Thor Orri’s name carries weight before you even hear the music. His full name translates to Thor of flying eagles, but most people simply know him as Thor. It fits. There is something grounded and open about the way he moves through music and life. While he does a lot of work alongside his longtime collaborator Jefe, when they create together it feels less like two separate artists and more like a shared vision.
Originally from Iceland, Thor’s upbringing was anything but static. He grew up in Seattle and is now based in Nashville, carrying pieces of each place with him. That sense of movement shows up in his sound, his mindset, and the way he approaches creativity. Music has always been there. His parents say he has been musically inclined for as long as they can remember, and it started early. At five years old, his dad sat him behind a drum set. From that moment on, music became part of his everyday life.
Thor never limited himself to just one instrument. Drums came first. Then trumpet at eight. Guitar at ten. Bass at fifteen. Piano at twenty. Along the way, he learned music theory in Denmark, mostly on guitar, which still makes him laugh when he thinks about it. He admits he never stuck with one instrument long enough to become the best in the room, but what he gained instead was something bigger. Perspective. Range. An instinct for sound.
At fifteen, he started experimenting with making beats. It was fun at first. Just curiosity. That changed when life forced him to slow down. During his battle with cancer at eighteen, Thor made a decision. He stopped treating music like a side passion and chose it as a career. Life felt too short to ignore what mattered. Music became more than creation. It became healing. A way to turn bad days into better ones. Somewhere in that realization, he also understood something important. He was not just a producer. He was a recording artist.
Trying to box Thor into a single genre misses the point. He makes a lot of hip hop and R and B, but his experience stretches much further. He has worked across funk, jazz, rock, opera, pop, and more. Growing up as a European immigrant, music was everywhere. Eurovision parties were a regular thing, but Thor never connected with overly polished pop. Instead, he would sneak into his dad’s record collection and spend hours listening to artists like The Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Jay Z, Kanye West, Led Zeppelin, Wu Tang Clan, MF DOOM, D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, and so many others.
Music also helped him cope. In third grade, he got his first iPod to deal with social anxiety. He would download his favorite artists and listen to them on repeat. J Dilla. Kanye West. Wu Tang Clan. MF DOOM. The Alchemist. Pink Floyd. Music calmed him. It still does.
Thor’s professional journey did not follow a straight line. His father, a mixing engineer and drummer, played a huge role in helping him understand the industry. Still, Thor considers his professional career to have really started around age twenty while studying in Denmark. Before that, he was just making beats with friends and performing occasionally on guitar or bass. In high school, he would skip class to sneak into jazz and hip hop clubs. He was often turned away or not taken seriously because of his age. Funny enough, he had better luck performing stand up comedy during his teenage years and even made money selling jokes to comedians he met while going through chemotherapy.
Eventually, he got tired of rejection and decided to take a different path. He pursued formal music education in Denmark. While there, he met a singer who had placed fifth on Iceland Idol. Their relationship started rough. They clashed. Alcohol did not help. But their instructor saw something special and pushed them to work together. Within two weeks, they had written twelve songs they genuinely loved. Those songs became a pop album released in December of 2024. They still talk today and plan to create another album when Thor returns to Iceland.
After Denmark, Thor sent out countless studio applications, mostly targeting Seattle. Nothing came back until after he had already moved to Nashville to continue his education. Nashville changed everything. He met his mentor, Benjamin Schultz, who has worked with legends like Jimi Hendrix and BB King. Thor also landed an internship at Dark Horse Institute and Dark Horse Recording, where he continued sharpening his craft.
Thor has released several albums and EPs across platforms. His first album was the pop project created with Ellen Einarsdottir. His second album was made with Jefe and was built around the philosophy of one take. A belief rooted in Japanese Buddhism that the most beautiful creations happen when people are fully present and the moment can only happen once. Most of the songs on Demo Tapes 2025 were freestyles. The beats were created in one sitting, usually in about thirty minutes. Since then, Thor has worked on multiple projects assisting with engineering, mixing, and mastering.
When asked about the most memorable moment of his career, Thor pauses. There are many. Getting paid for music for the first time. Meeting the right people at the right time. But one recent moment stands out. He was introduced to another Icelandic person living in the United States, Isaac Meek of Undercaste Studios in Seattle. During an interview, Isaac invited Thor to lunch with his family to meet an Icelandic woman who played a grandmother role in his life. For Icelandic immigrants, meeting another Icelander you do not already know is rare. Even stranger, her name translated to Thor of the hidden people.
That moment stayed with him. Not because it was flashy, but because it was human. It reminded him that music is more than art. It is therapy. Communication. A bridge between people from completely different walks of life. He credits his former instructor Rob Tate for teaching him to stay open to moments like that. The small ones. The meaningful ones.
Right now, Thor is busier than ever. He has three albums in progress with three different artists. He is also consulting on two other albums where he produced and composed multiple songs. The next major release will be with Jefe, a project he believes will push modern hip hop forward by blending nostalgic feelings with modern sounds.
He has also started performing as a DJ alongside some of his artists. Many of his live performances come together last minute when another DJ cancels, making balance a constant challenge. Studio time and live shows pull in opposite directions, but Thor embraces both. He shares upcoming projects and performances on Instagram at @_thorismyname.