(footsteps echo) - My name's Orlando Peña.

So, I was born in Aurora, Illinois.

I didn't start playing music until fifth grade when I moved to Wisconsin, joined the school band.

Played percussion for most of my life, but at the same time, kinda always wrote poetry and just short stories growing up.

And so, I wanted to try my hand at songwriting 'cause I loved music as a drummer, but just wanted to sort of combine these two things I loved.

So, I bought a guitar when I was 21 or 22.

And power of YouTube and singing in the car and the shower, pretty much just any place where people wouldn't hear me and I could get loud and kinda vulnerable and sort of discover these different parts of my voice that you couldn't otherwise do.

♪ Will always, it will always ♪ ♪ It's gonna bring me back ♪ ♪ I say you ooh ♪ I moved to a goat farm in Illinois when I was like 23 'cause I wanted to work on songwriting and singing without anybody being around to judge.

And so in DeKalb, Illinois, it was like the nearest sign of life to where I was, there was a small guitar shop there.

And so I took lessons from a guy for I think maybe like a month.

But it ended up being that he just ended up playing mandolin for my band down there.

And so I would just sort of song write every week for my homework and then bring it into my rehearsal and then he would just sort of solo over the top and critique my songwriting and we just kind of started a band from there.

♪ Years have passed ♪ ♪ Oh, I got fat and the kids are off to college soon ♪ (mellow guitar music) So my musical style, I'm still not entirely sure what it is.

I was raised, like, my mom raised me on '90s hip hop and like R&B, so like Tupac and like Boyz II Men and Brian McKnight and these phenomenal thing, and like all the divas, so like Whitney and Mariah Carey.

And it wasn't until I was like, I think 12 maybe I got into like the Blink 182s and that whole early 2000s thing.

And I remember finding Johnny Cash when I was like 15.

And that was kind of the beginning of me falling in love with like songwriters and storytelling and just kind of that sound.

I had never really grown up with that.

It was just so fresh and new to me, even though it's like one of the most traditional old musics there are in this country.

♪ Sun shines ♪ I love writing.

I love cooking.

I also work in a kitchen.

I love food as much as I love music.

It actually took me a long time to realize that I need both in my life to have a healthy balance.

Doing full-time music or full-time kitchen work just both just kind of drove me nuts.

So I need both to kind of push the other along and kind of make you strive, I guess, to be creative in the other.

♪ You're reckless ♪ ♪ A slave to the spirit ♪ ♪ I was damn near feral ♪ ♪ I was running wild ♪ If we had to define our sound, I guess I would go with what the label made us define it as, which is Americana.

But I just like to call it singer songwriter 'cause it keeps it pretty broad, pretty loose.

I was playing in Chicago before I moved up here for a few years and it was just a lot of, you know, we want you to play for the door, blah, blah, blah.

You're lucky to be here.

So after a while, it got kind of exhausting and it didn't feel like there was as strong of a community.

And so every time I would come back to visit friends, I would see how great their bands were doing or new venues in town and things like that.

And I just kind of wanted to come back.

♪ My love, I know ♪ ♪ You get down often ♪ So as the lyricist, I try to put a lot of time and thought into the words.

And so really, whatever the song is trying to say, if somebody comes up to me after and they say it resonated with them, then it's just kind of nice 'cause it sort of feels like perhaps you, too, are in that same position at some point in your lives and it sort of connects you, you know.

I just want people to have fun and enjoy it, feel whatever it is they might feel, whatever they might take from it, you know.

Just feel something.

♪ And through all that I learned ♪