Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Anna Orbison. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Anna, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The idea to form The Sound of Ghosts came from James (Orbison) losing his good friend Dave Lamb who had the band Brown Bird with his amazing wife MorganEve Swain. Dave passed away from leukemia in 2014, leaving behind his incredible body of work. James and Dave had played in some of their first bands together in high school and the loss inspired James to find his way back to playing music. We named the band The Sound of Ghosts because that was the name of Brown Bird’s first EP, so now we always have this connection to Dave and Brown Bird that regularly reminds us why we began the project.

During the lockdown, I began to write some of my own music because we couldn’t get together as a group. As with most people, I was going through a challenging time and writing these songs helped me process everything that was going on in the world and in my personal life. Even though the songs weren’t right stylistically for The Sound of Ghosts, it felt like returning to the heart of why we started making music in the first place. We have always utilized our songs to process different moments in our lives and this side project felt like the natural extension of that. I just released my third and latest single a few days ago, called The Way Out and it’s available on all streaming platforms.

Paul Litteral, our trumpet player, also put together a really meaningful project while we couldn’t rehearse or play shows. He has played with many legendary recording artists over the years; people like Iggy Pop, Tom Waites, The Rolling Stones, B-52s, etc. So he decided to do a record dedicated to some of the most meaningful songs of his career. The record is called Legacy and it’s out on all streaming platforms. It’s charted on the Jazz and Big Band charts, so definitely worth taking a listen to. He is doing a record release show that we will be a part of on October 23rd at The Write-Off Room in Los Angeles.

Our next show for The Sound of Ghosts is coming up October 28th at Frogtown Brewery at 6pm. The event is free and you can bring your own food. We’re encouraging costumes because we’re planning to dress up.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The Sound of Ghosts is an Americana Rock group hailing from Los Angeles, California. We began playing together in 2014 and have had a handful of different line-ups, but currently the band is comprised of James Orbison (vocals, bass), Anna Orbison (vocals, ukulele, percussion), Jon Sarna (drums, percussion), and Joey Mackey (guitars), and Paul Litteral (trumpet). Our sound is a culmination of traditional front porch Americana, folk-laden melodies, and vintage rock’n’roll.

Our biggest successes to date include opening for artists such as Ozomatli, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Sisterhood, and Oingo Boingo as well as selling out The Troubadour for our last record release show. Our music has also been featured in national commercials for major brands such as Yahoo! and Kia and in the documentary Virginia 12th on Now This. The Sound of Ghosts prides themselves on delivering an engaging, explosive, yet intimate live performance.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think the biggest challenge facing musicians right now is the entire streaming system. On one hand, it’s incredibly easy and accessible for artists to release their music to the world because of streaming services, but on the other hand, there is almost no compensation for the music that you release. I’d say in the nearly 10 years we’ve been a band, we’ve probably at best made a total of a few hundred dollars from streaming services. There is so much music being released every single day, so it is incredibly challenging to get your music heard and to make anything from it. Not to mention now there are hundreds if not thousands of companies that prey on artists with promises of promoting their music online, putting their songs on playlists, and helping them expand their audience, and very few of them are worth anything at all.

So as a fan of an indie group or indie artists, or even for your friends who are musicians, the biggest thing you can do is help us spread the word. Play our music, add it to your playlists, to your stories, reels, or tiktok’s, tell people you know. Don’t just play someone’s song the first day it comes out, get it in some kind of rotation on your personal playlists so that they can keep getting listens. It makes a HUGE difference to small bands or solo artists.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is connecting with other people and sharing an experience. When we write a song about wanting to quit your job and people come up to us after a show and say they loved that song and they just quit their soul-sucking job a few days ago, it gives us life. A lot of art happens behind closed doors and alone or with just a couple of people and so you’re really hoping that the things you bring to life don’t just mean something to you, but they also connect with other people who have had similar experiences. That, to me, is the beauty of art and the joy of being a creative person.

Contact Info:

• Website:thesoundofghosts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesoundofghosts/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSoundofGhosts
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thesoundofghosts1326
• Other: My latest single: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/annaorbison/the-way-out Paul’s Record Legacy: https://open.spotify.com/album/1JbOlKlnr6qDfz0u0pnmDd?si=JuwMnCE_Q5OqHMn_D8x-Nw

Image Credits
CA Frances Photography for all but the Purple Dress Picture, Lodi picture, and the Legacy Cover Artwork Picture of Anna in Purple Dress is Sam Hodges Photography Legacy Cover Artwork is by Ernie Gilbert Picture with Lodi sign in the background is Alexis Yordon