Interview: Cash O’Reilly

He is a South African session and rock guitarist, playing guitar since he was 12 years old. I’m talking about Cash O’Reilly.

Cash lives in the small town of Komatipoort, Mpumalanga, mere kilometres from the Mozambique border. He is a well-known name in the Lowveld, and I managed to chat to him about guitars, tech, AI and then some more.

STM: Let’s start at the beginning – way back at the beginning – how old was little Cash when he started playing guitar?

CO: If I am not mistaken, it was late 1992 or early 1993 when I heard Nirvana for the first time and it was their “Bleach” album, and I was hooked to their sound and songs, but it was not until I got my hands on their “Nevermind” album that the sound got me raging like that bear in that stupid movie “Cocaine Bear” LOL. I was around 12 years old, and all I wanted to do was play music like Nirvana.

The first song I learnt to play was “Come As You Are”, and it was downhill from then on. LOL. I can remember jamming nylon acoustic/classical guitar, and it sounded like absolute shit, but I was jamming nonetheless. Music runs in my family on both my father’s and mother’s side, so I guess it’s just natural that one of their kids would pick it up. My father used to play music at the hotels and clubs in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, to put himself through Potchefstroom University, and on my mother’s side, her father worked a lot with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton, among others, like opera singers in the UK.

STM: What were the music influences as a kid growing up? What did your parents listen to?

CO: Apart from Nirvana, I listened a lot to Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Green Day, Foo Fighters and The Offspring, but I have to admit my biggest influence is Seether, as well as Saron Gas and as Seether. I have seen them live more than any other band that I can remember.

My parents had three kids, so they were forced to listen to whatever was blaring out of whoever’s Hi-Fi was the loudest between the three kids LOL.

STM: What was the first electric guitar you owned (and do you still have it)?

CO: My first electric guitar was an Ibanez Gio. It was not a bad guitar, but I ended up selling it and bought an Epiphone Les Paul Boneyard, which I still have.

STM: What is your dream guitar to play with?

CO: Luckily, I already own my dream guitar/guitars, which are my two Gibson Les Paul Customs and my Mark Tremonti PRS. Again, the rush of blood that flowed through my veins like that cocaine bear when I got these three guitars! LOL

STM: Tattoos, bro, let’s talk ink. How many do you have? What is the meaning of some of it?

CO: Well, I believe tattoos should have a meaning, so all of mine do have a special meaning, but the most important ones are on my left arm.

The Gibson diamond – For obvious reasons, as the Gibsons I own are my favourite guitars.

The Primate Skull – My favourite metal band is Soulfly, and I saw them on my 21st birthday. My father got me and two friends tickets to go see them as a gift, and I got to meet Max Cavalera, and he gave me a T-shirt with the primate skull on it.

The Guitar Valve – I have a valve tattooed on me that you would find in a valve-state guitar amp head, as I love collecting valve-state guitar amps.

The Thumb Print – I have my nephew’s left thumbprint tattooed on my left wrist; he passed away three years ago.

My Surname – I have my surname tattooed on the outer forearm; it was my first tattoo.

STM: You have played in a couple of bands over the years – Connie, Backstage, Dare To Believe – tell us a little more about them and others we don’t know of, please.

CO: Yes, I played in three local bands that most people know, but before all that, I had two other bands before Backstage and Dare To Believe. Nothing ever came of those bands, hence why I started the other two.

Backstage – Is easily the band I had the longest and played the most shows out of all the bands I started. We did have a full-length album that we released, and we did quite well on radio, especially in Europe, and we had three or four songs playing in America as well. As we were getting ready to go to the Netherlands to do a few shows, Covid-19 became a thing and lockdown along with it. The band split, in a sense, and we just never got back together again. We have done a handful of shows since 2020, but nothing is set in stone to get the ball rolling again. We actually had a second album on its way and had three songs already recorded for the new album.

Dare To Believe – OK IN ALL HONESTY – What a powerhouse of a band in my opinion! When I approached the members of DTB, I basically hand-picked them for this band because of the voice, the powerful drumming style, and the solid bass playing! I truly believed in this band and could see us going far once we started writing our original material and getting that out there on the airwaves. Born during Covid lockdown, rehearsing for hours and months and when we could. We exploded on the local scene just on covers that we hand-picked to not sound like anyone else locally, and I can just imagine what we would have sounded like with our originals. Unfortunately, politics got in the way, as they do, and it just leaves a sour taste in a person’s taste buds, but so we live and learn, and never say never. Stranger things have happened out there in the world. My door is always open.

Coenie Naudé – I used to session for Coenie Naudé and played a few shows, including Innibos and Aardklop and a handful of other shows. The rest is a long story and history, as they say.

Apart from local bands, I have also played for;

Debbie K – I did guitar sessions for Debbie K at Innibos Nasionale Kunstefees.

Piet Pompies (Pieter Rischmüller): I also spent roughly two years playing with Piet Pompies. I started as his bass player, and by the time I left, I was playing the guitar for him. We had some great gigs and travelled a lot around SA.

Rea Le Roux – I played guitar for Rea on tour around SA on the Jamie Fine Tour in 2025.

Ruan Josh – I performed on Breakfast with Martin Bester Friday Live. I played guitar for Ruan Josh on this show, and it was a really fun gig. Ruan is such a professional, and it was so easy for us to work together, as that was our first time meeting and playing a show together.

Dino Miranda – A Mozambican artist and an international touring artist. I have played quite a few shows with Dino, and we are planning to write a rock album next year together, which we will possibly be touring in Mozambique, South Africa and Europe.

Armand Joubert – What a legend. This man has done what most musicians strive to do in their careers. I am currently playing for Armand, who is easily one of, if not the top, independent artists in South Africa. We met on the Jamie Fine tour in 2025 and sat next to each other on the flight to and from Durban for the tour, we got started talking about our music careers and he asked if I could play one of his songs on the tour with him and I said yes let’s do it and ja 24 hours we played his song “Better For Me“ on the tour and it was a hit on the tour.

I just got back home from performing at the Afri-Indie awards with Armand and Dronmedaris, where we performed one of his many hit songs, “Shake Dit”.

STM: You, Rea and Armand were on the last Jamie Fine tour of South Africa. We saw her live in the Lowveld Botanical Garden and she’s a wonderful artist. How was it to work with her on the road?

CO: What a vibe between the Local artists on the tour; I mean us South Africans know how to turn anything into a vibe, from Martin Bester, Armand Joubert, Jennifer Zamudio, Rea Le Roux and Juhan Venter. We never had a dull moment; even if the shit hit the fan on tour, we all had a blast and became such good friends.

Jamie and her band were, as expected, a top-class act and very easy and chilled. On tour, her band and I would either jam backstage, talk up a storm and just be a bunch of musos on tour with jokes and pranks – normal tour shenanigans.

I had my acoustic guitar on tour with me, and while I was jamming with her band backstage, Jamie joined in and sang her song “If Anything’s Left”, and then we went straight into “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World just as a fun jam session. Overall, it was such a killer tour, but like with gigs, shows, and festivals, we had challenges. The one show we did in Durban, it poured down with rain and blasted wind that even the drum kit on such a huge stage was soaked. Rea and I were up third on the lineup, and as we were in the fifth song of our set, the heavens opened up, and it was so bad. My gear was damaged; my beloved was soaked, and I was soaked through. You know it was bad rain when your butt cheeks are soaked, and your butt is not even facing the open side of the stage LOL

But all in all it was a crazy fun tour, and we ended on high at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens to a sold-out 4000 crowd, and we just went out and had a blast.

STM: And then you have played with Prime Circle a time or two; how did that happen?

CO: It’s such a strange story, and I am very grateful for it to have happened, to be honest. Three years ago, I was at home and, basically at this point, decided to stop playing music, and out of nowhere I got a call from Marco Gomes going along the lines of, “Hey bro, how are you doing? We are playing in Nelspruit on this date; are you coming?” I had basically lost my nephew a few months prior to this show, and I had done the session work for Coenie Naude (it’s a long story and history, as they say).

STM: Who would be the ultimate band or musician to share a stage with? Our guess is it would be Seether.

CO: Seether definitely is going to be the first choice. Silverchair, Bush, Green Day and The Offspring.

STM: But your connection with Seether actually comes a long way? Were you in school with Shaun Morgan (Welgemoed)?

CO: Shaun and I were at school together for a bit, and then I left to do homeschooling due to my sport. At the time, I was representing South Africa for karate, and normal schooling was not allowing me to train in the hours I needed for tournaments. But we still hung out on weekends, and he used to sleep over at our house. Even when Shaun left to live in Johannesburg, Eugene, his brother, was always around and he worked for a short stint at a Debonairs Pizza next door to our business in Pietermaritzburg.

When Seether was last here in South Africa, we got to see each other and it was good to see my old friend and see how well he has done for himself.

STM: Let’s talk AI, I find this topic interesting with musicians and songwriters – do you use AI in your music creation at all? Do you think it’s a future tool for anyone?

CO: I believe AI is a good tool to use when writing songs, or should I say to be able to get an idea of what you are hearing in your head. I do believe that it is not right to put it out there and claim it’s your music if you can’t even play the track yourself, but as a tool to discover possibilities of how you can express what you are hearing in your head. AI will never be able to replace the human feeling in what we as humans feel if the singer/artist is genuine. I have used AI as a tool as a song idea comes and I am far away from a guitar or my studio at home. Then I got no worries, just running it through AI to see what I am hearing can work for me.

I know there are these people running around saying AI is going to kill the music scene and they feel they are the saviours, but let’s be honest, it will never replace that human part of music, and even streaming platforms are clamping down on “AI Artists”. Those sensation seekers out there to save the world from AI should just focus on other things because, let’s face it, AI is here and it’s not going anywhere.

STM: AI might perhaps give you an idea of a song, but do you think upcoming bands must use more AI to help with this, or should they still take the old-school road of recording and performing?

CO: I think that AI is used by everyone and anyone these days, maybe a pro or just starting out as a band. It’s definitely being used again as a tool. I think it’s fine for that reason.

STM: You have seen the industry change over the years, especially after lockdown. What are your ideas to get people to go back to live shows and support? And why should they go?

CO: In regard to the industry changing from a guitarist gear-wise, it’s exciting as we have modellers that allow us to do shows without amps, but the sound quality is just as good. Making fly dates and tours cheaper for bands, so they don’t have to hire backline. There is that old saying that says, “You can take the horse to the water, but you can’t make him drink the water”. People don’t support products they can’t understand, or that they don’t like, so I would say that to get people to come to the shows, the bands should give a product/their music that people can believe in and understand.

What if it’s not the people that’s the problem but the band or singer? The best way I can explain it is like this, we have seen people spend up to R600 per person on a ticket to see Francois van Coke, who is so humble, do an acoustic because the people believe in his music/his words, but no one wants to pay even R100 per person to hear someone that can’t sing or butcher a Seether song or any cover for that matter and they think they are hot shit afterwards. Your product/music/band is what will determine what people are willing to pay to see you. People don’t have money these days to waste on non-authentic music or bands. No one says you have to be this virtuoso of a musician or singer, but at least be a solid player and deliver a product that leaves them wanting more.

STM: Are you currently in a band or have any future plans for it?

CO: I am currently busy with singer-songwriter Armand Joubert, with some shows that are coming up for the second half of the year.

STM: Your videos on TikTok and YouTube are cool to watch. Have you found this reaches a broader audience than on stage?

CO: Funny thing is, about the videos I started doing two and a half years ago. I did it out of boredom and did not think it would ever get as noticed as it has become. Some of the videos I did two years ago are still being rotated on TikTok and YouTube. It first started just with guitar covers, which I actually enjoy doing and learning all these awesome songs. The one rule I have with myself is I will only post the guitar covers of songs I would not mind playing live myself. So in a sense, all the songs I have done videos on are very much like a personal setlist of songs I would happily play live.

I also do Gear Review Videos. I have done videos on gear-related items, and it is just something that popped into my head as an idea. I personally like watching gear-related videos to learn more about the products in general. Over the past year, I have met so many cool guys from all over the world doing the same kind of content. We all actually help each other or just talk shit and have fun with it. Apart from knowledge of the gear I use just for myself, I like to share it with others, and maybe it can help them.

STM: What advice do you have to give to upcoming bands/songwriters/musicians?

CO: My Advice – Make the music you want to hear on the radio. But above all your word is important in this industry! You don’t want to be that person known not to keep their word no matter who you are!

STM: What are the future plans for you musically?

CO: Currently, I am busy with two projects. One being I am busy building my own full-on studio purely to record my own music, which is my second project. I have been writing my own album and should start recording towards the end of the year. For the last year or so, I have been busy writing and putting the ideas to paper and to music, so ja, apart from doing gigs as a session player, those are the two projects I have on the go.

Thank you, Cash, for taking the time to answer our questions. You can follow him on his Instagram, Facebook or TikTok for all his videos and music adventures.

Marley VW

Marley is the founder and owner of Small Town Music. Born and bred in Nelspruit aka Nelsparta. Marley loves music (rock being a firm favourite), tattoos, festivals, animals and South Africa. Self-taught photographer and writer.