Marty O’Reilly and the Old Soul Orchestra at BottleRock Napa Valley on May 28, 2017. Photos: Alessio Neri

Santa Cruz bluesman Marty O’Reilly could pass for a younger version of Tom Waits on record, his vocal rasp permeating every track on his band’s 2014 debut Pray for Rain and 2015 EP Preach ‘Em Now.

His band, the Old Soul Orchestra, bends around his howls and gritty Resonator guitar seamlessly, adding layers of folk, gospel, soul and even classical instrumentation.

O’Reilly grew up in Sonoma and moved south to attend U.C. Santa Cruz, where he found time to perform at open mic nights. He still performs by himself every now and then, with just his guitar and harmonica. He started the band in 2012 with violinist Chris Lynch and drummer Matt Goffin after graduating. Bassist Ben Berry replaced the group’s original bassist in 2016.

He is the band’s primary songwriter, etching out sometimes whimsical, sometimes dark stories. “The Captain’s Daughter Part 1,” for example, is about a survivor of a shipwreck whose fantasy about the subject of the song turns to cannibalism as the crew starves. Other songs touch on the sad realities of mining and topics that are not typically connected to well-off Bay Area residents.

The band is now nearing completion of its second full-length album. The songs are written and O’Reilly and crew will be in the studio this month to record. The Old Soul Orchestra is leaving some wiggle room to make last-minute creative decisions, but the band has a clear understanding of its direction.

“It’s still gonna take on a totally new life of its own when we’re able to get in there and do it,” O’Reilly said.

The band plans to release the album sometime in October, but fans may get a chance to hear some of the new songs at a residency at The Chapel throughout the month of August. Marty O’Reilly & the Old Soul Orchestra are also confirmed to play BottleRock Napa Valley next spring.

RIFF: How is playing with your band different than playing solo?

Marty O’Reilly: Super-different. One of the best things about this band is we all have a really similar vision, and we all want to play the same kind of music; there isn’t really a conflict of what we want to do. I would say the main difference is more to do with the nature of playing solo versus with a band. That’s how natural it feels to play with these guys. Playing solo means you can do whatever you want in the moment, and it doesn’t step on anybody’s toes or throw anybody off. We’re still, largely, a very improvisational band. Less and less, but still, it’s a big part of what we do.
Ben Berry: I feel like in the writing process we’re improvisational.

Do you all write together now?

O’Reilly: The formula has always been kind of similar, but it’s somehow fundamentally different now. It’s always started with me writing something and bringing it to everybody, and then we finish it together. But, especially with the album that we’re working on right now, it’s definitely like the distance between when I bring it to the band and when we finish it is much larger now than it used to be.

I want to talk a little bit more in depth about the types of songs that you write; there’s a lot of darkness in there, there’s a lot of Nick Cave or Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen. And then you write a song about eating a love interest (“The Captain’s Daughter Part 1”). Where did that come from?

O’Reilly: The funny thing is you just mentioned three different artists that are really fundamental people in the world of like music that I have been listening to most of my life, but they’re three people that I didn’t really specifically listen to until recently. It took me a really long time to figure out Nick Cave, and he’s just like so in our wheelhouse, but it just didn’t click with me until very recently. Specifically with the song you mentioned, there’s an artist named C.W. Stoneking who I was really into at the time that I wrote that song; it’s one of our older pieces. He had this album called Jungle Blues, which is all about being marooned on an island. I was kind of just riffing off of that album. There’s very much a Tom Waits influence with that. But that’s far removed from what we’re doing nowadays.

Are you fans of literature and history? There is a depth in the lyrics on the songs, which implies you studied the subject matter first.

O’Reilly: I come from a family of really well-read people, and I am the least well-read member of that family. I’m very picky when it comes to what I have read and studied, but I have been surrounded by people who have read everything. My father and my brother, specifically, are incredibly well-read. … More of the influences come just from my relationship with them more than the reading or research I do myself.
Berry: I find it interesting every time we go up to Marty’s dad’s house, which is near Sonoma, so we stay up there a lot when … we rehearse up there [or] play shows up there. I always find it really enjoyable because there’s usually a new poem hanging on the fridge that Marty’s dad wrote that has all sorts of references that I don’t understand, but is also beautifully written.
Matt Goffin: It’s almost daily. His dad just churns them out.

Who do you guys want to collaborate with if you had the opportunity?

Chris Lynch: I know Ben wants to play with Lady Gaga. That’s a major one. The first thing that comes to mind is, and this is just beyond a dream, but Radiohead.
Berry: It’s a tough question because there’s a lot of different ways to collaborate with people. We’ve been thinking about this a lot because we’ve been thinking about who we want in our creative process for this album.
Lynch: I’d like to play with Nels Cline.

I would love to see a collaboration with Benjamin Booker.

O’Reilly: Oh, yeah.
Goffin:  He’s got the Marty voice.
O’Reilly: Who we want to collaborate with, who we want to open for; these are questions that we don’t just need to answer in a fantasy realm. It’s something we need to think about practically. We’re trying to make a step forward. … It’s a hard question for a band like us that can’t even really describe what genre we play, which is a super-basic question, right? … I think at the end of the day, what we’ve kind of realized is you’ll see a lot of skew between who our favorite bands are, who our biggest influences are, and you’ll get different answers from each of us about that.

How would you describe your sound?

O’Reilly: In the same way that I can’t describe ours, I can’t describe the people whose world I see us fitting into now. Patrick Watson, Andrew Bird, Damien Jurado.
Berry: I would add The Barr Brothers and Blake Mills.
O’Reilly: And I still don’t know how to say it, but I feel like we all have a clear understanding of like the world we’re trying to integrate into and that we see ourselves as a part of.