June 11, 2024
RAYE

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"Genesis" the new work from RAYE discussed in this episode is out now: https://raye.orcd.co/genesis
RAYE is an English pop singer/songwriter whose debut album, My 21st Century Blues, snagged Album Of the Year at this year’s Brit Awards. One of a historic six wins that evening. For a 26 year old artist who's already survived a tumultuous ride through the music industry, the ceremony was a coup.
On today’s episode Justin Richmond talks to RAYE about how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career and she explains the inspiration behind her sprawling new, multi-part single, “Genesis.”
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite RAYE songs HERE.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin Raised, an English pop singer songwriter whose debut album My twenty first Century Blues snagged Album of the Year at this year's BRIT Awards, but that was just one of six total awards she took home that evening. For Ray, who at twenty six, has already survived in tumultuous rides through the music industry, the evening was a complete coup. Ray started writing songs as a young girl growing up in South London. By seventeen, she signed her first record deal with Polydor Records and worked for the next seven years as a songwriter. While writing songs for artists like Beyonce, John Legend and Rihanna, Ray was also writing her own songs, which her label refused to release. She was eventually able to leave Polydor and in twenty twenty three independently released her debut album to heaps of critical acclaim, kicked off by her viral TikTok powered hit Escapism. Ray's vulnerability on her album about her own struggles with self esteem, substance abuse, and sexual assaults have proven to resonate deeply with fans everywhere. On today's episode, I talked to Ray about her wild journey through the music business. She explains how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career, how a ski trip in Utah helped inspire some of her best songwriting ever, and about her sprawling new single out Everywhere now called Genesis. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with ray Man. Your Coachella set seemed like it was really well received. I got to see a bit of it. It was awesome.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: It was definitely really a special one for us. I think it's the first time I've witnessed a crowd like that for me in a festival in the States, you know, So that was like a really special change. But it's something I'm not used to out here.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Well, I think in America, like it's it's always been intimidating. I think as a British artist, you know, the idea of like performing in America anyways, just intimidating. And you know, I've done quite a few, not loads, but a few other festivals out here where you're like, right, we need to win the crowd, we need to grow the crowd. Yeah, so Coachella just I wasn't expecting it to be that full, and people were really engaged and it was really special.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out to a bunch of people at the festival. It's like those were people are like now converted, like people are Ray fans.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during during shows of really over analyzing everyone's faces. I feel like at the beginning of the set, I was like, right, I need I was like, right, I need to win. I need people to get to know me, you know kind of thing. And I always try and leave a bit of space. We ended up taking a song or two out so that I'd have more time to chat. I like to have a little chat some people. She needs to stop talking about. I'd just like to talk. And I think also it's a case of maybe some people have heard the songs or maybe the song that started to cross over here, and they're like, let's go and see what it's about. And I think my mission is always during a performance, I just want people to walk away and be like I would see that again, or that was good. You know, That's my goal. Yeah, and you can see people being one of you know, people going from stern faith or just like watching with no expression to being like okay, or do you know what I mean, You're like way even they're doing it and you're like okay, cool, Like you know, have.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: You discovered little things that you can do over the course of a set to maybe like reliably win people over.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: I think honesty has always been something that's kind of important. I've never really I don't really plan what I say. I kind of keep the music. You know, we know what we're doing within the songs, but even some of the endings of songs we leave space, and I just kind of like it to be as open as possible. And I think sometimes when you're just playing songs and not talking, people can't really get to know you. They're just getting to know the music. So I think that's an important thing as well. I like to try and give a little back story behind whatever this song is about or this moment, and just.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: Being not a script your stage banter at all.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: No, So sometimes I'd be like, oh my god, why.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Did I just say that you halfway through targets, Like what am I saying? Yeah? No, there is a lot of that when am I going with that?
00:04:42
Speaker 2: I think I even did that. I was like, I don't know why, I just told you that, let's move on, you know.
00:04:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, the way the album came about was kind of security's It wasn't a situation where you were at a label. It basically there was a lot of roadblocks if you want to just I guess walk us through some of those.
00:05:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been as simple ten years to get to this moment. You know. I was about seventeen when I signed my deal, and I was with a record label for seven years, and I think, yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker 1: Can we name them? No? I mean, I mean, I think it's on the record.
00:05:26
Speaker 2: And you know, I think being a British artist, it's a very different world out there. I think it's very dance orientated. There are formulas typically that are safer formulas that you practice as a songwriter. You know, I started in this game as a songwriter from the age of fourteen is when I really took it seriously, and I was doing sessions off school and stuff, and you kind of learn really quickly. Okay, there's a formula to this, you know, accessibility, repetition, symmetry, you know, the whole math spine, the kind of the songwriting thing, and.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: How did that change your songwriting as a young Like when you're fourteen, I imagine you're coming to it pretty pure, like just probably just want to do express and eight yeah, and then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that change your songwriting.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: Opposed to like change? I think it's just almost a world of just gathering skills. You know, when I started writing songs, it was very much feeling and freestyling and what felt right and being like, oh, I did a lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop rous songwriters out there, and I used to fly out for a couple of weeks at a time and write with all the producers and writers to anyone that would let me in a session. And from that you're like, oh wow, you know, it's not just whatever melody feels nice. It's like, okay, we have a melody here. The end of the melody is a little bit too complicated. This word doesn't roll off the tongue as nice, you know, and chipping away and sculpting something, so yeah, you know, they're all skills that I'm really glad I acquired. And I think for different artists and different sounds and different genres, you kind of need more of one skill than another and stuff like that. But within that space, you know, dance music is huge at symmetry and maths and repetition and lyric that everyone can relate to and easily digestible and stuff like that. So I kind of, from a younger age realized I had a knack at being persistent and chipping away at something until the artist or the person I was writing with was happy and.
00:07:23
Speaker 1: You could take whatever criticism that would come with a version one.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: And when writing for someone else, it's not about you know, my opinion to a degree, But you know, I'm a people pleaser as well, So I'm going to make this song, going to do it so they love it. You know, it's all a performance as well. In another way, it's kind of funny. But yeah, I think when that started to cross over and bleed into what my label at the time wanted from me, and the goal was selling opposed to the art itself, did.
00:07:53
Speaker 1: You know that going in or was that kind of a were you blindsided a bit by Oh?
00:07:57
Speaker 2: No, of course not. Yeah, nobody does. Yeah, it's a real thing. You know that moment before you put pen on paper. Everyone is so nice. They take you for dinners, sell you a whole lot of lovely dreams and promises. Like some of the things. I was like sixteen years old when I started doing the rounds and some of the things I heard, Oh my god, I'm not even gonna run me on here, because but it's wild.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: What are you wear?
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Something like? You know this? We have this artist said artists. I won't even name the name, but they've heard your music. They've agreed to endorse you. If you sign with Vice, you're going to have this. You're going to have that. This isn't even this is just people just talk and artists in this stage. No people will say anything to get you to put your name on that piece of paper. When you're sixteen years old from South London and you're like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people, it can absolutely just muddel your brain up and false hope and a lot of lies, a lot of air that's real. I was like, raw, this place is dark.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: How quickly after you put fended papers you realize that, oh I just got bamboos.
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Maybe I'd like to say a year in maybe Also the guy who had signed me had then left, so the dynamics changed pretty quickly after that.
00:09:30
Speaker 1: That's a pretty common story too, I think, I hear, yeah, it is your support structure leaves and then you're kind of left.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: There's actually a contractual clause called a key Man clause, which artists should know about, and I didn't at the time, but it means, you know, you get that clause put into your contract, means if the person who signs you leaves, that you have the right to terminate or move with them. It's called a key Man clause, and it's just something I wish I knew about when I was seventeen.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases and stages of your career like those first from like sixteen seventeen to you know, a couple of years ago, only a few years ago.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was a tricky one because it wasn't about my goals. It was about, you know, needing to impress these people who basically have my career in their hands. You know, they get to decide whether they're going to promote something or they're not, whether they're going to pause my timeline or help me move things along. So you have to play ball, you know, and you learn that pretty quick. Yeah, So I did my best to do that. The goal always has been since the day that I signed to now in my career, to be an album's artist. I wanted to release bodies of work, and I was really excited to be able to earn the right to decide what music I wanted to share. And it was kind of always presented that. You know, when you have a song that's big enough and you've earned an audience that's big enough and wants an album from you, that you can do that.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: So, yeah, when did your debut album start coming together? When did you record that?
00:11:14
Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago. Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: What were the first few?
00:11:24
Speaker 2: Oscar Win in Tears was there for a long time hard out Here, but the instrumental was made years ago. But then I wrote a whole nother song on top of it Worth It was an older one, yeah, A couple of songs had just been around for a while. Five Stars was an old one, yeah, and I had the title about four years ago. It's funny because I was going through some of my notebooks at home and I found this notebook. It was dated like twenty eighteen or something. It said my twenty first century Blues.
00:11:55
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: So the title the ideas were forming for a while.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you? Why that phrase came to you?
00:12:04
Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when I was a kid, maybe it was about four ten years old, and my dad and my uncle we went on a road trip. Basically, we drove through America. We started in la and we went all the way through to I think it was Atlanta. We ended somewhere and we drove all through Nashville, We drove through New Orleans and Louisiana. We like did our whole trip. And at that time, everywhere we'd drive, we'd put on the local radios, you know in the UK. You know, I've listened to a lot of gospel and some of the greats, amazing singers, but there was so much music and genres I've never been exposed to. And I think I had a life changing experience when I was in New Orleans, and it was at a place called the Preservation Jazz Hall and it was like a room, like one hundred and fifty people coming to this room and there's just this band. And I remember being sat cross legged on the floor. I was sat right underneath this guy's trombone. I had like spit flying in my face. She sat there like wide eyed, just like.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: What is this.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: I'd never experienced anything like it. And it was just a fusion of kind of jazz and the blues. And I remember being like, whatever this is, I want a part of that. And since then, I kind of my tastes changed and I just wanted to know more and understand more about this feeling, this kind of music. And yeah, so although we barely scratch over any kind of blues textures in this album, what I fell in love with was the songwriting and how you know, we go to these bars and you've got people playing.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: Be like.
00:13:43
Speaker 2: When I was a little boy, I went to school one day and then I sat on a chair, no just say you know what I mean? These stories and each one was different. It was the same riff and just all these stories and I was like, wow, so this is their blues. And I was like, this is deep and they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest and transparent and clearful, and I fell in love. I'd always had this idea if I wanted to make whatever my version of the blues is, even though it's not necessarily that genre, it's that candidness.
00:14:21
Speaker 1: Well, and there's a bravado on a lot of your you know. I don't know if it's like the whole album, because there's some very vulnerable bits, but there is an added to a backbone to this album for sure that runs through it. And I love the book ends. It's like, as you put it on, it's like you're being transported to like a smokey jazz club, you know what I mean. And and by the time it ends, you're right back there, and then you're almost ready to play right over again. And it's amazing to hear that that stuck with you, and then that made it that far from child a childhood road trip across the ten through from LA to New Orleans and up that that stayed with you all these years. It really did. After a quick break, we'll be back with more of my conversation with Ray. We're back with more from Ray, who referenced wanting to be in an album artist. What were some of the albums that you grew up on that were like the bed rocks for you, like the ones that were like the perfect records for you.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys The Diary of Alisha Keys. That was a big one for me. Wow, that was the first hard copy album I ever bought. And then Who Is Jill Scott? Jill Scott? That blew my mind? And I think also like being in the UK and just again the stuff we was exposed to. And then my uncle shout out. Uncle jose put me on to this album. He started with a Long Walk and I was listening to this song like she's just talking with melodies. You know, you're used to hearing these perfect rhyming couplets and everything being whatever, but she's just like speaking to you like a conversation, and it was so casual the way she would sing that entire album blew my mind. Watching me, you know, she's like she's talking about CCTV and people watching her like she's just gone to the shop to buy some double or triple A batteries. She's like checking and see where I go? Who I be? How where with who I make my money?
00:16:26
Speaker 1: What is this?
00:16:28
Speaker 2: Excuse me? Miss may, I have your telephone number and your social security She's like, who me? It's like literally telling I was like, what is happening? It completely blew my mind and I fell in love. So those were like two really important albums in my childhood.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your relationship with hip hop because it feels like there's a certain cadence that you can get into sometimes that that would also explain it a lot too, Like that kind of being able to where it's like are you talking? Are you singing?
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Kind of doing both Jills Queen of that isn't it?
00:16:58
Speaker 1: And then sometimes you just like she'll be doing that and then just take off to whoa Okay, I forgot who was right?
00:17:05
Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know with her. I love her style of you feel like anything could happen, do you know what I mean? It doesn't feel too perfect. It just feels so authentic. And I've always loved her about her the way she sings and performs as well. Yeah.
00:17:21
Speaker 1: Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too growing up?
00:17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah? A fair amount. I mean I did get to that age where like Party next Door was my everything that's not really hip hop, but you know Drake the Weekends Party next Door, you know that era we all had where we're.
00:17:34
Speaker 1: All like, oh my god, going up on a Tuesday.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Other Weekend's first album was was a big one, the trilogy. Yeah, But in terms of like hip hop, I don't know what kind of exposed to some different stuff. I was exposed to a lot grown up and like different family members as well.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: Did you see Uncle Jose.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's actually lives in America. So my mum and my uncle were both raised in Ghana. When they're about twenty two to twenty three, mum moved to the UK and Uncle Jose moved to America. And he's always been so supportive as well, Like he bought me my first laptop, my MacBook where I used to start making sessions on garage band and stuff like that when I was about thirteen for my thirteenth birthday, and so I started making a lot of demos on there and it really helped spark my passion for production and vocal production and just making music in general. It's so funny because even though none of us before me and my sisters had ever practiced music. It was always the desire for it and the passion for it was always in the blood. I'd say, like my dad's dad, he used to write songs. He used to want to be a songwriter professionally in a little town in England, north of England, Yorkshire. He used to write songs on record them onto tape and score it out and write the lyrics, and he'd send a box of tapes and the sheet music to record labels in London, hoping that you know, someone might hear his songs and like it. And I can't even be too can But he did have a song stolen from him that turned out to be really successful. But you know, theres a lot of songwriters it happened for back in the day. He didn't get credited and no one believed him, and he had no way legally to prove it because he didn't have the money to do that, and then he gave up on his dream then and there. It's so funny that I was a kid and I didn't even know the story, and I'm like, I just want to write music. So it's funny at that time, No, I was like seven eight nine when I was like making silly, weird poems and copying the melodies i'd hear in the TV kids shows I was watching. And I remember one time I was watching this like TV show and I liked the melody. It was like this kind of jazzy and I was about eight, and I pretended that I wrote it, but I just changed all the words. And then I went to dad, my dad, and I was like, listen to this song I wrote, and he was blown away, but I didn't tell him I'd stolen the song and just change the lyrics to some terrible lyrics about snowfalling and a Christmas song. It was so bad. I like, how that still sticks with you somewhere, like I'm afraid of plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters. Some songwriters do that, or it's sampling essentially.
00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to get started, you know, like copy a bit and the lyrics so you can figure out how to do a whole class. Yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the my family. We love music. You know. I grew up in church as well. My dad and mom used to sing. Mom used to sing in the choir. Dad used to leave worship so I grew up watching and listening to music being sung every Sunday.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: In like in a church where you grew up, what was leading worship? Like would that entails?
00:20:53
Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a big church that maybe forty or fifty people, you know in a church in Tooting in South London where I grew up, and my mom and dad would.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Just sing so like a gospel choir.
00:21:09
Speaker 2: No, it's not big, like you know in America, you guys have an amazing like huge production set ups, like amazing music. You know, this is very like down to earth from the heart, very.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God in the gospel.
00:21:28
Speaker 2: You know, come as you are mate.
00:21:30
Speaker 1: You know, did you listen to much gospel?
00:21:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, Yeah, growing up with a lot of Kurt Franklin and Donnie McClerkin and some amazing music I was exposed to from a really young age. And I think about gospel as well, is it's just musically so complex. I don't even think gospel gets enough credit for how technically difficult it is to really execute those things. You know, you have them mds live in the church on a microphone like okay, we're going to chord four and then five. Hold, hold, hold, we're going six to seven, don't. I'm like, this is serious practice.
00:22:08
Speaker 1: Oh for real, it's not joke. No, it's great. I want to go back now. So you have a few songs for my twenty fifth Century Blues. You're still with Polydor. You're kind of getting the run around what happens next.
00:22:20
Speaker 2: The understanding from my perspective also was if I was going to do an album, it would need to be a dance album. So my twenty first Century Blues kind of got put on the back burner and I was working on a record I needed to hand in songs one p fifteen bpm or above, like it needed to be like that kind of sound. So, as far as my constraints allowed, I set out to make an album that I was going to call dark dance Songs, and it was going to be minor. And I'd say the closest thing I had to it was that black mascara which I put on my twenty fifth Century Blues. It was all this kind of I was trying to find my compromise, and then yeah, it just ended up that, you know, I had a new person who just joined our team and started working as my day to day and she was supposed to tell me we were in the middle of a shoot for something else. You know, I'm like maybe four or five months into writing this album, and I'm becoming invested and I'm excited about what it's going to be. And then she'd basically just said that if this song you've just put out doesn't do good, You're not going to be able to do the album. It just got really messy, and I was just I hit just a boiling point, a breaking point. I was so angry and so frustrated and so pissed off. I felt like just I was just getting treated so unfairly, and I've been trying so desperately for the last seven years to prove to them that I am a musician, Like, look, I'm writing for this person, Like are you proud of me yet?
00:23:49
Speaker 1: Like I was just so desperate who are you're writing for?
00:23:51
Speaker 2: At that time, you know, I had a good healthy amount of cuts, you know, in the dance world and with some girl bands and some solo artists, and I'd been doing good things and every time I remember, every time I get caught, I'd kind of want to tell them and be like, look, look, I was just so desperate for them to believe in me. Really, I've really tried so hard to achieve that and I just failed. So yeah, it just got to a breaking point.
00:24:21
Speaker 1: Yeah so I know you sent a tweet out at some point? Was that a spur of the moment thing? Was that calculated like let me just try something here?
00:24:31
Speaker 2: Or what was the zero strategy and planning into that? Not tell you? I just was like in my head, what the F do I have to lose? Like I have nothing to lose. I was at a point where I was like, I would rather just be a songwriter, like I've seven years is a long time, especially from a kid, you know, and then that pressure of that, I think it's a lie personally, but that pressure of you know, when you're young, it's exciting and as you grow up you're going to miss your window, especially as a woman, like these lies you hear and Yeah, just got to a place where if this is what it is to be an artist, I don't want to do this. I hate some of these songs I'm putting my name to that. I'm out here smiling and returning her like trying to sell this is like soul destroying, especially when I'm like in love with my craft. I'm in love with music. I was a kid when I decided to dedicate my life to work in music and wanting to pursue a career, and it was breaking my heart. It was just making me so sad. Yeah, So I just got to a point. We just moved house and I was in my room. It didn't have a bed in it, so I just remember being like on a block mattress on the floor, and the only thing I had in my room was a picture of Nina Simone and under it it said a quote it's an artist's duty to reflect the times. And I remember sat there in tears, like, what the hell am I doing. I'm not doing anything important, I'm not doing anything that feels right. Nina would be so disgusted by everything I put to my name. She would be like, ill get her out of my face. I was like, what have I become like? And I said no, no, no, and I just let it rip.
00:26:17
Speaker 1: That's a very needless, a long thing to do. Let it rip. I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose, as the story goes from that tweet, do you guys work something out so they let you go. Does that go back to that clause the key man.
00:26:28
Speaker 2: No, I sadly never had that clause in my contract. I think I just got so lucky in that people decided to care about what I'd shared. And I think probably there's also a lot of people unaware of all the ins and outs of what goes on behind closed doors. And I had a lot of news platforms in the UK reaching out, wanting to have a conversation and wanting to understand more about what's going on and what it can be like for a lot of artists sometimes when you're having difficulties on seeing eye to eye with the teams that you're contractually bound to, and that became leverage and I was able to be like, respectfully, let's leave this here now and.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: Then you get to put out your album independently. Yeah. I don't know that it could have worked out more perfectly in the end.
00:27:21
Speaker 2: No, it's honestly how everything's turned out, is all I can describe it as is a series of just miracle after miracle. I think I was so overwhelmed at how much music of mine was already out there in the world. In my head, I was like, how could I possibly change the narrative? In the UK, people see me as a feature vocalist, a voice like, who's going to care?
00:27:45
Speaker 1: You know?
00:27:46
Speaker 2: I just got so ridiculously lucky and Escapism receiving so much attention on TikTok and then all of its suddenly getting pushed out to all these new ears and that's the first they've heard of me, and that's so it was so exciting and like, wow, you know, anything really is possible.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
00:28:10
Speaker 2: Oh? Completely, yeah. But I was also so happy because I love that song. I remember when we put that out. Oh my gosh, Like, if only people were going to be able to hear this song that was my thing in my head. I was like, oh, just if people could just hear this song, you know. I remember me and my dad was talking. I was like, Dad, could you imagine, Yeah, if something crazy happened and Escapism just went really big and became number one, we looked at each other and we were like, ah, ha ha, that'll never happened. I remember that conversation clear as day. I was like, could you imagine? He was like, yeah, I could imagine. That would be crazy right, and then bang.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: Fruish. Why did you write that song in Utah?
00:28:56
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did.
00:28:57
Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
00:28:58
Speaker 2: We took a road trip another road trip.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: I like, good for you.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: I like a car. I like a long drive. And also it's good to get out of the city. I think when you're in a city and you know, be there or whatever, it can be distracting and you could be like someone like do you want to do this? La la la, and you just want to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere where you're just in a peaceful place and you just have to be present. It was nice never No. All the two people I went with are good at skiing. I'm not very good at save only skied once before in the school trip. I decided to join them for skiing in between writing, and it was a disaster. These two are like cross country, like off Pieced Mountain, freaking skiers. Yeah, they're like, don't worry, we'll stay together, We'll go slow. I took a wrong turn in black Run. What the only way is down?
00:29:50
Speaker 1: This?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Whatever? Foot drop? Absolutely not?
00:29:52
Speaker 1: Whatuld you do?
00:29:53
Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me, like you have to ski down? I was like bitch, I skiing down, I'm walking. She's like free sure, And there's all these like four year old kids like just gunning it down the hill. Took me about an hour to get down. It was hell. After that, I left them to it. I went sat on the campfire near the entrance and just made friends. But yeah, skiing, it's gonna be a while before I go back there.
00:30:18
Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on there. Yeah, yeah.
00:30:20
Speaker 2: But the songwriting was productive. We were there for seven days and it was such a nice time and we wrote basically the other half of the album that was missing. It all started with titles. Titles are usually how a song will start for me, So I had title Mary Jane, environment and anxiety. Escape is body dysmorphia. So those were my four titles. There was one or two more that we wrote, but that didn't make.
00:30:45
Speaker 1: It Environmental Anxiety. Speaking of the Nina Simone quote in artists duty is to reflect the times your I mean is so intense. How did you capture that so well?
00:30:58
Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring it across it was like a mountain in some trees and we were like, wow, that so beautiful. Was in the morning and Mike Sabbath, the producer who I made this album with. The guy is so eccentric. We got downstairs and he'd made this little like oh no, no, it's like weird like sound. He'd like morphed his voice to sound like a chipmunk l whatever, and it's just looping around and around and just playing these weird bells. And I was like, Mike, you've lost your absolute mind, but like, let's fucking go, do you know what I mean? And we were looking at the view and we was like, damn, like we're being so cruel to our planet. And we just started on a tangent, you know. And I think it's something a lot of us are worried about but are powerless to really do any actual change, or it's something that needs to come from our governments. Yeah, a lot of people don't care.
00:31:45
Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a bow on it in like three minutes and ten seconds. It's like, yoh wow, like you kind of like distill all the anxieties of kind of our world at large and all the problems and issues and and Boris johnson'sn't cooking.
00:32:04
Speaker 2: We all know that's true, but come on, it seems seems like it's true this article, yeah, which is so funny. But they tested the sewage. I don't know who was testing the sewage of the houzards of Parliament and they found such a high concentration of cocaine in the sewage. I don't even know if we should be talking about this. But meanwhile, you're arresting kids with possession of smoking a little bit of weed on the street, I mean, putting them in jail for that. Meanwhile, you're all in there doing coke. It's just not fair. None of it's fair, is it.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to someone like you.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: May we gotta put these things on blasts. It's incorrect.
00:32:40
Speaker 1: It's beautiful song. So those are all voices on that intro, right, all those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated. And then your voice incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
00:32:48
Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad or a simp or something as well, it's exciting.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound your voice, like when it builds out like that. It's gorgeous escapism too. I love the two different perspectives two different voices. It's like you're in the story and then you kind of get like you're narrating it for us, right, which is like a cool thing to do.
00:33:09
Speaker 2: So love to bounce between first person and third person. I find that fun and like, yeah, the narration aspect of it. I always like it's funny. Sometimes I'll be writing and all the other day with me and my creative director, we're trying to do something, and I kept I realized, I just love to mix. He's like, you know, this sentence is third person and this sentences first person. And I was like, you know what, I like mixing it. Fuck it.
00:33:34
Speaker 1: Yet? Why not? Yeah, after this last break, we'll come back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. We're back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. It's not by Mary Jane a little bit. What made you choose that as a song title?
00:33:52
Speaker 2: All the songs we wrote in Utah? You know, I wanted to address kind of these subjects kind of pretty head on. And I think I've always had a very kind of addictive personality, and I've i think especially because I was playing this like sweet little hot artists kind of character, or at least that's what I was attempting to sell. But really behind closed doors, I was just really not dealing with things great, and I was just outside, not even outside. I was just moving mad. Yeah, and I got trapped into some pretty intense kind of cycles and picked up some unhealthy habits, you know how it be. Sometimes Also you become really good at hiding it. I was just distant from my family. I was just lost and not happy.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: Does your family kind of recognize what was going on?
00:34:38
Speaker 2: Yeah? I didn't really seen it. I think it was like a year or whatever. I saw my parents like twice in a year, which is really unlike me. Now my parents are like around me all the time and I tell them everything and I love him. But yeah, there was just a period of time where I was fully on escapers and vibes. Yeah, I mean, just yeah, running away from reality. There's a lot of these subjects which I find there's no real place to have these conversations or in a space where you don't feel judged or you don't feel disgusting or embarrassed.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: You know.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: I talk in this song about codeine, you know, and there's a lot of us who can develop these kind of dependencies on things, and it's so easy to keep a secret and hide it and it can get dangerous, and it did for me for a bit, you know. So I just wanted to write a song, kind of weird, twisted kind of love song. I think it's one of those things as well. Once you open Pandora's box, you know, but they say it's it's hard to close it.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, were you ever wary of I mean, Mary Jane escapeism, body dysmorphia? Was there ever a part of you that we felt like maybe I don't want this on the app? Because then of course just from the bit of press that I've picked up about you over time, it's like, wow, people are asking you really like heavy. I'm like, I don't know if I don't want to talk about this, Like I just just like, how how did you ever feel worried about that? Do you not? Do you regret it? But does every part of you feel like damn? I don't know if I want to go? You know.
00:36:05
Speaker 2: It's like you know what I think, I think a conscious choice you have to make as an artist, Like what kind of artists am I going to be? There are incredible artists who don't let you in on that side of their life who close those doors and they deliver perfection, And that's a whole other thing, because then you're just dealing with all of those things behind closed doors, but you present this and I have so much respect for those kinds of artists, and that in itself takes a whole load of bravery and rehearsals and skill and delivery. That's a whole other thing. And then I think there's the other end of it where it's like I'm going to be an open book. But then that at the same time, that also comes with people who you don't know knowing things about me that four years ago my own family didn't know. Do you know what I mean? It's an interesting choice I've made, And definitely there are days where it's like, damn, I really just did a lot, and days are on stage like why did I decide to be so open about this? But for all of the times I do find it tricky or overwhelming, I do think that's the kind of artists I want to be, even though it's not always easy. Does that make sense? Yeah?
00:37:23
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of does make you a real writer in a way, and that writers really want to write about real human experience and are kind of always drudging and mining that stuff all the time, you know, like kind of the misery and a sense and sometimes the joy and all that too, but kind of moving between those two in music, you know, I think some people shy away from that.
00:37:44
Speaker 2: It's difficult, but also it's what you feel comfortable, or what your purpose is. Some artists purposes to entertain, and damn well do they entertain, you know. And I think for me as a writer, I kind of see it as you're creating a commentary on the human experience from your perspective, and that does require honesty. I think vulnerability is so important and it's difficult. Sometimes it can be very difficult for me personally in my taste. I always find the music that I connect to the most is where I feel just like I've been let in and I'm just hearing candidness. It hurts. Sometimes it's like oh sugar, or it's like not even for me just as a listener, you know, you're like, oh my god, this is bringing tears to my eyes. You know, if someone's telling your story and you're just you have goosebumps all over your skin and you're completely enchanted. And then it takes you to somewhere in your life and then provide some sort of aid or band aid we say, plaster, or some sort of hug or some sort of space for you to cry and feel it. So as a listener, that's where I feel most moved. But it's definitely not an easy thing to do.
00:38:53
Speaker 1: Was ice Cream Man? Was that a difficult song to record and to Yeah, I.
00:38:57
Speaker 2: Mean, without a doubt, Yeah, definitely the whole. Yeah, that one's deep. It's just deep, because my god, that song, it's just I'm still you know, like a lot of us are working through those things in it. But I got a message the other day on my Instagram DMS. Trying not to spend too much time on my socials and stuff, but every now and then I have a little look. And it was maybe about two days ago, and I got this message from this lady and she was about in her fifties and she sent me this long, beautiful message. It was really sad message about her life, and she was telling me about some of the things she went through as a child and working through it, and it was so moving. I was so moved. I read it about six times. Even brings to his to my eyes now, and I was just like, my goodness, like some of us are carrying so much. And she just expressed at the end of the message that she was really grateful for that song because it gave her the confidence to talk to someone that she loved about something she'd beencerned about her whole life. There are so many of us out here dealing with things, carrying things, holding things. There's no instruction manual what to do. This is where music is like medicine and provides a space of healing or reflection. So as tricky is that song is for me on the worst to days, I'm just so grateful that even if it was only her, you know that that's even been able to provide some sort of I don't even know what the words are, but I was just so mood.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: Do you perform the song?
00:40:33
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do now. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes I do cry a lot. Sometimes I could sing it and I feel really powerful. I feel really safe inside my music. I think that's another thing that maybe allows me to be so honest and vulnerable. It feels like if I was just to say some of the lyrics in this conversation with you, but without a melody and without the safe space inside a song, I would not be comfortable to do that at all, which is weird. But it feels like within a song, it's on my terms in the sonic bed. That feels like it's correct to lie and it feels safe. It feels like no one can spin this or nobody can have an opinion too negative besides not liking the song, but they can't be like, well I don't believe her, Well this and that, you know, all the scrutiny that you can get from being open and transparent about your life. But without a song, Yeah, you.
00:41:36
Speaker 1: Have a new single Genesis, and it's really great. But when it started, I was like, okay, all right, like we and then you know, three quarters of the way through or halfway through, there's a change, and it's like the most uplifting. The first half is a little it's a little like, oh shoot, like this is like I feel like I was a little worried as I guess she's still in like a and by the end I'm like, oh shit, it feels like I'm in preservation Hall and new and it's like the lyric is what's the lyric about? Light Like blood and lighting.
00:42:09
Speaker 2: They'd be l like, yeah, they'd be light.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: It feels maybe more like where your life is now than some of the album, you know, I know that feels true to you.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the Planners will put out the full seven minutes and then the week after kind of split them into three different songs. So you have Genesis one, which is that kind of really sad reflection in the mirror of depressing conversation with yourself someone. Song two is that heavy whatever sound, and then song three is the kind of big band vibe at the end, and I think you can almost see it as maybe an EP or something. But I wanted to put all the songs in one and kind of force you to try and have to listen to all of it just in one, which is a lot and I think I really took like a lot of passion and a lot of time went into the lyrics for me and making sure that it said what it needed to say. I wanted it to be cutting and again honest, and I wanted to talk about themes of you know, suicide and which is again just I think also even for young men, I think there's this kind of thing of like just feeling things and not talking about it. I recently lost someone who was really close to the family, just gone, you know, and you didn't even know that they were going for anything.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Suicide.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people just as you know, fighting a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a song that felt like if you are going for anything like that, or you do feel in any sort of way burdened or like you're going for a really tough time. I wanted to create a piece of music that you could allow yourself to feel it in the beginning, and then the music kind of starts to lift you up in the middle, even though the lyric is still heavy, taking you maybe to a more powerful place to process that emotion, and then by the end hopefully feeling some positivity and some hope. So I wanted it to be this journey of if any one even relates to one of the sentences in that song, you know, And I was trying to create an open scape of my honesty. But then also what else are people our love or people I don't even know going through or need from this song? So it's quite a deep one, Yeah it is.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so grateful you loved us with that we needed, so we absolutely needed. Yeah, man, how are you going to do that live? Well?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: Look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective, we're working now, but you know who needs to make notes of money? Like who needs to do that?
00:44:52
Speaker 1: Sure? I mean travel with the big band? Bring them out? You worked with Dark Child? I love Dark Child? Rodney Man, how did you look about Rodney?
00:45:02
Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was a kid, like my first trip to LA when I was about seventeen, and I was taking some meetings and I remember at the time I hadn't made anything good enough to like really capture his attention. But I remember thinking in my head like one day he's going to hear my music and be like she's sick. Like I remember that being a goal. And then we got connected and maybe like two years ago, and got in the studio and started working on what is this song? So it's been a labor of love for quite a long time. He's really brilliant and I have a lot of love for him, and I put him through the ring.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: On this Tell me about it.
00:45:38
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I called him again and be like, we need to fix the drums. I'm like, we need to. You know, we had this original drum loop and I'm like, it's giving, but it wasn't live. It had a live texture, but some of the frequencies were too sharp and it was jarring. And I was like, we need to it needs to have the same feel, but it needs to feel clean and a bit more raw and down to earth and and not have that kind of distracting whatever. And he'd be like, okay, okay. So we trapped different things and then we go back and back and and then it was like, finally, yes, we got it. So we took the original drummer and made it like twenty percent in volume and then played this new one over the top so you still get that whatever. And then I remember I was at the baseline. I think we need a completely different melody to it. So then we did this baseline where I basically recorded twenty and we stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it, put it down the octave, and then played a symp with it. Like there was so much experimentation and things that needed to be changed, things that needed to be added, and he was so patient with me because I'm so annoying every little detail life Ronnie, we needed her, I'll call him like Hi, Ray, Like hey, So, I was just thinking that we need a new verse two, you know, and maybe we do a string section. I even have notes now, and we've handed in the master, and I'm thinking maybe the vinyl is going to be different to the version that's going to come out. I think we need a more soft detexture on verse one because the lyrics already so hard that you need some softness around it, you know. And then we played these brass on SNL that was so good that I'm like, we need to add that in. So there's probably going to be some changes in the vinyl of seven inch version that we printed to what you're hearing now. Rodney's such a jeep, like he's a legend. He's one of the best in the game. He's just constantly leveling up, creating music that just stands and tests the time wherever or some.
00:47:38
Speaker 1: Of the best singers Janet Tony Braxton, I mean, come on, I mean just the greatest singers work As an album artist, do you have a sense of what you want to do next? I like to make an album, okay, but doing it out like you do, you have a goal that I want it to be by boom or you just.
00:47:58
Speaker 2: Like it just has to be good by my own standard, and I think I'll need to live a little bit to like make a really good album. Otherwise I'm just gonna be writing about hotel rooms and winding roads and nobody wants to hear that. So I need to go and collect some stories as well and live a little bit. I'm aware that it's a bit scary in the times we're in with everyone having such short attention spans, and you know, we're it's such an amazing place right now that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming on? Like fucking hell damn, Like, I need to go. I need to write. I'm not going to put anything out that I don't love and I don't believe it's good, and it's got to at least be a little bit better than, in my opinion, the album we just put out of what's the point, I mean, got be leveling up.
00:48:49
Speaker 1: Hey, well, I can't wait to hear it. I hope, Yeah, me too, I can't wait to hear it. I'm sure it'll be great. It's a great great talking to you no like guys. Thank you. Thanks to Ray for speaking so openly about her life, inspiration and her music. Her new single, Genesis is out now everywhere. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite race songs at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Speaker 1: Pushkin Raised, an English pop singer songwriter whose debut album My twenty first Century Blues snagged Album of the Year at this year's BRIT Awards, but that was just one of six total awards she took home that evening. For Ray, who at twenty six, has already survived in tumultuous rides through the music industry, the evening was a complete coup. Ray started writing songs as a young girl growing up in South London. By seventeen, she signed her first record deal with Polydor Records and worked for the next seven years as a songwriter. While writing songs for artists like Beyonce, John Legend and Rihanna, Ray was also writing her own songs, which her label refused to release. She was eventually able to leave Polydor and in twenty twenty three independently released her debut album to heaps of critical acclaim, kicked off by her viral TikTok powered hit Escapism. Ray's vulnerability on her album about her own struggles with self esteem, substance abuse, and sexual assaults have proven to resonate deeply with fans everywhere. On today's episode, I talked to Ray about her wild journey through the music business. She explains how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career, how a ski trip in Utah helped inspire some of her best songwriting ever, and about her sprawling new single out Everywhere now called Genesis. This is broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's my conversation with ray Man. Your Coachella set seemed like it was really well received. I got to see a bit of it. It was awesome.
00:01:54
Speaker 2: It was definitely really a special one for us. I think it's the first time I've witnessed a crowd like that for me in a festival in the States, you know, So that was like a really special change. But it's something I'm not used to out here.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
00:02:12
Speaker 2: Well, I think in America, like it's it's always been intimidating. I think as a British artist, you know, the idea of like performing in America anyways, just intimidating. And you know, I've done quite a few, not loads, but a few other festivals out here where you're like, right, we need to win the crowd, we need to grow the crowd. Yeah, so Coachella just I wasn't expecting it to be that full, and people were really engaged and it was really special.
00:02:43
Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out to a bunch of people at the festival. It's like those were people are like now converted, like people are Ray fans.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during during shows of really over analyzing everyone's faces. I feel like at the beginning of the set, I was like, right, I need I was like, right, I need to win. I need people to get to know me, you know kind of thing. And I always try and leave a bit of space. We ended up taking a song or two out so that I'd have more time to chat. I like to have a little chat some people. She needs to stop talking about. I'd just like to talk. And I think also it's a case of maybe some people have heard the songs or maybe the song that started to cross over here, and they're like, let's go and see what it's about. And I think my mission is always during a performance, I just want people to walk away and be like I would see that again, or that was good. You know, That's my goal. Yeah, and you can see people being one of you know, people going from stern faith or just like watching with no expression to being like okay, or do you know what I mean, You're like way even they're doing it and you're like okay, cool, Like you know, have.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: You discovered little things that you can do over the course of a set to maybe like reliably win people over.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: I think honesty has always been something that's kind of important. I've never really I don't really plan what I say. I kind of keep the music. You know, we know what we're doing within the songs, but even some of the endings of songs we leave space, and I just kind of like it to be as open as possible. And I think sometimes when you're just playing songs and not talking, people can't really get to know you. They're just getting to know the music. So I think that's an important thing as well. I like to try and give a little back story behind whatever this song is about or this moment, and just.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: Being not a script your stage banter at all.
00:04:33
Speaker 2: No, So sometimes I'd be like, oh my god, why.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Did I just say that you halfway through targets, Like what am I saying? Yeah? No, there is a lot of that when am I going with that?
00:04:42
Speaker 2: I think I even did that. I was like, I don't know why, I just told you that, let's move on, you know.
00:04:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, the way the album came about was kind of security's It wasn't a situation where you were at a label. It basically there was a lot of roadblocks if you want to just I guess walk us through some of those.
00:05:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been as simple ten years to get to this moment. You know. I was about seventeen when I signed my deal, and I was with a record label for seven years, and I think, yeah.
00:05:20
Speaker 1: Can we name them? No? I mean, I mean, I think it's on the record.
00:05:26
Speaker 2: And you know, I think being a British artist, it's a very different world out there. I think it's very dance orientated. There are formulas typically that are safer formulas that you practice as a songwriter. You know, I started in this game as a songwriter from the age of fourteen is when I really took it seriously, and I was doing sessions off school and stuff, and you kind of learn really quickly. Okay, there's a formula to this, you know, accessibility, repetition, symmetry, you know, the whole math spine, the kind of the songwriting thing, and.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: How did that change your songwriting as a young Like when you're fourteen, I imagine you're coming to it pretty pure, like just probably just want to do express and eight yeah, and then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that change your songwriting.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: Opposed to like change? I think it's just almost a world of just gathering skills. You know, when I started writing songs, it was very much feeling and freestyling and what felt right and being like, oh, I did a lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop rous songwriters out there, and I used to fly out for a couple of weeks at a time and write with all the producers and writers to anyone that would let me in a session. And from that you're like, oh wow, you know, it's not just whatever melody feels nice. It's like, okay, we have a melody here. The end of the melody is a little bit too complicated. This word doesn't roll off the tongue as nice, you know, and chipping away and sculpting something, so yeah, you know, they're all skills that I'm really glad I acquired. And I think for different artists and different sounds and different genres, you kind of need more of one skill than another and stuff like that. But within that space, you know, dance music is huge at symmetry and maths and repetition and lyric that everyone can relate to and easily digestible and stuff like that. So I kind of, from a younger age realized I had a knack at being persistent and chipping away at something until the artist or the person I was writing with was happy and.
00:07:23
Speaker 1: You could take whatever criticism that would come with a version one.
00:07:28
Speaker 2: And when writing for someone else, it's not about you know, my opinion to a degree, But you know, I'm a people pleaser as well, So I'm going to make this song, going to do it so they love it. You know, it's all a performance as well. In another way, it's kind of funny. But yeah, I think when that started to cross over and bleed into what my label at the time wanted from me, and the goal was selling opposed to the art itself, did.
00:07:53
Speaker 1: You know that going in or was that kind of a were you blindsided a bit by Oh?
00:07:57
Speaker 2: No, of course not. Yeah, nobody does. Yeah, it's a real thing. You know that moment before you put pen on paper. Everyone is so nice. They take you for dinners, sell you a whole lot of lovely dreams and promises. Like some of the things. I was like sixteen years old when I started doing the rounds and some of the things I heard, Oh my god, I'm not even gonna run me on here, because but it's wild.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: What are you wear?
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Something like? You know this? We have this artist said artists. I won't even name the name, but they've heard your music. They've agreed to endorse you. If you sign with Vice, you're going to have this. You're going to have that. This isn't even this is just people just talk and artists in this stage. No people will say anything to get you to put your name on that piece of paper. When you're sixteen years old from South London and you're like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people, it can absolutely just muddel your brain up and false hope and a lot of lies, a lot of air that's real. I was like, raw, this place is dark.
00:09:09
Speaker 1: How quickly after you put fended papers you realize that, oh I just got bamboos.
00:09:16
Speaker 2: Maybe I'd like to say a year in maybe Also the guy who had signed me had then left, so the dynamics changed pretty quickly after that.
00:09:30
Speaker 1: That's a pretty common story too, I think, I hear, yeah, it is your support structure leaves and then you're kind of left.
00:09:36
Speaker 2: There's actually a contractual clause called a key Man clause, which artists should know about, and I didn't at the time, but it means, you know, you get that clause put into your contract, means if the person who signs you leaves, that you have the right to terminate or move with them. It's called a key Man clause, and it's just something I wish I knew about when I was seventeen.
00:09:59
Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases and stages of your career like those first from like sixteen seventeen to you know, a couple of years ago, only a few years ago.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was a tricky one because it wasn't about my goals. It was about, you know, needing to impress these people who basically have my career in their hands. You know, they get to decide whether they're going to promote something or they're not, whether they're going to pause my timeline or help me move things along. So you have to play ball, you know, and you learn that pretty quick. Yeah, So I did my best to do that. The goal always has been since the day that I signed to now in my career, to be an album's artist. I wanted to release bodies of work, and I was really excited to be able to earn the right to decide what music I wanted to share. And it was kind of always presented that. You know, when you have a song that's big enough and you've earned an audience that's big enough and wants an album from you, that you can do that.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: So, yeah, when did your debut album start coming together? When did you record that?
00:11:14
Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago. Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
00:11:22
Speaker 1: What were the first few?
00:11:24
Speaker 2: Oscar Win in Tears was there for a long time hard out Here, but the instrumental was made years ago. But then I wrote a whole nother song on top of it Worth It was an older one, yeah, A couple of songs had just been around for a while. Five Stars was an old one, yeah, and I had the title about four years ago. It's funny because I was going through some of my notebooks at home and I found this notebook. It was dated like twenty eighteen or something. It said my twenty first century Blues.
00:11:55
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: So the title the ideas were forming for a while.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you? Why that phrase came to you?
00:12:04
Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when I was a kid, maybe it was about four ten years old, and my dad and my uncle we went on a road trip. Basically, we drove through America. We started in la and we went all the way through to I think it was Atlanta. We ended somewhere and we drove all through Nashville, We drove through New Orleans and Louisiana. We like did our whole trip. And at that time, everywhere we'd drive, we'd put on the local radios, you know in the UK. You know, I've listened to a lot of gospel and some of the greats, amazing singers, but there was so much music and genres I've never been exposed to. And I think I had a life changing experience when I was in New Orleans, and it was at a place called the Preservation Jazz Hall and it was like a room, like one hundred and fifty people coming to this room and there's just this band. And I remember being sat cross legged on the floor. I was sat right underneath this guy's trombone. I had like spit flying in my face. She sat there like wide eyed, just like.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: What is this.
00:13:07
Speaker 2: I'd never experienced anything like it. And it was just a fusion of kind of jazz and the blues. And I remember being like, whatever this is, I want a part of that. And since then, I kind of my tastes changed and I just wanted to know more and understand more about this feeling, this kind of music. And yeah, so although we barely scratch over any kind of blues textures in this album, what I fell in love with was the songwriting and how you know, we go to these bars and you've got people playing.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: Be like.
00:13:43
Speaker 2: When I was a little boy, I went to school one day and then I sat on a chair, no just say you know what I mean? These stories and each one was different. It was the same riff and just all these stories and I was like, wow, so this is their blues. And I was like, this is deep and they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest and transparent and clearful, and I fell in love. I'd always had this idea if I wanted to make whatever my version of the blues is, even though it's not necessarily that genre, it's that candidness.
00:14:21
Speaker 1: Well, and there's a bravado on a lot of your you know. I don't know if it's like the whole album, because there's some very vulnerable bits, but there is an added to a backbone to this album for sure that runs through it. And I love the book ends. It's like, as you put it on, it's like you're being transported to like a smokey jazz club, you know what I mean. And and by the time it ends, you're right back there, and then you're almost ready to play right over again. And it's amazing to hear that that stuck with you, and then that made it that far from child a childhood road trip across the ten through from LA to New Orleans and up that that stayed with you all these years. It really did. After a quick break, we'll be back with more of my conversation with Ray. We're back with more from Ray, who referenced wanting to be in an album artist. What were some of the albums that you grew up on that were like the bed rocks for you, like the ones that were like the perfect records for you.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys The Diary of Alisha Keys. That was a big one for me. Wow, that was the first hard copy album I ever bought. And then Who Is Jill Scott? Jill Scott? That blew my mind? And I think also like being in the UK and just again the stuff we was exposed to. And then my uncle shout out. Uncle jose put me on to this album. He started with a Long Walk and I was listening to this song like she's just talking with melodies. You know, you're used to hearing these perfect rhyming couplets and everything being whatever, but she's just like speaking to you like a conversation, and it was so casual the way she would sing that entire album blew my mind. Watching me, you know, she's like she's talking about CCTV and people watching her like she's just gone to the shop to buy some double or triple A batteries. She's like checking and see where I go? Who I be? How where with who I make my money?
00:16:26
Speaker 1: What is this?
00:16:28
Speaker 2: Excuse me? Miss may, I have your telephone number and your social security She's like, who me? It's like literally telling I was like, what is happening? It completely blew my mind and I fell in love. So those were like two really important albums in my childhood.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your relationship with hip hop because it feels like there's a certain cadence that you can get into sometimes that that would also explain it a lot too, Like that kind of being able to where it's like are you talking? Are you singing?
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Kind of doing both Jills Queen of that isn't it?
00:16:58
Speaker 1: And then sometimes you just like she'll be doing that and then just take off to whoa Okay, I forgot who was right?
00:17:05
Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know with her. I love her style of you feel like anything could happen, do you know what I mean? It doesn't feel too perfect. It just feels so authentic. And I've always loved her about her the way she sings and performs as well. Yeah.
00:17:21
Speaker 1: Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too growing up?
00:17:24
Speaker 2: Yeah? A fair amount. I mean I did get to that age where like Party next Door was my everything that's not really hip hop, but you know Drake the Weekends Party next Door, you know that era we all had where we're.
00:17:34
Speaker 1: All like, oh my god, going up on a Tuesday.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Other Weekend's first album was was a big one, the trilogy. Yeah, But in terms of like hip hop, I don't know what kind of exposed to some different stuff. I was exposed to a lot grown up and like different family members as well.
00:17:53
Speaker 1: Did you see Uncle Jose.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's actually lives in America. So my mum and my uncle were both raised in Ghana. When they're about twenty two to twenty three, mum moved to the UK and Uncle Jose moved to America. And he's always been so supportive as well, Like he bought me my first laptop, my MacBook where I used to start making sessions on garage band and stuff like that when I was about thirteen for my thirteenth birthday, and so I started making a lot of demos on there and it really helped spark my passion for production and vocal production and just making music in general. It's so funny because even though none of us before me and my sisters had ever practiced music. It was always the desire for it and the passion for it was always in the blood. I'd say, like my dad's dad, he used to write songs. He used to want to be a songwriter professionally in a little town in England, north of England, Yorkshire. He used to write songs on record them onto tape and score it out and write the lyrics, and he'd send a box of tapes and the sheet music to record labels in London, hoping that you know, someone might hear his songs and like it. And I can't even be too can But he did have a song stolen from him that turned out to be really successful. But you know, theres a lot of songwriters it happened for back in the day. He didn't get credited and no one believed him, and he had no way legally to prove it because he didn't have the money to do that, and then he gave up on his dream then and there. It's so funny that I was a kid and I didn't even know the story, and I'm like, I just want to write music. So it's funny at that time, No, I was like seven eight nine when I was like making silly, weird poems and copying the melodies i'd hear in the TV kids shows I was watching. And I remember one time I was watching this like TV show and I liked the melody. It was like this kind of jazzy and I was about eight, and I pretended that I wrote it, but I just changed all the words. And then I went to dad, my dad, and I was like, listen to this song I wrote, and he was blown away, but I didn't tell him I'd stolen the song and just change the lyrics to some terrible lyrics about snowfalling and a Christmas song. It was so bad. I like, how that still sticks with you somewhere, like I'm afraid of plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters. Some songwriters do that, or it's sampling essentially.
00:20:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to get started, you know, like copy a bit and the lyrics so you can figure out how to do a whole class. Yeah.
00:20:34
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the my family. We love music. You know. I grew up in church as well. My dad and mom used to sing. Mom used to sing in the choir. Dad used to leave worship so I grew up watching and listening to music being sung every Sunday.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: In like in a church where you grew up, what was leading worship? Like would that entails?
00:20:53
Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a big church that maybe forty or fifty people, you know in a church in Tooting in South London where I grew up, and my mom and dad would.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Just sing so like a gospel choir.
00:21:09
Speaker 2: No, it's not big, like you know in America, you guys have an amazing like huge production set ups, like amazing music. You know, this is very like down to earth from the heart, very.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God in the gospel.
00:21:28
Speaker 2: You know, come as you are mate.
00:21:30
Speaker 1: You know, did you listen to much gospel?
00:21:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, Yeah, growing up with a lot of Kurt Franklin and Donnie McClerkin and some amazing music I was exposed to from a really young age. And I think about gospel as well, is it's just musically so complex. I don't even think gospel gets enough credit for how technically difficult it is to really execute those things. You know, you have them mds live in the church on a microphone like okay, we're going to chord four and then five. Hold, hold, hold, we're going six to seven, don't. I'm like, this is serious practice.
00:22:08
Speaker 1: Oh for real, it's not joke. No, it's great. I want to go back now. So you have a few songs for my twenty fifth Century Blues. You're still with Polydor. You're kind of getting the run around what happens next.
00:22:20
Speaker 2: The understanding from my perspective also was if I was going to do an album, it would need to be a dance album. So my twenty first Century Blues kind of got put on the back burner and I was working on a record I needed to hand in songs one p fifteen bpm or above, like it needed to be like that kind of sound. So, as far as my constraints allowed, I set out to make an album that I was going to call dark dance Songs, and it was going to be minor. And I'd say the closest thing I had to it was that black mascara which I put on my twenty fifth Century Blues. It was all this kind of I was trying to find my compromise, and then yeah, it just ended up that, you know, I had a new person who just joined our team and started working as my day to day and she was supposed to tell me we were in the middle of a shoot for something else. You know, I'm like maybe four or five months into writing this album, and I'm becoming invested and I'm excited about what it's going to be. And then she'd basically just said that if this song you've just put out doesn't do good, You're not going to be able to do the album. It just got really messy, and I was just I hit just a boiling point, a breaking point. I was so angry and so frustrated and so pissed off. I felt like just I was just getting treated so unfairly, and I've been trying so desperately for the last seven years to prove to them that I am a musician, Like, look, I'm writing for this person, Like are you proud of me yet?
00:23:49
Speaker 1: Like I was just so desperate who are you're writing for?
00:23:51
Speaker 2: At that time, you know, I had a good healthy amount of cuts, you know, in the dance world and with some girl bands and some solo artists, and I'd been doing good things and every time I remember, every time I get caught, I'd kind of want to tell them and be like, look, look, I was just so desperate for them to believe in me. Really, I've really tried so hard to achieve that and I just failed. So yeah, it just got to a breaking point.
00:24:21
Speaker 1: Yeah so I know you sent a tweet out at some point? Was that a spur of the moment thing? Was that calculated like let me just try something here?
00:24:31
Speaker 2: Or what was the zero strategy and planning into that? Not tell you? I just was like in my head, what the F do I have to lose? Like I have nothing to lose. I was at a point where I was like, I would rather just be a songwriter, like I've seven years is a long time, especially from a kid, you know, and then that pressure of that, I think it's a lie personally, but that pressure of you know, when you're young, it's exciting and as you grow up you're going to miss your window, especially as a woman, like these lies you hear and Yeah, just got to a place where if this is what it is to be an artist, I don't want to do this. I hate some of these songs I'm putting my name to that. I'm out here smiling and returning her like trying to sell this is like soul destroying, especially when I'm like in love with my craft. I'm in love with music. I was a kid when I decided to dedicate my life to work in music and wanting to pursue a career, and it was breaking my heart. It was just making me so sad. Yeah, So I just got to a point. We just moved house and I was in my room. It didn't have a bed in it, so I just remember being like on a block mattress on the floor, and the only thing I had in my room was a picture of Nina Simone and under it it said a quote it's an artist's duty to reflect the times. And I remember sat there in tears, like, what the hell am I doing. I'm not doing anything important, I'm not doing anything that feels right. Nina would be so disgusted by everything I put to my name. She would be like, ill get her out of my face. I was like, what have I become like? And I said no, no, no, and I just let it rip.
00:26:17
Speaker 1: That's a very needless, a long thing to do. Let it rip. I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose, as the story goes from that tweet, do you guys work something out so they let you go. Does that go back to that clause the key man.
00:26:28
Speaker 2: No, I sadly never had that clause in my contract. I think I just got so lucky in that people decided to care about what I'd shared. And I think probably there's also a lot of people unaware of all the ins and outs of what goes on behind closed doors. And I had a lot of news platforms in the UK reaching out, wanting to have a conversation and wanting to understand more about what's going on and what it can be like for a lot of artists sometimes when you're having difficulties on seeing eye to eye with the teams that you're contractually bound to, and that became leverage and I was able to be like, respectfully, let's leave this here now and.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: Then you get to put out your album independently. Yeah. I don't know that it could have worked out more perfectly in the end.
00:27:21
Speaker 2: No, it's honestly how everything's turned out, is all I can describe it as is a series of just miracle after miracle. I think I was so overwhelmed at how much music of mine was already out there in the world. In my head, I was like, how could I possibly change the narrative? In the UK, people see me as a feature vocalist, a voice like, who's going to care?
00:27:45
Speaker 1: You know?
00:27:46
Speaker 2: I just got so ridiculously lucky and Escapism receiving so much attention on TikTok and then all of its suddenly getting pushed out to all these new ears and that's the first they've heard of me, and that's so it was so exciting and like, wow, you know, anything really is possible.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
00:28:10
Speaker 2: Oh? Completely, yeah. But I was also so happy because I love that song. I remember when we put that out. Oh my gosh, Like, if only people were going to be able to hear this song that was my thing in my head. I was like, oh, just if people could just hear this song, you know. I remember me and my dad was talking. I was like, Dad, could you imagine, Yeah, if something crazy happened and Escapism just went really big and became number one, we looked at each other and we were like, ah, ha ha, that'll never happened. I remember that conversation clear as day. I was like, could you imagine? He was like, yeah, I could imagine. That would be crazy right, and then bang.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: Fruish. Why did you write that song in Utah?
00:28:56
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did.
00:28:57
Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
00:28:58
Speaker 2: We took a road trip another road trip.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: I like, good for you.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: I like a car. I like a long drive. And also it's good to get out of the city. I think when you're in a city and you know, be there or whatever, it can be distracting and you could be like someone like do you want to do this? La la la, and you just want to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere where you're just in a peaceful place and you just have to be present. It was nice never No. All the two people I went with are good at skiing. I'm not very good at save only skied once before in the school trip. I decided to join them for skiing in between writing, and it was a disaster. These two are like cross country, like off Pieced Mountain, freaking skiers. Yeah, they're like, don't worry, we'll stay together, We'll go slow. I took a wrong turn in black Run. What the only way is down?
00:29:50
Speaker 1: This?
00:29:50
Speaker 2: Whatever? Foot drop? Absolutely not?
00:29:52
Speaker 1: Whatuld you do?
00:29:53
Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me, like you have to ski down? I was like bitch, I skiing down, I'm walking. She's like free sure, And there's all these like four year old kids like just gunning it down the hill. Took me about an hour to get down. It was hell. After that, I left them to it. I went sat on the campfire near the entrance and just made friends. But yeah, skiing, it's gonna be a while before I go back there.
00:30:18
Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on there. Yeah, yeah.
00:30:20
Speaker 2: But the songwriting was productive. We were there for seven days and it was such a nice time and we wrote basically the other half of the album that was missing. It all started with titles. Titles are usually how a song will start for me, So I had title Mary Jane, environment and anxiety. Escape is body dysmorphia. So those were my four titles. There was one or two more that we wrote, but that didn't make.
00:30:45
Speaker 1: It Environmental Anxiety. Speaking of the Nina Simone quote in artists duty is to reflect the times your I mean is so intense. How did you capture that so well?
00:30:58
Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring it across it was like a mountain in some trees and we were like, wow, that so beautiful. Was in the morning and Mike Sabbath, the producer who I made this album with. The guy is so eccentric. We got downstairs and he'd made this little like oh no, no, it's like weird like sound. He'd like morphed his voice to sound like a chipmunk l whatever, and it's just looping around and around and just playing these weird bells. And I was like, Mike, you've lost your absolute mind, but like, let's fucking go, do you know what I mean? And we were looking at the view and we was like, damn, like we're being so cruel to our planet. And we just started on a tangent, you know. And I think it's something a lot of us are worried about but are powerless to really do any actual change, or it's something that needs to come from our governments. Yeah, a lot of people don't care.
00:31:45
Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a bow on it in like three minutes and ten seconds. It's like, yoh wow, like you kind of like distill all the anxieties of kind of our world at large and all the problems and issues and and Boris johnson'sn't cooking.
00:32:04
Speaker 2: We all know that's true, but come on, it seems seems like it's true this article, yeah, which is so funny. But they tested the sewage. I don't know who was testing the sewage of the houzards of Parliament and they found such a high concentration of cocaine in the sewage. I don't even know if we should be talking about this. But meanwhile, you're arresting kids with possession of smoking a little bit of weed on the street, I mean, putting them in jail for that. Meanwhile, you're all in there doing coke. It's just not fair. None of it's fair, is it.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to someone like you.
00:32:38
Speaker 2: May we gotta put these things on blasts. It's incorrect.
00:32:40
Speaker 1: It's beautiful song. So those are all voices on that intro, right, all those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated. And then your voice incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
00:32:48
Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad or a simp or something as well, it's exciting.
00:32:53
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound your voice, like when it builds out like that. It's gorgeous escapism too. I love the two different perspectives two different voices. It's like you're in the story and then you kind of get like you're narrating it for us, right, which is like a cool thing to do.
00:33:09
Speaker 2: So love to bounce between first person and third person. I find that fun and like, yeah, the narration aspect of it. I always like it's funny. Sometimes I'll be writing and all the other day with me and my creative director, we're trying to do something, and I kept I realized, I just love to mix. He's like, you know, this sentence is third person and this sentences first person. And I was like, you know what, I like mixing it. Fuck it.
00:33:34
Speaker 1: Yet? Why not? Yeah, after this last break, we'll come back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. We're back with the rest of my conversation with Ray. It's not by Mary Jane a little bit. What made you choose that as a song title?
00:33:52
Speaker 2: All the songs we wrote in Utah? You know, I wanted to address kind of these subjects kind of pretty head on. And I think I've always had a very kind of addictive personality, and I've i think especially because I was playing this like sweet little hot artists kind of character, or at least that's what I was attempting to sell. But really behind closed doors, I was just really not dealing with things great, and I was just outside, not even outside. I was just moving mad. Yeah, and I got trapped into some pretty intense kind of cycles and picked up some unhealthy habits, you know how it be. Sometimes Also you become really good at hiding it. I was just distant from my family. I was just lost and not happy.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: Does your family kind of recognize what was going on?
00:34:38
Speaker 2: Yeah? I didn't really seen it. I think it was like a year or whatever. I saw my parents like twice in a year, which is really unlike me. Now my parents are like around me all the time and I tell them everything and I love him. But yeah, there was just a period of time where I was fully on escapers and vibes. Yeah, I mean, just yeah, running away from reality. There's a lot of these subjects which I find there's no real place to have these conversations or in a space where you don't feel judged or you don't feel disgusting or embarrassed.
00:35:10
Speaker 1: You know.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: I talk in this song about codeine, you know, and there's a lot of us who can develop these kind of dependencies on things, and it's so easy to keep a secret and hide it and it can get dangerous, and it did for me for a bit, you know. So I just wanted to write a song, kind of weird, twisted kind of love song. I think it's one of those things as well. Once you open Pandora's box, you know, but they say it's it's hard to close it.
00:35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, were you ever wary of I mean, Mary Jane escapeism, body dysmorphia? Was there ever a part of you that we felt like maybe I don't want this on the app? Because then of course just from the bit of press that I've picked up about you over time, it's like, wow, people are asking you really like heavy. I'm like, I don't know if I don't want to talk about this, Like I just just like, how how did you ever feel worried about that? Do you not? Do you regret it? But does every part of you feel like damn? I don't know if I want to go? You know.
00:36:05
Speaker 2: It's like you know what I think, I think a conscious choice you have to make as an artist, Like what kind of artists am I going to be? There are incredible artists who don't let you in on that side of their life who close those doors and they deliver perfection, And that's a whole other thing, because then you're just dealing with all of those things behind closed doors, but you present this and I have so much respect for those kinds of artists, and that in itself takes a whole load of bravery and rehearsals and skill and delivery. That's a whole other thing. And then I think there's the other end of it where it's like I'm going to be an open book. But then that at the same time, that also comes with people who you don't know knowing things about me that four years ago my own family didn't know. Do you know what I mean? It's an interesting choice I've made, And definitely there are days where it's like, damn, I really just did a lot, and days are on stage like why did I decide to be so open about this? But for all of the times I do find it tricky or overwhelming, I do think that's the kind of artists I want to be, even though it's not always easy. Does that make sense? Yeah?
00:37:23
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of does make you a real writer in a way, and that writers really want to write about real human experience and are kind of always drudging and mining that stuff all the time, you know, like kind of the misery and a sense and sometimes the joy and all that too, but kind of moving between those two in music, you know, I think some people shy away from that.
00:37:44
Speaker 2: It's difficult, but also it's what you feel comfortable, or what your purpose is. Some artists purposes to entertain, and damn well do they entertain, you know. And I think for me as a writer, I kind of see it as you're creating a commentary on the human experience from your perspective, and that does require honesty. I think vulnerability is so important and it's difficult. Sometimes it can be very difficult for me personally in my taste. I always find the music that I connect to the most is where I feel just like I've been let in and I'm just hearing candidness. It hurts. Sometimes it's like oh sugar, or it's like not even for me just as a listener, you know, you're like, oh my god, this is bringing tears to my eyes. You know, if someone's telling your story and you're just you have goosebumps all over your skin and you're completely enchanted. And then it takes you to somewhere in your life and then provide some sort of aid or band aid we say, plaster, or some sort of hug or some sort of space for you to cry and feel it. So as a listener, that's where I feel most moved. But it's definitely not an easy thing to do.
00:38:53
Speaker 1: Was ice Cream Man? Was that a difficult song to record and to Yeah, I.
00:38:57
Speaker 2: Mean, without a doubt, Yeah, definitely the whole. Yeah, that one's deep. It's just deep, because my god, that song, it's just I'm still you know, like a lot of us are working through those things in it. But I got a message the other day on my Instagram DMS. Trying not to spend too much time on my socials and stuff, but every now and then I have a little look. And it was maybe about two days ago, and I got this message from this lady and she was about in her fifties and she sent me this long, beautiful message. It was really sad message about her life, and she was telling me about some of the things she went through as a child and working through it, and it was so moving. I was so moved. I read it about six times. Even brings to his to my eyes now, and I was just like, my goodness, like some of us are carrying so much. And she just expressed at the end of the message that she was really grateful for that song because it gave her the confidence to talk to someone that she loved about something she'd beencerned about her whole life. There are so many of us out here dealing with things, carrying things, holding things. There's no instruction manual what to do. This is where music is like medicine and provides a space of healing or reflection. So as tricky is that song is for me on the worst to days, I'm just so grateful that even if it was only her, you know that that's even been able to provide some sort of I don't even know what the words are, but I was just so mood.
00:40:32
Speaker 1: Do you perform the song?
00:40:33
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do now. Sometimes it's sad, sometimes I do cry a lot. Sometimes I could sing it and I feel really powerful. I feel really safe inside my music. I think that's another thing that maybe allows me to be so honest and vulnerable. It feels like if I was just to say some of the lyrics in this conversation with you, but without a melody and without the safe space inside a song, I would not be comfortable to do that at all, which is weird. But it feels like within a song, it's on my terms in the sonic bed. That feels like it's correct to lie and it feels safe. It feels like no one can spin this or nobody can have an opinion too negative besides not liking the song, but they can't be like, well I don't believe her, Well this and that, you know, all the scrutiny that you can get from being open and transparent about your life. But without a song, Yeah, you.
00:41:36
Speaker 1: Have a new single Genesis, and it's really great. But when it started, I was like, okay, all right, like we and then you know, three quarters of the way through or halfway through, there's a change, and it's like the most uplifting. The first half is a little it's a little like, oh shoot, like this is like I feel like I was a little worried as I guess she's still in like a and by the end I'm like, oh shit, it feels like I'm in preservation Hall and new and it's like the lyric is what's the lyric about? Light Like blood and lighting.
00:42:09
Speaker 2: They'd be l like, yeah, they'd be light.
00:42:10
Speaker 1: It feels maybe more like where your life is now than some of the album, you know, I know that feels true to you.
00:42:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the Planners will put out the full seven minutes and then the week after kind of split them into three different songs. So you have Genesis one, which is that kind of really sad reflection in the mirror of depressing conversation with yourself someone. Song two is that heavy whatever sound, and then song three is the kind of big band vibe at the end, and I think you can almost see it as maybe an EP or something. But I wanted to put all the songs in one and kind of force you to try and have to listen to all of it just in one, which is a lot and I think I really took like a lot of passion and a lot of time went into the lyrics for me and making sure that it said what it needed to say. I wanted it to be cutting and again honest, and I wanted to talk about themes of you know, suicide and which is again just I think also even for young men, I think there's this kind of thing of like just feeling things and not talking about it. I recently lost someone who was really close to the family, just gone, you know, and you didn't even know that they were going for anything.
00:43:29
Speaker 1: Suicide.
00:43:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of people just as you know, fighting a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a song that felt like if you are going for anything like that, or you do feel in any sort of way burdened or like you're going for a really tough time. I wanted to create a piece of music that you could allow yourself to feel it in the beginning, and then the music kind of starts to lift you up in the middle, even though the lyric is still heavy, taking you maybe to a more powerful place to process that emotion, and then by the end hopefully feeling some positivity and some hope. So I wanted it to be this journey of if any one even relates to one of the sentences in that song, you know, And I was trying to create an open scape of my honesty. But then also what else are people our love or people I don't even know going through or need from this song? So it's quite a deep one, Yeah it is.
00:44:24
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so grateful you loved us with that we needed, so we absolutely needed. Yeah, man, how are you going to do that live? Well?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: Look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective, we're working now, but you know who needs to make notes of money? Like who needs to do that?
00:44:52
Speaker 1: Sure? I mean travel with the big band? Bring them out? You worked with Dark Child? I love Dark Child? Rodney Man, how did you look about Rodney?
00:45:02
Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was a kid, like my first trip to LA when I was about seventeen, and I was taking some meetings and I remember at the time I hadn't made anything good enough to like really capture his attention. But I remember thinking in my head like one day he's going to hear my music and be like she's sick. Like I remember that being a goal. And then we got connected and maybe like two years ago, and got in the studio and started working on what is this song? So it's been a labor of love for quite a long time. He's really brilliant and I have a lot of love for him, and I put him through the ring.
00:45:36
Speaker 1: On this Tell me about it.
00:45:38
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I called him again and be like, we need to fix the drums. I'm like, we need to. You know, we had this original drum loop and I'm like, it's giving, but it wasn't live. It had a live texture, but some of the frequencies were too sharp and it was jarring. And I was like, we need to it needs to have the same feel, but it needs to feel clean and a bit more raw and down to earth and and not have that kind of distracting whatever. And he'd be like, okay, okay. So we trapped different things and then we go back and back and and then it was like, finally, yes, we got it. So we took the original drummer and made it like twenty percent in volume and then played this new one over the top so you still get that whatever. And then I remember I was at the baseline. I think we need a completely different melody to it. So then we did this baseline where I basically recorded twenty and we stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it, put it down the octave, and then played a symp with it. Like there was so much experimentation and things that needed to be changed, things that needed to be added, and he was so patient with me because I'm so annoying every little detail life Ronnie, we needed her, I'll call him like Hi, Ray, Like hey, So, I was just thinking that we need a new verse two, you know, and maybe we do a string section. I even have notes now, and we've handed in the master, and I'm thinking maybe the vinyl is going to be different to the version that's going to come out. I think we need a more soft detexture on verse one because the lyrics already so hard that you need some softness around it, you know. And then we played these brass on SNL that was so good that I'm like, we need to add that in. So there's probably going to be some changes in the vinyl of seven inch version that we printed to what you're hearing now. Rodney's such a jeep, like he's a legend. He's one of the best in the game. He's just constantly leveling up, creating music that just stands and tests the time wherever or some.
00:47:38
Speaker 1: Of the best singers Janet Tony Braxton, I mean, come on, I mean just the greatest singers work As an album artist, do you have a sense of what you want to do next? I like to make an album, okay, but doing it out like you do, you have a goal that I want it to be by boom or you just.
00:47:58
Speaker 2: Like it just has to be good by my own standard, and I think I'll need to live a little bit to like make a really good album. Otherwise I'm just gonna be writing about hotel rooms and winding roads and nobody wants to hear that. So I need to go and collect some stories as well and live a little bit. I'm aware that it's a bit scary in the times we're in with everyone having such short attention spans, and you know, we're it's such an amazing place right now that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming on? Like fucking hell damn, Like, I need to go. I need to write. I'm not going to put anything out that I don't love and I don't believe it's good, and it's got to at least be a little bit better than, in my opinion, the album we just put out of what's the point, I mean, got be leveling up.
00:48:49
Speaker 1: Hey, well, I can't wait to hear it. I hope, Yeah, me too, I can't wait to hear it. I'm sure it'll be great. It's a great great talking to you no like guys. Thank you. Thanks to Ray for speaking so openly about her life, inspiration and her music. Her new single, Genesis is out now everywhere. You can hear a playlist of all of our favorite race songs at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.