00:00:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. To close out the year at Broken Record, we've been revisiting some of our favorite conversations from years past. We started a couple of weeks ago with Patti Smith and Raphael Sadiq. This week, we're revisiting a conversation with English pop singer-songwriter Ray. Ray just won the Mercury Prize over the weekend for his sophomore release, This Album May Contain Hope, which featured the huge single, Where's My Husband? But this conversation covers her debut album, My 21st Century Blues, which won Album of the Year and a historic total six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards. In our chat, we discuss how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career, and she explains the inspiration behind her sprawling multi-part single, Genesis. This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richmond. 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.
00:01:11
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. It's something I'm not used to out here.
00:01:27
Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
00:01:29
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 anyway is 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.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out to a bunch of people at a festival. It was like, those were, people are like now converted. Like people are Ray fans.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during, during shows of really overanalyzing everyone's faces. I feel like at the beginning of the set, I was like, right. 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 say she needs to stop talking but I 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 up you know people going from stern face or just like watching with no expression to being like, oh, okay. Or do you know what I mean? You're like wave and they're doing it. And you're like, okay, cool. Like, you know.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Have you discovered little things that you can do over the course of a set to maybe like reliably win people over?
00:03:12
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 the 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 backstory behind whatever this song is about or this moment.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: So you don't script your stage banter at all? No.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: So sometimes I'll be like, Oh my God, why did I just say that out loud?
00:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you halfway through talking, you'd be like, what am I saying now? What's going on?
00:03:57
Speaker 2: There is a lot of that.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: Where am I going with this?
00:03:59
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.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. The way the album came about was kind of circuitous. It wasn't a situation where you were at a label. It basically, there was a lot of roadblocks. And if you want to just, I guess, walk us through some of those.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been a simple 10 years to get to this moment. You know, I was about 17 when I signed my deal and I was with a record label for seven years. And I think... Polydor.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we name them?
00:04:38
Speaker 2: No, I mean... I.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: Mean, I think it's on the record, right?
00:04:43
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 14 is when I really took it seriously and I was doing sessions after 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 kind of the songwriting thing.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: And, um, how did that change your songwriting as a young, like when you're 14, I imagine you're coming to a pretty pure, like just probably just wanting to express and create. Yeah. And then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that change your songwriting?
00:05:30
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, Ooh, I did a lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop 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, 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. 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 a 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.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: And you could take whatever criticism that would come with a version one.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. 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'd be like, I'm going to make this song, I'm 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, um, what my label at the time wanted from me and the goal was selling opposed to the art itself.
00:07:09
Speaker 1: Did you know that going in or was that kind of a, were you blindsided a bit by that?
00:07:13
Speaker 2: Oh no, of course not.
00:07:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker 2: Nobody does.
00:07:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: It's a real thing. You know, that moment before you put pen on paper, everyone is so nice. They take you for dinners. They sell you a whole lot of lovely things. dreams and and promises like some of the things I was like 16 years old when I started doing the rounds and some of the things I heard oh my god I'm not even gonna repeat on here because but it's wild what did you hear what 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 us 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 know people will say anything to get you to put your name on that piece of paper. When you're 16 years old from South London and you're like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people, it can absolutely just muddle your brain up and false hope and a lot of lies.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: A lot of air.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: So it's real. I was like, rah, this place is dark.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: How quickly after you put pen to paper did you realize, uh-oh, I just got bamboozled?
00:08:33
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 change pretty quickly after that.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: That's a pretty common thing. story too, I feel like I hear.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: Your support structure leaves and then you're kind of left.
00:08:53
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 17.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases and stages of your career like those first from like 16 17 to you know a couple of years ago only a few years.
00:09:25
Speaker 2: Ago 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 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.
00:09:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: 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 albums 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 so.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah When did your debut album start coming together? When did you record that?
00:10:31
Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago. Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: What were the first few?
00:10:40
Speaker 2: Oscar winning 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 2018 or something. It said my 21st century blues.
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: So the title and the ideas were forming for a while.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you? Why that phrase came to you?
00:11:21
Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when I was a kid, I was about 14 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 or we ended somewhere. And we drove all through Nashville. We drove through New Orleans and Louisiana. We like did a 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'd listen to a lot of gospel and some of the great, amazing singers, but there was so much music and genres I'd 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 150 people come into 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. I'm literally sat there like wide-eyed, just like, what is this? 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 itself. And how, you know, we go to these bars and you've got people playing this. I'd be like. When I was a little boy. I went to school one day. And then I sat on a chair. I had my teacher say. Do you know what I mean? These stories and each one was different. It was the same riff and just all these stories.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: So this is their blues. And I was like, this is deep. And they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest and transparent and clear and beautiful. And I fell in love. I always had this idea of I wanted to make whatever my version of the blues is, even though it's not necessarily that genre. It's that candidness.
00:13:37
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 attitude, a backbone to this album for sure that runs through it.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: And I love the book ends. It's like, as you put it on, it's like you're being transported to like a smoky jazz club.
00:13:57
Speaker 2: Come on.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And by the time it ends, you're right back there and you're almost ready to play right over again.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: It's amazing to hear that that stuck with you and that that made it that far from a childhood road trip across the 10 through from LA to New Orleans and up, that that stayed with you all these years.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: It really did.
00:14:15
Speaker 1: After a quick break, we'll be back with more of my conversation with Ray. We're back with more from Ray. You referenced wanting to be an album artist. What were some of the albums that you grew up on that were like the bedrocks for you? Like the ones that were like the perfect records for you?
00:14:35
Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys, The Diary of Alicia 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.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: Nice.
00:14:53
Speaker 2: 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 it just blew my mind watching me you know she's like she's talking about cctv and and people watching her like as she's just gone to the shop to buy some double or triple a batteries she's like checking to see where I go who I be how where with who I make my money what is this excuse me, miss, may I have your telephone number and your social security? She's like, who, me? It's just 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, yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: 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 would also explain it a lot too. Like that kind of being able to where it's like, are you talking? Are you singing? Kind of doing both. So fire.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Jill is a queen at that, isn't it?
00:16:15
Speaker 1: And then sometimes she'll be doing that and then just take off. What? Whoa, okay, I forgot who I was listening to.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know, with her. I love her style of, you feel like anything can happen. I mean, it doesn't feel too perfect. It just feels so authentic. And I've always loved that about her, the way she sings and performs as well.
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too, growing up?
00:16:40
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 Weeknd, Party Next Door, you know that era we all had where we're all like, oh my God.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: Going up on a Tuesday.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: The Weeknd's first album was, was a big one. The trilogy.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker 2: But in terms of like hip hop, I don't know. We're kind of exposed to some different stuff. I was exposed to a lot growing up and like different family members as well.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: Did you say you had an Uncle Jose? Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: He's actually lives in America. So my mom and my uncle were both raised in Ghana when they're about 22, 23, mom 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 Mac book, where I used to start making sessions on garage band and stuff like that when I was about 13, no for my 13th birthday. Yeah, and so I started making a lot of demos on there and it really helped spark my passion for production, 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 candid, but he did have a song stolen from him that turned out to be really successful. But, you know, there's a lot of songwriters that 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. So it's so funny that I was a kid and I didn't even know this story. And I'm like, I just want to write music. So it's funny.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: You didn't know it at that time?
00:18:51
Speaker 2: 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 changed the lyrics to some terrible lyrics about snow falling and a Christmas song it was so bad.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: I like how that still sticks with you. That's gnawing at you so much. Like I'm a fraud.
00:19:35
Speaker 2: Plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters, some songwriters do that. Or it's sampling essentially.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a way to get started, you know, like copy a bit and make it your own.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: Take a melody and just change the lyrics.
00:19:47
Speaker 1: So you can figure out how to do a whole class.
00:19:51
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the blood. 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 downstairs. used to lead worship. So I grew up watching and listening to music being sung every Sunday.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: And like in a church where you grew up, what was leading worship like? What did that entail?
00:20:09
Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a big church, like maybe 40 or 50 people, you know. In a church in Tooting, in South London, where I grew up. And my mum and dad would just sing.
00:20:22
Speaker 1: It sounded like a gospel choir kind of thing.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: No, it's not big in, like, you know, in America, you guys have amazing, like, huge production setups, like, amazing music. You know, this is very, like, down to earth. From the heart. Do you know what I mean? Very....
00:20:40
Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God. Mainline in the gospel.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: You know, come as you are, mate.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Did you listen to much gospel?
00:20:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, growing up was a lot of Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin and some amazing music I was exposed to from a really young age. And the thing 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, seven. I'm like, this is serious practice.
00:21:24
Speaker 1: Oh, for real. It's for real.
00:21:25
Speaker 2: It's not a joke.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: No, it's great. I want to go back now. So you have a few songs for My 21st Century Blues. You're still with Polydor. You kind of get in the run around. What happens next?
00:21:37
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 21st Century Blues kind of got put on the back burner. And I was working on a record. I needed to hand in songs 115 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 like Black Mascara, which I put on my 21st 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 wasn't 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'm a musician. Like, look, I'm writing for this person. Like, are you proud of me yet? Like, I was just so desperate.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: And who were you writing for at that time?
00:23:09
Speaker 2: 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. Yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: 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 see, we'll try something here or what was.
00:23:49
Speaker 2: Zero strategy and planning went into that moment, I'll 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. I 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 pretending I 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'd just moved house and I was in my room. It didn't have a bed in it, so I just remember being 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. 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.
00:25:19
Speaker 2: By everything I put to my name. She would be like, ew, get her out of my face. I was like, what have I become? And I said, no, no, no. And I just let it rip.
00:25:34
Speaker 1: That's a very Nina Simone thing to do, let it rip. I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose as the story goes from that tweet, you guys work something out, so they let you go. Does that go back to that clause, the key man?
00:25:44
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.
00:26:31
Speaker 1: And 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.
00:26:38
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 that 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? You know, I just got so ridiculously lucky and escapism receiving so much attention on TikTok and then all of a sudden it 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.
00:27:23
Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Oh, completely. But I was also so happy because I love that song. I remember when we put that out, I was like, 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 daddy, I was walking, 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, that'll never happen. Do you know what I mean? 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.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: Came to fruition.
00:28:10
Speaker 2: Wild.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: Did you write that song in Utah? Yeah.
00:28:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
00:28:13
Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
00:28:15
Speaker 2: We took a road trip.
00:28:17
Speaker 1: Another road trip.
00:28:17
Speaker 2: I like a road trip.
00:28:18
Speaker 1: Those are good for you.
00:28:19
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 people there or whatever, it can be distracting. And you can be like, someone will be 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.
00:28:38
Speaker 1: Had you been to Utah?
00:28:40
Speaker 2: Never.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: No. No.
00:28:41
Speaker 2: Well, the two people I went with are good at skiing. I'm not very good at skiing. I've only skied once before in the school trip. I decided to join them for skiing in between riding. And it was a disaster. These two are like cross-country, like off-piste mountain freaking skiers, yeah? They're like, don't worry, we'll stay together. We'll go slow. It's not encouraging. I'm not going to do it. No, I took a wrong turn in. Black run. What? The only way is down this whatever foot drop. Absolutely not.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: What'd you do?
00:29:09
Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me like, you have to ski down. I was like, bitch, I ain't skiing down. I'm walking. She's like, Rachel. And there's all these like four-year-old kids like just gunning it down the hill.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: This isn't a drive.
00:29:23
Speaker 2: It took me about an hour to get down. It was hell. After that, I left them to it. I went to the campfire near the entrance and just made friends. But yeah, skiing, it's going to be a while before I go back there.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on that. Yeah.
00:29:36
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, Escapism, Body Dysmorphia. So those are my four titles. There was one or two more that we wrote, but that didn't make it.
00:30:03
Speaker 1: Environmental anxiety, speaking of the Nina Simone quote, an artist's duty is to reflect the times you're in.
00:30:08
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so intense.
00:30:10
Speaker 1: It's an intense song. It's so intense. How did you capture that so well?
00:30:14
Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring across. It was like a mountain and some trees. And we were like, wow, so beautiful. It 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, this, like, weird, like, sound. He'd, like, morphed his voice to sound like a chipmunk or whatever and he was just looping around and around and he was 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.
00:31:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't care.
00:31:02
Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a bow on it in like three minutes and 10 seconds. It's like, yo, wow. Like you kind of like distill all the anxieties of kind of our world at large and all the problems and issues and Boris Johnson's on coke.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: We all know it.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's true.
00:31:22
Speaker 2: Oh, come on.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: Seems like it's true.
00:31:24
Speaker 2: I saw this article, yeah, which is so funny. But they tested the sewage. I don't know who was testing the sewage of the Houses 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 for possession of smoking a little bit of weed on the street. Do you know what I mean? Putting them in jail for that. Meanwhile, you're all in there doing coke. It's just not fair.
00:31:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: None of it's fair, is it? Yeah.
00:31:52
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to us.
00:31:53
Speaker 2: I'm glad someone like you.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: Nah, mate.
00:31:54
Speaker 2: We've got to put all these things on blast. It's incorrect.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful song. So those are all voices on that intro, right?
00:31:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker 1: All those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated and then your voice. Mm-hmm. Incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
00:32:05
Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad or a synth or something as well, it's exciting, you know?
00:32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound. Your voice, like when it builds out like that.
00:32:13
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's gorgeous.
00:32:15
Speaker 1: 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. It's just like a cool thing to do in a song.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: I 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, me and my creative director were 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 sentence is first person. And I was like, you know, I like mixing it. Fuck it.
00:32:50
Speaker 1: You don't mind mixing tenses.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Why not?
00:32:52
Speaker 1: 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. Let's talk about Mary Jane a little bit. What made you choose that as a song title?
00:33:08
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 think especially because I was playing this like sweet little girl. pop artist 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.
00:33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: 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.
00:33:53
Speaker 1: Did your family kind of recognize what was going on?
00:33:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't really see them. 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 them. But yeah, there was just a period of time where I was fully on escapism vibes. Yeah, I mean, just 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. You know, I talk in the 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 what they say, it's, it's hard to close it.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you ever wary of, I mean, Mary Jane, escapism, body dysmorphia. Was there ever a part of you that felt like, maybe I don't want this on the, 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, like, I'm like, I don't know if I want to talk about this shit all the time. I just was like, how, did you ever feel worried about that? Do you, not do you regret it, but does ever a part of you feel like, damn, I don't know if I really want to, you know, it's like, You know what I think?
00:35:25
Speaker 2: I think it's a conscious choice you have to make as an artist. Like, what kind of artist 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... It 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 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. I mean, it's an interesting thing. choice I've made. And definitely there are days where it's like, damn, I really just did a lot. And days 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 artist I want to be, even though it's not always easy. Does that make sense?
00:36:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it kind of does make you a real writer in a way, in 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 in 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 it's.
00:37:01
Speaker 2: It's difficult but also it's what you feel comfortable or what your purpose is yeah 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 you a 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 provides 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.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: But it's definitely not an easy thing to do.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Was Ice Cream Man, was that a difficult song to record and to.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, without a doubt.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker 2: Definitely. The whole... Yeah. That one's deep. It's just deep.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:22
Speaker 2: 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. I try 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 50s and she sent me this long, beautiful message. It was a 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. It even brings tears 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 been saying about her whole life. There are so many of us out here dealing with things, carrying things, holding things. There's no instruction manual on what to do. This is where music is like medicine and provides a space of healing or reflection. So as trick is that song is for me on the worst of 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 moved.
00:39:49
Speaker 1: Do you perform this song.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah i do no sometimes it's sad sometimes i do cry a lot sometimes i 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.
00:40:52
Speaker 1: You have a new single genesis and it's really great but um When it started, I was like, okay, all right. And then 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 like, oh, shoot. I was a little worried. I was like, is she still in a bath?
00:41:15
Speaker 2: What's going on?
00:41:16
Speaker 1: And by the end, I'm like, oh, shit. It feels like I'm in Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Oh. And it's like, the lyric is, what's the lyric about light? Like, let in light in.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Let there be light, yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker 1: Let there be light. And it feels maybe more like where your life is now than some of the album, you know. I don't know if that feels true to you.
00:41:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the plan is we'll put out the full seven minutes and then the week after, kind of split them into three different songs. So you have Genesis 1, which is that kind of really sad reflection in the mirror, depressing conversation with yourself, song one. 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 and making sure that it said what it needed to say I wanted it to be cutting and and Again, honest, and I wanted to talk about themes of, you know, suicide, 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.
00:42:46
Speaker 1: Suicide? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:42:48
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people just, as we know, fighting a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a song that felt like if you are going through anything like that or you do feel in any sort of way burdened or like you're going through 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 anyone 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 I love or people I don't even know going through or need from this song. So it's quite a deep one.
00:43:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is. I'm so grateful you left us with the hopefulness at the end.
00:43:45
Speaker 2: We needed some hope at the end. We absolutely needed some hope. I'm so grateful you left us with that.
00:43:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, man. How are you going to do that live?
00:43:53
Speaker 2: Well, look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many, many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective, we're working that out. But, you know, who needs to make loads of money? Like, who needs to do that?
00:44:09
Speaker 1: Sure.
00:44:09
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
00:44:10
Speaker 1: Travel with the big band. Bring them out. You worked with Dark Child on the single? I did, yeah. I love Dark Child.
00:44:17
Speaker 2: Rodney, man.
00:44:18
Speaker 1: How did you hook up with Rodney?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was a kid, like, my first trip to L.A. when I was about 17 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 ringer on this song.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
00:44:54
Speaker 2: Oh my God. I call 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 not have that kind of distracting. And he'd be like, okay, okay. So we try out different things and then we go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then it was like, finally, yes, we got it. So we took the original drum and made it like 20% in volume and then played this new one over the top. So you still get that.
00:45:32
Speaker 1: Whatever.
00:45:32
Speaker 2: 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 20. And we stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it, put it down an octave and then played a synth 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, like, Bonnie, we need her. I'll call him and be like, hi, Ray. Hey, so I was just thinking that we need a new verse too, 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 gonna come out, because I think we need a more softer texture on verse one, because the lyric's already so hard that you need some softness around it. 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 gonna be some changes in the vinyl seven inch version that we printed to what you're hearing now Rodney's such a G. He's a legend. He's one of the best in the game. He's just constantly leveling up, creating music that just stands the test of time, whatever.
00:46:54
Speaker 1: Some of the best singers, Janet, Tony Braxton. I mean, come on. I mean, just everywhere. The greatest singers he's worked with. As an album artist, do you have a sense of what you want to do next?
00:47:07
Speaker 2: I'd like to make an album.
00:47:08
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Feeling it out? Do you have a goal that I want it to be by boom?
00:47:15
Speaker 2: It just has to be good by my own standard. And I think I'll need to live a little bit to make a really good album. Otherwise, I'm just going to 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 at such an amazing place right now that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming? I'm like, fucking hell, like, damn, like, 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. Otherwise, what's the point? Do you know what I mean? Got to be levelling up.
00:48:06
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. Aw, thanks. It was great talking to you.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: No luck, guys.
00:48:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, 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 Ray songs at brokenrecordpodcast.com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast 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 Toleday. 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 $ 4. 99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast 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. To close out the year at Broken Record, we've been revisiting some of our favorite conversations from years past. We started a couple of weeks ago with Patti Smith and Raphael Sadiq. This week, we're revisiting a conversation with English pop singer-songwriter Ray. Ray just won the Mercury Prize over the weekend for his sophomore release, This Album May Contain Hope, which featured the huge single, Where's My Husband? But this conversation covers her debut album, My 21st Century Blues, which won Album of the Year and a historic total six wins at the 2024 Brit Awards. In our chat, we discuss how a quote from Nina Simone gave her the courage to take control of her career, and she explains the inspiration behind her sprawling multi-part single, Genesis. This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richmond. 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.
00:01:11
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. It's something I'm not used to out here.
00:01:27
Speaker 1: What felt different about that crowd?
00:01:29
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 anyway is 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.
00:01:59
Speaker 1: This wasn't a case of you getting your music out to a bunch of people at a festival. It was like, those were, people are like now converted. Like people are Ray fans.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I do have a habit during, during shows of really overanalyzing everyone's faces. I feel like at the beginning of the set, I was like, right. 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 say she needs to stop talking but I 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 up you know people going from stern face or just like watching with no expression to being like, oh, okay. Or do you know what I mean? You're like wave and they're doing it. And you're like, okay, cool. Like, you know.
00:03:05
Speaker 1: Have you discovered little things that you can do over the course of a set to maybe like reliably win people over?
00:03:12
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 the 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 backstory behind whatever this song is about or this moment.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: So you don't script your stage banter at all? No.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: So sometimes I'll be like, Oh my God, why did I just say that out loud?
00:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you halfway through talking, you'd be like, what am I saying now? What's going on?
00:03:57
Speaker 2: There is a lot of that.
00:03:58
Speaker 1: Where am I going with this?
00:03:59
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.
00:04:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. The way the album came about was kind of circuitous. It wasn't a situation where you were at a label. It basically, there was a lot of roadblocks. And if you want to just, I guess, walk us through some of those.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not necessarily been a simple 10 years to get to this moment. You know, I was about 17 when I signed my deal and I was with a record label for seven years. And I think... Polydor.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Can we name them?
00:04:38
Speaker 2: No, I mean... I.
00:04:39
Speaker 1: Mean, I think it's on the record, right?
00:04:43
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 14 is when I really took it seriously and I was doing sessions after 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 kind of the songwriting thing.
00:05:18
Speaker 1: And, um, how did that change your songwriting as a young, like when you're 14, I imagine you're coming to a pretty pure, like just probably just wanting to express and create. Yeah. And then you're realizing there's like a formula. Did that change your songwriting?
00:05:30
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, Ooh, I did a lot of songwriting in Sweden. There's some incredible pop 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, 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. 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 a 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.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: And you could take whatever criticism that would come with a version one.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: A hundred percent. 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'd be like, I'm going to make this song, I'm 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, um, what my label at the time wanted from me and the goal was selling opposed to the art itself.
00:07:09
Speaker 1: Did you know that going in or was that kind of a, were you blindsided a bit by that?
00:07:13
Speaker 2: Oh no, of course not.
00:07:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:07:14
Speaker 2: Nobody does.
00:07:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:07:17
Speaker 2: It's a real thing. You know, that moment before you put pen on paper, everyone is so nice. They take you for dinners. They sell you a whole lot of lovely things. dreams and and promises like some of the things I was like 16 years old when I started doing the rounds and some of the things I heard oh my god I'm not even gonna repeat on here because but it's wild what did you hear what 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 us 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 know people will say anything to get you to put your name on that piece of paper. When you're 16 years old from South London and you're like in America doing meetings with these big, huge people, it can absolutely just muddle your brain up and false hope and a lot of lies.
00:08:19
Speaker 1: A lot of air.
00:08:21
Speaker 2: So it's real. I was like, rah, this place is dark.
00:08:26
Speaker 1: How quickly after you put pen to paper did you realize, uh-oh, I just got bamboozled?
00:08:33
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 change pretty quickly after that.
00:08:47
Speaker 1: That's a pretty common thing. story too, I feel like I hear.
00:08:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
00:08:50
Speaker 1: Your support structure leaves and then you're kind of left.
00:08:53
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 17.
00:09:15
Speaker 1: To what extent were you happy with the early phases and stages of your career like those first from like 16 17 to you know a couple of years ago only a few years.
00:09:25
Speaker 2: Ago 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 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.
00:09:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: 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 albums 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 so.
00:10:26
Speaker 1: Yeah When did your debut album start coming together? When did you record that?
00:10:31
Speaker 2: I would say maybe about four or five years ago. Some of the earliest songs started coming together.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: What were the first few?
00:10:40
Speaker 2: Oscar winning 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 2018 or something. It said my 21st century blues.
00:11:11
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: So the title and the ideas were forming for a while.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember why that title came to you? Why that phrase came to you?
00:11:21
Speaker 2: I don't know completely. What I do know is when I was a kid, I was about 14 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 or we ended somewhere. And we drove all through Nashville. We drove through New Orleans and Louisiana. We like did a 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'd listen to a lot of gospel and some of the great, amazing singers, but there was so much music and genres I'd 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 150 people come into 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. I'm literally sat there like wide-eyed, just like, what is this? 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 itself. And how, you know, we go to these bars and you've got people playing this. I'd be like. When I was a little boy. I went to school one day. And then I sat on a chair. I had my teacher say. Do you know what I mean? These stories and each one was different. It was the same riff and just all these stories.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: So this is their blues. And I was like, this is deep. And they're deep stories, moving stories, very honest and transparent and clear and beautiful. And I fell in love. I always had this idea of I wanted to make whatever my version of the blues is, even though it's not necessarily that genre. It's that candidness.
00:13:37
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 attitude, a backbone to this album for sure that runs through it.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:13:49
Speaker 1: And I love the book ends. It's like, as you put it on, it's like you're being transported to like a smoky jazz club.
00:13:57
Speaker 2: Come on.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And by the time it ends, you're right back there and you're almost ready to play right over again.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: It's amazing to hear that that stuck with you and that that made it that far from a childhood road trip across the 10 through from LA to New Orleans and up, that that stayed with you all these years.
00:14:13
Speaker 2: It really did.
00:14:15
Speaker 1: After a quick break, we'll be back with more of my conversation with Ray. We're back with more from Ray. You referenced wanting to be an album artist. What were some of the albums that you grew up on that were like the bedrocks for you? Like the ones that were like the perfect records for you?
00:14:35
Speaker 2: My goodness. The first two albums that played such an important part in my childhood was Alicia Keys, The Diary of Alicia 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.
00:14:52
Speaker 1: Nice.
00:14:53
Speaker 2: 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 it just blew my mind watching me you know she's like she's talking about cctv and and people watching her like as she's just gone to the shop to buy some double or triple a batteries she's like checking to see where I go who I be how where with who I make my money what is this excuse me, miss, may I have your telephone number and your social security? She's like, who, me? It's just 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, yeah.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: 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 would also explain it a lot too. Like that kind of being able to where it's like, are you talking? Are you singing? Kind of doing both. So fire.
00:16:13
Speaker 2: Jill is a queen at that, isn't it?
00:16:15
Speaker 1: And then sometimes she'll be doing that and then just take off. What? Whoa, okay, I forgot who I was listening to.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: And it's also so free, you know, with her. I love her style of, you feel like anything can happen. I mean, it doesn't feel too perfect. It just feels so authentic. And I've always loved that about her, the way she sings and performs as well.
00:16:37
Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you listening to a lot of hip hop too, growing up?
00:16:40
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 Weeknd, Party Next Door, you know that era we all had where we're all like, oh my God.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: Going up on a Tuesday.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:58
Speaker 2: The Weeknd's first album was, was a big one. The trilogy.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:01
Speaker 2: But in terms of like hip hop, I don't know. We're kind of exposed to some different stuff. I was exposed to a lot growing up and like different family members as well.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: Did you say you had an Uncle Jose? Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker 2: He's actually lives in America. So my mom and my uncle were both raised in Ghana when they're about 22, 23, mom 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 Mac book, where I used to start making sessions on garage band and stuff like that when I was about 13, no for my 13th birthday. Yeah, and so I started making a lot of demos on there and it really helped spark my passion for production, 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 candid, but he did have a song stolen from him that turned out to be really successful. But, you know, there's a lot of songwriters that 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. So it's so funny that I was a kid and I didn't even know this story. And I'm like, I just want to write music. So it's funny.
00:18:50
Speaker 1: You didn't know it at that time?
00:18:51
Speaker 2: 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 changed the lyrics to some terrible lyrics about snow falling and a Christmas song it was so bad.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: I like how that still sticks with you. That's gnawing at you so much. Like I'm a fraud.
00:19:35
Speaker 2: Plagiarism. But then I realized that's what songwriters, some songwriters do that. Or it's sampling essentially.
00:19:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a way to get started, you know, like copy a bit and make it your own.
00:19:46
Speaker 2: Take a melody and just change the lyrics.
00:19:47
Speaker 1: So you can figure out how to do a whole class.
00:19:51
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's always been in the blood. 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 downstairs. used to lead worship. So I grew up watching and listening to music being sung every Sunday.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: And like in a church where you grew up, what was leading worship like? What did that entail?
00:20:09
Speaker 2: It was like, I don't know, like it's not a big church, like maybe 40 or 50 people, you know. In a church in Tooting, in South London, where I grew up. And my mum and dad would just sing.
00:20:22
Speaker 1: It sounded like a gospel choir kind of thing.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: No, it's not big in, like, you know, in America, you guys have amazing, like, huge production setups, like, amazing music. You know, this is very, like, down to earth. From the heart. Do you know what I mean? Very....
00:20:40
Speaker 1: Direct from you guys to God. Mainline in the gospel.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: You know, come as you are, mate.
00:20:50
Speaker 1: Did you listen to much gospel?
00:20:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, growing up was a lot of Kirk Franklin and Donnie McClurkin and some amazing music I was exposed to from a really young age. And the thing 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, seven. I'm like, this is serious practice.
00:21:24
Speaker 1: Oh, for real. It's for real.
00:21:25
Speaker 2: It's not a joke.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: No, it's great. I want to go back now. So you have a few songs for My 21st Century Blues. You're still with Polydor. You kind of get in the run around. What happens next?
00:21:37
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 21st Century Blues kind of got put on the back burner. And I was working on a record. I needed to hand in songs 115 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 like Black Mascara, which I put on my 21st 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 wasn't 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'm a musician. Like, look, I'm writing for this person. Like, are you proud of me yet? Like, I was just so desperate.
00:23:07
Speaker 1: And who were you writing for at that time?
00:23:09
Speaker 2: 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. Yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: 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 see, we'll try something here or what was.
00:23:49
Speaker 2: Zero strategy and planning went into that moment, I'll 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. I 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 pretending I 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'd just moved house and I was in my room. It didn't have a bed in it, so I just remember being 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. 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.
00:25:19
Speaker 2: By everything I put to my name. She would be like, ew, get her out of my face. I was like, what have I become? And I said, no, no, no. And I just let it rip.
00:25:34
Speaker 1: That's a very Nina Simone thing to do, let it rip. I mean, thankfully it all worked out. I suppose as the story goes from that tweet, you guys work something out, so they let you go. Does that go back to that clause, the key man?
00:25:44
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.
00:26:31
Speaker 1: And 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.
00:26:38
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 that 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? You know, I just got so ridiculously lucky and escapism receiving so much attention on TikTok and then all of a sudden it 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.
00:27:23
Speaker 1: Were you shocked by the reception of Escapism?
00:27:26
Speaker 2: Oh, completely. But I was also so happy because I love that song. I remember when we put that out, I was like, 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 daddy, I was walking, 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, that'll never happen. Do you know what I mean? 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.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: Came to fruition.
00:28:10
Speaker 2: Wild.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: Did you write that song in Utah? Yeah.
00:28:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
00:28:13
Speaker 1: What's the story on that?
00:28:15
Speaker 2: We took a road trip.
00:28:17
Speaker 1: Another road trip.
00:28:17
Speaker 2: I like a road trip.
00:28:18
Speaker 1: Those are good for you.
00:28:19
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 people there or whatever, it can be distracting. And you can be like, someone will be 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.
00:28:38
Speaker 1: Had you been to Utah?
00:28:40
Speaker 2: Never.
00:28:40
Speaker 1: No. No.
00:28:41
Speaker 2: Well, the two people I went with are good at skiing. I'm not very good at skiing. I've only skied once before in the school trip. I decided to join them for skiing in between riding. And it was a disaster. These two are like cross-country, like off-piste mountain freaking skiers, yeah? They're like, don't worry, we'll stay together. We'll go slow. It's not encouraging. I'm not going to do it. No, I took a wrong turn in. Black run. What? The only way is down this whatever foot drop. Absolutely not.
00:29:09
Speaker 1: What'd you do?
00:29:09
Speaker 2: And my friend's screaming at me like, you have to ski down. I was like, bitch, I ain't skiing down. I'm walking. She's like, Rachel. And there's all these like four-year-old kids like just gunning it down the hill.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: This isn't a drive.
00:29:23
Speaker 2: It took me about an hour to get down. It was hell. After that, I left them to it. I went to the campfire near the entrance and just made friends. But yeah, skiing, it's going to be a while before I go back there.
00:29:34
Speaker 1: Maybe take some time on that. Yeah.
00:29:36
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, Escapism, Body Dysmorphia. So those are my four titles. There was one or two more that we wrote, but that didn't make it.
00:30:03
Speaker 1: Environmental anxiety, speaking of the Nina Simone quote, an artist's duty is to reflect the times you're in.
00:30:08
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so intense.
00:30:10
Speaker 1: It's an intense song. It's so intense. How did you capture that so well?
00:30:14
Speaker 2: We booked a log cabin and we were staring across. It was like a mountain and some trees. And we were like, wow, so beautiful. It 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, this, like, weird, like, sound. He'd, like, morphed his voice to sound like a chipmunk or whatever and he was just looping around and around and he was 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.
00:31:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:00
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't care.
00:31:02
Speaker 1: You kind of sum it all up and put a bow on it in like three minutes and 10 seconds. It's like, yo, wow. Like you kind of like distill all the anxieties of kind of our world at large and all the problems and issues and Boris Johnson's on coke.
00:31:20
Speaker 2: We all know it.
00:31:21
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's true.
00:31:22
Speaker 2: Oh, come on.
00:31:23
Speaker 1: Seems like it's true.
00:31:24
Speaker 2: I saw this article, yeah, which is so funny. But they tested the sewage. I don't know who was testing the sewage of the Houses 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 for possession of smoking a little bit of weed on the street. Do you know what I mean? Putting them in jail for that. Meanwhile, you're all in there doing coke. It's just not fair.
00:31:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:31:50
Speaker 2: None of it's fair, is it? Yeah.
00:31:52
Speaker 1: But I'm glad you're speaking to us.
00:31:53
Speaker 2: I'm glad someone like you.
00:31:54
Speaker 1: Nah, mate.
00:31:54
Speaker 2: We've got to put all these things on blast. It's incorrect.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: And it's a beautiful song. So those are all voices on that intro, right?
00:31:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:32:00
Speaker 1: All those sounds, it's all a voice manipulated and then your voice. Mm-hmm. Incredible. You harmonize with yourself really well.
00:32:05
Speaker 2: I love harmonies. When a voice can become a pad or a synth or something as well, it's exciting, you know?
00:32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really gorgeous sound. Your voice, like when it builds out like that.
00:32:13
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's gorgeous.
00:32:15
Speaker 1: 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. It's just like a cool thing to do in a song.
00:32:26
Speaker 2: I 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, me and my creative director were 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 sentence is first person. And I was like, you know, I like mixing it. Fuck it.
00:32:50
Speaker 1: You don't mind mixing tenses.
00:32:51
Speaker 2: Why not?
00:32:52
Speaker 1: 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. Let's talk about Mary Jane a little bit. What made you choose that as a song title?
00:33:08
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 think especially because I was playing this like sweet little girl. pop artist 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.
00:33:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker 2: 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.
00:33:53
Speaker 1: Did your family kind of recognize what was going on?
00:33:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't really see them. 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 them. But yeah, there was just a period of time where I was fully on escapism vibes. Yeah, I mean, just 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. You know, I talk in the 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 what they say, it's, it's hard to close it.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Were you ever wary of, I mean, Mary Jane, escapism, body dysmorphia. Was there ever a part of you that felt like, maybe I don't want this on the, 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, like, I'm like, I don't know if I want to talk about this shit all the time. I just was like, how, did you ever feel worried about that? Do you, not do you regret it, but does ever a part of you feel like, damn, I don't know if I really want to, you know, it's like, You know what I think?
00:35:25
Speaker 2: I think it's a conscious choice you have to make as an artist. Like, what kind of artist 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... It 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 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. I mean, it's an interesting thing. choice I've made. And definitely there are days where it's like, damn, I really just did a lot. And days 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 artist I want to be, even though it's not always easy. Does that make sense?
00:36:39
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it kind of does make you a real writer in a way, in 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 in 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 it's.
00:37:01
Speaker 2: It's difficult but also it's what you feel comfortable or what your purpose is yeah 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 you a 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 provides 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.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: But it's definitely not an easy thing to do.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Was Ice Cream Man, was that a difficult song to record and to.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, without a doubt.
00:38:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:16
Speaker 2: Definitely. The whole... Yeah. That one's deep. It's just deep.
00:38:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:38:22
Speaker 2: 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. I try 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 50s and she sent me this long, beautiful message. It was a 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. It even brings tears 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 been saying about her whole life. There are so many of us out here dealing with things, carrying things, holding things. There's no instruction manual on what to do. This is where music is like medicine and provides a space of healing or reflection. So as trick is that song is for me on the worst of 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 moved.
00:39:49
Speaker 1: Do you perform this song.
00:39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah i do no sometimes it's sad sometimes i do cry a lot sometimes i 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.
00:40:52
Speaker 1: You have a new single genesis and it's really great but um When it started, I was like, okay, all right. And then 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 like, oh, shoot. I was a little worried. I was like, is she still in a bath?
00:41:15
Speaker 2: What's going on?
00:41:16
Speaker 1: And by the end, I'm like, oh, shit. It feels like I'm in Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Oh. And it's like, the lyric is, what's the lyric about light? Like, let in light in.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Let there be light, yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker 1: Let there be light. And it feels maybe more like where your life is now than some of the album, you know. I don't know if that feels true to you.
00:41:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the plan is we'll put out the full seven minutes and then the week after, kind of split them into three different songs. So you have Genesis 1, which is that kind of really sad reflection in the mirror, depressing conversation with yourself, song one. 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 and making sure that it said what it needed to say I wanted it to be cutting and and Again, honest, and I wanted to talk about themes of, you know, suicide, 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.
00:42:46
Speaker 1: Suicide? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:42:48
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people just, as we know, fighting a lot of stuff. I wanted to create a song that felt like if you are going through anything like that or you do feel in any sort of way burdened or like you're going through 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 anyone 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 I love or people I don't even know going through or need from this song. So it's quite a deep one.
00:43:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is. I'm so grateful you left us with the hopefulness at the end.
00:43:45
Speaker 2: We needed some hope at the end. We absolutely needed some hope. I'm so grateful you left us with that.
00:43:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, man. How are you going to do that live?
00:43:53
Speaker 2: Well, look, in my dream scenario, there will always be many, many musicians on the stage. From a cost efficiency perspective, we're working that out. But, you know, who needs to make loads of money? Like, who needs to do that?
00:44:09
Speaker 1: Sure.
00:44:09
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
00:44:10
Speaker 1: Travel with the big band. Bring them out. You worked with Dark Child on the single? I did, yeah. I love Dark Child.
00:44:17
Speaker 2: Rodney, man.
00:44:18
Speaker 1: How did you hook up with Rodney?
00:44:19
Speaker 2: That's my bro. I actually met him when I was a kid, like, my first trip to L.A. when I was about 17 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 ringer on this song.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
00:44:54
Speaker 2: Oh my God. I call 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 not have that kind of distracting. And he'd be like, okay, okay. So we try out different things and then we go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then it was like, finally, yes, we got it. So we took the original drum and made it like 20% in volume and then played this new one over the top. So you still get that.
00:45:32
Speaker 1: Whatever.
00:45:32
Speaker 2: 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 20. And we stacked and stacked and stacked, vocally manipulated it, put it down an octave and then played a synth 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, like, Bonnie, we need her. I'll call him and be like, hi, Ray. Hey, so I was just thinking that we need a new verse too, 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 gonna come out, because I think we need a more softer texture on verse one, because the lyric's already so hard that you need some softness around it. 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 gonna be some changes in the vinyl seven inch version that we printed to what you're hearing now Rodney's such a G. He's a legend. He's one of the best in the game. He's just constantly leveling up, creating music that just stands the test of time, whatever.
00:46:54
Speaker 1: Some of the best singers, Janet, Tony Braxton. I mean, come on. I mean, just everywhere. The greatest singers he's worked with. As an album artist, do you have a sense of what you want to do next?
00:47:07
Speaker 2: I'd like to make an album.
00:47:08
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Feeling it out? Do you have a goal that I want it to be by boom?
00:47:15
Speaker 2: It just has to be good by my own standard. And I think I'll need to live a little bit to make a really good album. Otherwise, I'm just going to 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 at such an amazing place right now that everyone's like, oh, well, when's the next shit coming? I'm like, fucking hell, like, damn, like, 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. Otherwise, what's the point? Do you know what I mean? Got to be levelling up.
00:48:06
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. Aw, thanks. It was great talking to you.
00:48:14
Speaker 2: No luck, guys.
00:48:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, 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 Ray songs at brokenrecordpodcast.com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast 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 Toleday. 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 $ 4. 99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast 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.
