A Conversation with Brian Ray – HuffPost 8.30.10

Mike Ragogna: Brian, your man Rob Christie says you have a new single.

Brian Ray: I sure do, it’s called “I Found You.” It’s on Sony Icon, and it’s digitally distributed wherever digital music is sold. It’s also available on my site, www.brianray.com, right now.

MR: Apparently, you’ve toured for a few years with some guy named…Paul McCartney was it?

BR: You may have heard of him before. He’s an up-and-coming artist, and he was in a band I heard a long time ago called Wings. It seems as though he might have been in another band, though I can’t recall what its name was.

MR: Is this guy any good?

BR: This guy is still writing the best songs on the planet and singing like a demon.

MR: Are you on the road right now?

BR: We’re out on a national and beyond tour at the moment, and the reviews have been off the hook. He’s doing a nearly three-hour show containing nearly twenty-three Beatles songs. The balance of the thirty-seven songs in the show would be from Wings and from solo work. He’s singing like a crazy man. He goes from “Helter Skelter” to “Yesterday” back to back. It’s just an insane thing to witness, and we’re having a lot of fun out there.

MR: I can’t imagine being a guitar player that plays an energized three-hour show almost every other night.

BR: Yeah, I’d say it averages out to about three days a week, sometimes four.

MR: So, the callous factor must be immense.

BR: Yup, I’ve got blisters on me fingers!

MR: (laughs) Of course, let’s talk about some of your flashier gigs. You played the Roman Coliseum?

BR: Yeah, we played inside the Coliseum in Rome, and no rock band has ever done that before. So, that was pretty stunning. Then, the next night, we played outside with the Coliseum as our backdrop, lit up by us, and that was a free concert for five hundred thousand people. That was one of the most stunning shows that I think we’ve ever played.

MR: Do tell more.

BR: Mexico City has always been one of our favorites to play. The Hollywood Bowl was a stunning event. We played two nights there, the second night of which was one of our favorite shows ever. We’ve played Fenway, the new City Field, and both were just stunning shows. I think the most exciting for us, recently, was playing in the White House, in the East wing for the first family while Paul was getting the Gershwin prize for popular songwriting.

MR: When was that?

BR: That was just a few weeks ago.

MR: Was President Obama happy that he was there?

BR: You know, the guy needed a break. Let’s just face it, the guy has not had an easy go of it lately. He was having a really nice time taking a three-hour break from his long days in the White House. He was sitting six feet away from me, in the front row, and the front row was two feet away from the stage. Literally, thirty-nine inches from the edge of the stage, there he was. And Michelle and the kids and a lot of the dignitaries, senators, and congressmen were there to make up a crowd of about two hundred, or so. As a band, we also got to back up Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Faith Hill, Emmylou Harris, The Jonas Brothers, and several others. It was just a magical evening, to be honest with you.

MR: How did Vice-President Joe Biden like it?

BR: Joe wasn’t in the room.

MR: What?

BR: I think they have to split the team up whenever he’s appearing, just to keep continuity in the government.

MR: Like Cheney, when he had to go to a bunker just in case?

BR: I think that Cheney had to stay in the bunker because maybe there was some heart equipment that he had to stay near, I don’t know.

MR: Or maybe it was to hide him from those nasty Google satellites that couldn’t verify his address.

BR: That could be it. It was something like that.

MR: I’ll never forget when Lynne Cheney ended up on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. She brought a little statue of Darth Vader, I guess she thought that would be humorous in some way, acknowledging that Jon used to call him The Dark Lord. So, as she sits down, she plops it on his desk, and without missing a beat, Jon grabs the doll, throws it under his desk, and begins the interview.

BR: (laughs) Jon Stewart is so funny, I must say. He’s brilliant, and he’s a guy that goes on almost any subject. He’s just a very interesting, smart guy.

MR: My favorite on the planet. Now, you also played a concert in Moscow’s Red Square, right?

BR: Oh yeah, that was a big one. There have been just so many of them, I sometimes can’t recall them all. But that was a big one as well.

MR: Another thing that the audience should know is that you not only have the aforementioned single, but also a new album called This Way Up.

BR: Yes, I sure do. It’s available right now for pre-order on my site, www.brianray.com. I’m actually carrying along with me some limited edition signed CDs to the upcoming Paul McCartney shows because Paul has generously invited me to sell them at our merchandise stands. So, if you’re coming to one of our upcoming shows, you will see my new CD there, and each one of them is signed for ten bucks.

MR: Signed, sealed, delivered, I love it.

BR: That’s it. But it’s a really fun new record, and I had a great time making it in one of L.A.’s coolest studios with some fantastic players. This album has two guys from Elvis Costello’s band. Abe Jr., Paul’s drummer, is on four or five songs, and he co-wrote one. Oliver Leiber–who is the son of Jerry Leiber of Leiber and Stoller–has been writing with me. There are just some great players on there, and it was recorded in a fantastic studio using the world’s best gear. And we had the best mixing engineer mastering it. I think it’s really something to listen to, a great modern rock record, if I do say so myself.

MR: Hey, about this guy McCartney. Being in the inner circle the way you are, what have you observed about his creative process? When you witness it, what are you watching?

BR: Very interesting. Well, Paul is a guy who is living, breathing, eating, and drinking music. He always looks like he is on the verge of writing or singing or playing something new. As he walks from guitar to piano on stage, he’ll be whistling some melody that has just occurred to him. He’s really just a very active, vital musical force. It’s all going on for him. So, whenever he’s on any instrument, he’ll just start to goof off on the instrument. He’ll just start playing a little guitar line with a couple of chords and a basic rhythm, then his face just kind of spaces out, and he’s just following an idea, creating in the moment. Or on piano, at sound checks, we’ll be about to play a piano song, but he’ll just start tripping out on some little piano lick. Often times, the band will just join him and go on a journey with him to follow his little muse around. After eight years of playing together, we do that fairly well. It’s just a real joy to do that because you can feel how vital he is as a writing force.

MR: When you think about the things that people do with their time when they reach more mature ages, it’s amazing to see somebody who is an epitome of music still constantly in motion.

BR: It is a stunning thing. I’m a guy who, like all of us, is sort of awe struck by Paul, his accomplishments, his ability, and just his presence, to be honest with you. To be trusted by him, and taken in by him, and called back over all these years is a real honor. Honestly, he could have anybody he wants in the world playing guitar and bass like I do with him. But he’s chosen to call me back for eight years, and I’m just one of those lucky guys. It’s been an amazing journey.

MR: Speaking of journeys, you’ve also toured with people like Etta James and Smokey Robinson. And speaking of Smokey Robinson, you wrote one of his big hits, “One Heartbeat.”

BR: Yeah, I sure did. I co-wrote “One Heartbeat” with a friend of mine named Steve LeGassick who, by the way, co-wrote a song on my new record called, “Hey Miranda.” He’s a great songwriter, we just wrote this song about eight months ago together, and here it is, fresh on my record.

MR: “One Heartbeat” was a pretty huge hit. What’s its origin?

BR: Steve and I wrote that song together for Smokey. We pointed it straight at Smokey even though we had been discouraged by the producer saying, “You know, Smokey is a great writer on his own, he doesn’t really need any more songs.” Steve said, “Let’s do it anyway.” We sat down to write that song, and within two weeks, the song had been written and we had a demo of it. We handed it in on a Friday, and we got a call Sunday saying, “Brian, great song! Smokey loves it! We want to cut it Thursday. Bring in all of your stuff from the demo. We’re going to do it just like you did it.” So, I arranged the song for Smokey Robinson, and it was a giant hit on three formats for him. It’s now nearing three million (radio) plays at this time.

MR: It’s encouraging to hear stories that illustrate how determination makes the difference.

BR: On that subject, Mike, my deal is that I’m a self-taught blues-rock guitar player from Glendale, California. I didn’t graduate any music schools, and I don’t have any ungodly talents in that area. But I think what’s happened to me is that, yes, I’ve gotten opportunities, but the reason that I’ve been able to be in the position to have this job is because I’ve said “yes” to so many opportunities along the way that, at one point, I might have thought it would have been beneath me or not really what I had in mind. You know, I didn’t want to do that blues gig at the Jolly Roger bar. I didn’t want to do any of that stuff, but a better part of me said, “Just say yes, Brian.” I’ve had one opportunity after another just because I said yes, and that’s my message, man. That’s the reason that I’m the right guy for Paul, I guess. Because I just said “yes.”

MR: Nice. That coincides with a story about my old friend Rupert Holmes, who, of course, is famous for “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).” Now, he also had a great solo debut album and produced records for Barbara Streisand. By the way, he told me that he was afraid when he died that his tombstone was going to be a pineapple.

BR: (laughs) You’ve got to be careful what it is that you release. There are so many stories like that where people’s big hit was a novelty song.

MR: Exactly. Now, his point was that whatever success he’s had was because he always said “yes.” Whenever anyone would say, “Rupert could you…,” before they could finish the sentence he would say, “Yes.” That was his message. Some people have a hard time accepting opportunities because they aren’t hip enough, you know? But that’s the opportunity that came to you, looking for you, so how do you say “no”?

BR: Exactly, man. I mean, I said “yes” to a blues jam at The Jolly Roger for sixty bucks playing three sets. Even though I wanted to turn it down, something told me to say “yes,” and the drummer that night was Rita Coolidge’s drummer. At the end of the night, he said, “Hey, the guitar player with Rita can’t make the next gig, you want to come?” And I turned into her musical director for three or four years. It’s just been one series of events after another. Like with the Smokey Robinson thing; they told us not to bother, but we did it anyway. So, I really can’t say enough about just showing up even though you may think that it’s not the right thing for you. Woody Allen says that life and success is ninety percent just showing up.

MR: You’re right, it really is. It’s sad when it can be said about certain people, “You know, he just can’t take ‘yes’ for an answer.”

BR: (laughs) There you go. That’s so brilliant.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney