” he said.
Something he’s been doing for years now. The 36-year-old began touring the country with his band The Old Soul Orchestra full time shortly after graduating from UCSC. Now he plays roughly 100 shows a year. “When I graduated, I always knew what I wanted to do, I was going to be a touring musician. So I just started hitting the road super hard. Santa Cruz is where we would come and land and rest and recuperate after these really ambitious tours.”
Now his newest endeavor–competing on this year’s season of The Voice. “It’s intimidating to sing alongside singers of that quality from all over the country. For me it was really a journey about confidence and I feel rewarded with the confidence–maybe there is a reason I’m here.” O’Reilly certainly made his mark, making it through the first round with three chair turns, and choosing Michael Buble as his coach. “It meant a lot that the show understood me and appreciated me because I’m not a normal kind of singer. When Michael Buble chose me for his team, he said you’re a character voice; the character that you hear when you hear somebody sing and that’s what’s important to me is to just share who I am and share what I feel,” O’Reilly explained.
O’Reilly won the battle round but unfortunately got voted off in the knockout round. He says he will take the lessons he learned on The Voice with him back on tour. “Has this (The Voice) made a difference? Is it going to change my career? I don’t know–but it was fun and I’d do it again,” he said.