A biography for Orianthihasn’t been written yet.
“You go with what you 'get,' and I get playing the guitar. It's a challenge because it's not an easy instrument to play. There are so many interesting sounds you can make out of it and so many different elements. I dig it.”
“I swear that he is an alien. There is something about his phrasing that is so unpredictable and cool. It makes you wonder where it came from. I wish I could play like that. I listen to Jeff Beck and think, 'Bloody hell!' The way that Jeff Beck and his band play together is just amazing. Yeah, those guys definitely come from another planet.”
“I was called a freak because I was so engrossed in music.”
“'Rise' is a very empowering song.”
“My parents went out of their way for me ever since I left school. When I was 15, I said to Mum, 'I'm leaving school,' and she was like, 'Okay.' I joined a cover band and played three nights a week, and they were really supportive of that.”
“I have an aquarium full of fish and some Mexican walking fish.”
“I'm lucky that my family is musical. Music was encouraged. So when I saw Carlos Santana play and decided to really pursue the electric guitar in earnest, it was OK. My parents knew I was going to go for it.”
“When I was around 11, my dad took me to see Santana live, and then I got 'Sacred Fire,' and everything changed for me.”
“A great guitar solo is really a song within a song. You can always go off and do your pageantry, but it has to be structured.”
“My dad is a guitar player with huge vinyl record collection. I loved listening to his albums, especially Cream and The Yardbirds.”
“I've seen some female players, and they get up there and play an A chord and leave... and it's not a good representation. You can take it seriously and love it as much as a guy loves it, not just to get up there and pose.”
“I like to just plug in and play; I don't use a lot of effects.”
“I have, like, 1,000 voice memos on my iPhone.”
“You have to work hard if you want something, and my parents instilled that into me when I was really young.”
“It was pretty insane to play the Grammy Awards and looking out in the audience and seeing rock royalty - Bono and Paul McCartney. It was crazy.”
“I was inspired to play electric guitar from listening to a lot of Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and B.B. King, and that's always been the kind of music that I gravitate toward.”
“Music's my life, and it always has been.”
“Growing up, I didn't have a lot of role models - Bonnie Raitt, Lita Ford, Jennifer Batten.”
“You want a solo to be structured, a song within a song, but you want it to sound like it's the first time you're playing it, too.”
“Being the frontperson is great because you're running the show.”