Alex Orbison is a third generation musician who began his own path in music playing violin at the tender age of three because his hands were too small to fit around the neck of a guitar. With age and bigger hands, Alex eventually moved on to guitar and piano before finding his way to the drums at age eight but Alex always felt that he was a little late to the party because his dad, Roy Orbison, already had had his own radio show at that same age.
Alex joined his first band and started gigging around fourteen. At age 17, Alex took his first real ‘job’ in music, working in publishing for the Don Williams Music Group in Sherman Oaks California; but a year later, he was back on tour with his band Backbone. Backbone was co founded by Alex with Chris Williams, son of legendary songwriter Jerry Lynn Williams, and Alex and the group toured for the next eight years until Chris was tragically killed in a car accident. Alex then spent time bouncing between gigs with a number of local Los Angeles acts before eventually ending up joining Cisco Adler (son of Lou) in his band Whitestarr which, in time, also expanded into a reality TV show. The group disbanded in 2007 and in quiet periods between various new gigs, Alex took time out to study finance.
After three years of finance, Alex turned back to the creative life starting first with finishing a novel he had started writing while on the road with his prior bands. In the midst of this and a few days before the celebration of what would have been his father Roy Orbison’s 75th birthday, Alex’s mom Barbara was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The disease would claim her life seven months later.
Alex had promised his mother that if anything happened to her, he would ‘get down to Nashville and take care of business.’ That commenced with the re-positioning of Still Working Music in 2012 and Alex and his brothers taking the reigns of his father’s recordings and publishing businesses at that same time. The brothers hired on Chuck Fleckenstein to help manage all these endeavors and on the Still Working front, Alex’s first move was to re-sign Tommy Lee James – Tommy had been a Still Working writer from Barbara’s founding of the company. Tommy quickly proved his worth with the delivery of “My Eyes,” his sixth Still Working #1 and first under Alex’s leadership. Since 2012, Still Working has also signed or re-signed seven additional writers and has designs on expanding even further. Still Working’s partner through this all has been BMG – this relationship has both expanded and solidified.
Insofar as Alex’s father’s music is concerned, Alex and his brothers Wesley and Roy Jr, recently co-executive produced a documentary “Mystery Girl: Unraveled” about the last couple of years of their father’s life and career (Alex also directed the film). The Orbison brothers additionally have broad plans for their father’s far reaching music with comprehensive new deals with Sony Music, Universal Music and Kobalt Publishing positioned to partner in this success.