| |
 An an exclusive interview
with
Ray Wilson by
Josh Turner
JT: Hello.
RW: Hello Josh. Hi, it’s Ray here.
JT: Hi Ray.
RW: How are you?
JT: I’m
doing pretty good. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you ever since I heard
that new album of yours. It’s a great album.
RW: Well, that’s a good start. {we both
laugh}
JT: I’m
wondering, are you on any tours or concerts at this time?
RW: In Europe yes.
JT: In
Europe, okay. Is that going on right now?
RW: It starts actually in, um, in about nine
days.
JT: Okay.
RW: It’s all a bunch of stuff in the
Edinburgh festival, which is, uh, quite a big arts festival and then I’ve got a
couple of months doing the European tour.
JT: Ok,
where are you actually going on that tour?
RW: Within the European tour?
JT: Yeah.
RW: Um, Germany, Holland, Italy, the UK,
Belgium, Poland, um, England. I think that’s it.
JT: Wow,
that’s a lot of places. So, is that something you are looking forward to doing?
RW: Is what, sorry?
JT: Is that
something you are looking forward to doing?
RW: Um, ah, it is one of those things really
with touring. I mean, when you are a singer, you’ve got, it’s such a pain in the ass
job sometimes, because your always, you know, you’ve always got to be concerned
about the voice holding out and making sure that, uh, you know, you’re not doing too
much dairy products and not talking too much during the day, and, you know, so, it’s
actually, I find touring initially quite hard work, but you tend to find out after a
little while once, once the muscles in the throat get a bit stronger, and, uh, you
know, you can start to, uh, sit back and relax a little bit more, um, you know, once
you get familiar with everything, and, um, so, initially I find it quite difficult
or quite hard work, but that applies to every single tour I’ve ever done, um, and
then I really start to enjoy it and by the end of the tour I wish it hadn’t stopped.
{we laugh} That’s kind of what it’s like for me. I think if you are a guitarist it
is different.
JT: Exactly.
I also want to talk to you a little bit about that new album that you have. I think
it is amazing. I think you brought your talents to a whole new level. I just want to
talk about some of the songs on that album.
RW: Aha.
JT: First of
all, the opening song is just a great opener. The one These Are The Changes. Can you
explain how you came up with some of those ideas, what some of those sound bytes
are, that sort of thing?
 RW: Well it kind of, it started off really as
like a loop idea without the sound bytes. It was, you know, just, “these are the
changes the day brings us” and the music behind it, um, and I just, I basically put
it in the computer and looped it over and over again and I was thinking about what
to say or actually what I was trying to say and at the time when I was recording it,
I mean, the whole Iraq thing, you know, which you know, uh, covered the TV screens
here in the UK and obviously in America too for what seems like ever, you know. It’s
either 9/11 or Iraq, um, and, you know, I was watching that and especially, I think
how unpopular George Bush is in this part of the world, you know, uh, and in Europe
too. In the Europe countries he is such an unpopular president, um, over here and I
don’t know. It just got me thinking about, uh, about that type of thing, you know,
and I took some sound bytes, and, uh, obviously from different years and different
presidents, uh, some who were definitely better than others, um, and put the song
together and the song is basically talking about the futility of war and, uh,
questioning it really. That’s, it doesn’t voice an opinion, it allows you to voice
your own opinion. I guess.
JT: Yeah, I
mean, it really strikes a nerve. It really gets the point across.
RW: Well, yeah, I mean, I hope so. That was
what I was trying to do.
JT: Okay. I
find that every single song on that album is just great. Another that hits a nerve
with me is Magic Train. I’m wondering like what is the magic train? What’s that song
about?
RW: Magic Train I guess is the journey of
life is what it is, you know, um, the journey of life, which, you know, can be quite
magical and can be not magical, {he chuckles} um, so that’s what it is. It’s a
little bit obviously sounds a little bit, um, to me, it sounds a little bit Beatlesy
as well. There’s a bit of that Beatles feel about it within the song.
JT: Yeah.
IRW:
It’s just, it’s just that life’s a magic
train, you know, it’s hell and back again. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s
not. That’s what the song is basically about, you know.
JT: Is that
you playing the harmonica on it?
RW: Yes.
JT: Oh, wow.
Probably my favorite song on the album is the The Actor?
RW: Yeah.
JT: I think
it’s a cool song, especially how it breaks out in the middle part. Who is the actor?
What’s that song about?
RW: Well, it’s nothing really. It’s
fictional, um, but it does draw a parallel with my own career.
JT: Okay.
RW: It’s kind of personal, um, the story
really is the actor who is a theater actor, who goes out to his audience and there’s
not so many people in his audience anymore, you know, and he is trying to convince
himself that he’s still as good as he used to be when the theater was full and it’s,
uh, that’s the basic idea and obviously in my career I’ve worked with Stiltskin. It
was just very successful in Europe anyway and then with Genesis, you know, and then
it went down, and then Genesis, and then that went down and then my own career,
which is starting to go really well and again that roller coaster really and the
song is about dealing with that scenario emotionally.
JT: You
mentioned you’ve played the harmonica on there. What other instruments are you
playing on there? Did you bring some guests in or are you doing everything on that
album?
RW: No, I don’t do everything. I mean, the
only, um, I play guitar. I’m a really bad lead guitarist, um, but I’m quite a
competent rhythm guitarist. I do the guitar, bass, and harmonica and singing, uh,
everything else, all the keyboard stuff is a guy named Irvin Duguid who worked in
Stiltskin and also worked with Fish for a real little while, um, doing his stuff,
um, I’ve got a lead guitarist who, uh, is a local guy, um, who did a bit of writing
with me. His name is Scott Spence. He wrote How High with me and the song called
Ever the Reason he wrote with me as well, um, I’ve got two drummers. One is Nir Z,
who worked in Genesis and lives in New York and the other one’s actually McMillan
whose a young guy from Scotland. So, yeah, there’s a few different people and Amanda
Lyon doing some vocals as well. She’s, uh, she’s featured doing some “oohs” and
“ahhs” in the background, um, I think that’s it. There’s not quite so many musicians
this time as there were on Change, the last album I did.
JT: I think
one of your strengths is your songwriting ability. I’m wondering how you actually
come up with these songs, these ideas. I’m wondering how you actually put your music
together to ultimately come up with a song.
 RW: {he pauses and breathes deeply} I don’t
know actually. {he laughs} I don’t know where songs come from. I think its divine
intervention, you know. I really don’t know. I tend to create little ideas like
guitar riffs or maybe one-liners, vocal one-liners, uh, when I’m on tour sometimes,
you know, before a show, you tend to have a lot of adrenaline and that’s always a
good time to be creative I find. I always come up with ideas just before I’m about
to go on stage, so I record these little guitar hooks and chord progressions and
things, um, I also put time aside to sit and write. I’ll maybe sit for two, three
weeks, or maybe a month and just play the guitar over and over and over and just
record little ideas that I come up with and then when it comes time to record, um, I
go back over all the ideas I’ve created when, you know, probably over the twelve
months, a twelve month period, which was the case with this album. I go over the
ideas and start to put songs together. I didn’t, I didn’t write any lyrics at all
this time. It was, uh, quite unusual for me. I normally sit down with the guitar and
write lyrics as I’m playing, but this time I really didn’t bother with lyrics. I had
one or two little phrases that I had, but I really left the lyrics till the end. I
waited till I put together pieces of music and then played them loud in my ears in
my headphones and just sang anything; the first thing that came into my mind and
then started to, every now and again you would create a nice little hook or a nice
little phrase and I would write the lyrics from that phrase. It’s quite an
interesting way of doing it for me, but that’s what I did on this occasion.
JT: Ok and
you mention The Beatles as one of your influences. You have a songwriting format
that works very well. I’m wondering, who are your actual influences?
RW: Well, I mean, The Beatles aren’t really
one of my influences. It is just that Magic Train sounds a bit like that, but they
are really not one of my influences, though I recognize their genius the same as
everybody else does, um, my influences come from initially David Bowie and the music
that he did in the seventies, um, that was the first artist I really got into, um, I
also listened a lot to, uh, metal bands in the early eighties, late seventies like
Iron Maiden and AC/DC and stuff like that. I liked that type of music when I was
younger and the punk scene as well. Sex Pistols were quite an influence, uh, I also
liked Pink Floyd and Gabriel, some of the early Genesis music, um, Rush I was a big
fan of. So, I had this huge kind of a spectrum and obviously, uh, and also the Bob
Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Brown, Cat Stevens, that type of music as well,
because my father played it all the time. So I had this huge spectrum of influences
that I suppose I draw upon when I’m working now, um, and even my mother when I think
about what she was listening to. She was listening to ABBA and The Carpenters and
Neil Sedaka and all that stuff, you know, this huge spectrum of music that I grew up
with and many members of my family played music as well so, um, you know, there are
so many different things that I can draw from, um, I don’t think I’ve written any
songs that sound like ABBA, but {I laugh} you never know. There’s still time. {he
laughs}
JT:
Definitely. You’re talking about growing up with music. How did you get involved in
music in the first place? How did you decide to become a singer ultimately?
RW: Um, my school in Scotland. I grew in a
small town called Dumfries, which is about forty thousand people near Lockerby where
the plane crashed many years ago. It’s just about ten miles from there and I grew up
there and my school, uh, had a very good music department and, uh, the head of the
music department had a good attitude and there wasn’t the usual, there wasn’t only
the school choirs, you know, like the church choirs. There was also, uh, and not
only, there was a lot of schools where you could only learn to play the violin or
the cello or the recorder or the flute, you know, classical instruments I guess, but
they also had a good attitude towards kind of rock and roll bands and they had some
good analog keyboards at the time and, uh, a drum kit and bass guitar and electric
guitar and they encouraged, uh, they encouraged people to, you know, play these
instruments too and we started, they started, uh, bands night at school. Every three
or four months they’d have concerts at school and the school bands would get up and
play to maybe five or six hundred of the peoples, uh, I watched one of these
concerts where my brother Steve, who plays in the band. He was singing for a band,
doing, uh, like an Iron Maiden type stuff, you know. The band was called Prowler and
they did this, they did the original songs, but they were in the style of Iron
Maiden and I remember, I remember watching him and being really jealous that he was
up there singing and he wasn’t really the best singer in the world to be honest, {I
chuckle} but the next time there was a bands night I decided that’s what I was going
to do and I got together with the piano player and we did, uh, a song from Emmy Lou
Harris or prelude actually it was called Emmy Lou Harris a song called After the
Gold Rush, which is a Neil Young song actually. I did that. I did, uh, the Gene
Genie from David Bowie and I also played, uh, a little bit of, uh, Carpet Crawlers
oddly enough from Genesis, which I never heard. This guy just sang it to me and
played it on the piano.
JT: Hmm.
RW: So, I did this and it was, it was one of
those things when I performed, I suddenly realized what I do and from that point on
I’ve never really done anything else.
JT:
Interesting. You’ve probably been asked this a million times, so I apologize
upfront, but how did you actually get involved with Genesis?
RW: They called me up basically, uh, I had in
1994, I had a number one single in the UK called Inside with a band called Stiltskin.
JT: Okay.
RW: And, uh, the band split up in, uh, late
1995. Genesis was signed to the same record label as we were. Virgin in England and
I got a phone call from Tony Smith who manages Genesis, um, one morning asking me if
I would come and audition, uh, which obviously took me by surprise and, uh, I went
down and did an audition, sang, I think four songs ended up singing, uh, with
Genesis and then I went back again and did some writing with them and that was it
really and then I joined the band.
JT: That’s
one of my favorite Genesis albums actually.
RW: Really?
JT: Yeah, I
really liked that one a bit. I’m a pretty big fan of Spock’s Beard, who has Nick D’
Virgilio in the band.
RW: Yeah.
JT: I’m
wondering, do you still stay in contact with him? Is there any plans to work with
him again?
RW: I only ever really met him once.
JT: Really?
RW: It was for about ten minutes.
JT: Oh,
wow.
RW: He was, when Genesis recorded they never
really had anybody else in the room at the same time, so they would maybe have drums
like Nick did some drums and Nir did some drums as well and they would do it at
chosen periods of time and then I came in to do my vocals, but at the time the only
people that were there were Mike and Tony and the producer. The same applied when
Nick came and played and the same applied when Nir played as well so we didn’t
really spend any time together and on the live concerts Nick didn’t play with
Genesis live anyway. It was Nir Z that did that. So, I don’t really know Nick at
all.
JT: Hmm.
RW: I just know of him.
JT: Ok, just
to get more of an idea of kind of what your current musical tastes are, what is the
last CD that you actually purchased?
RW: Um, {hear pans crashing in the
background} the last CD that I purchased was Rush Live in Rio, uh, the CD before
that I purchased was the essential collection of Ozzy Osbourne.
JT:
Interesting.
RW: The one before that was a Coldplay album,
so quite a selection.
JT: That’s
interesting, because we have similar tastes. I’ll be going to Ozzfest in a few
weeks.
RW: Oh, are you? Fantastic. He’s just the
greatest. He’s rock and roll on legs. {he laughs}
JT: Exactly.
Along the same lines, what would you say is the last concert that you attended as a
fan?
RW: As a fan?
JT: Yeah.
RW: Christ, {I laugh} um, The Eels, uh, The
Eels actually yes, not The Eagles, The Eels in, uh, Oslo, Norway.
JT: Okay.
RW: I went to see them and it was fantastic,
really, really clever what they did. I don’t know how successful they were in
America, but they were very successful here for quite awhile.
JT: Ok, I’ve
got a quirky question here, but can you recall any Spinal Tap moments, you know,
while you were on tour or in a concert or just recording?
RW: I guess most of the time it’s like that.
{we laugh} The whole thing is kind of strange, um, being in the music business. It
is a surreal way of life when you’re in it. Nothing is normal. {we laugh} The whole
thing’s Spinal Tap.
JT: Ok, to
get an idea of some of your favorites, what would you say is your favorite band?
RW: Well, of all time?
JT: Of all
time or if you can’t limit it to one just come up with some top contenders.
RW: Well, the favorite artist of all time is
David Bowie without a doubt, um, I think the favorite band would probably be the E
Street Band from, um, Bruce Springsteen.
JT: Okay.
RW: I think they’re my favorite band. I love
the dynamics of a show that he does. The way his show works, you know. So, I would
say the E Street Band and, uh, an artist I’d say David Bowie.
JT: Ok, this
is slightly harder, but what would you say is your favorite album?
RW: Uh, well, there isn’t really one. {I
chuckle}
JT: It’s
always changing too.
 Yeah, of course, you know. Hard to say
really, uh, I think in recent years, uh, I thought that the, I bought Hell Freezes
Over. I thought was fantastic. The live albums from The Eagles. I was a fan of
theirs in the early days, um, in terms of more new original recordings I enjoyed a
couple of the Live albums I think were quite important for me. A band Live. I really
enjoyed Throwing Copper, which was one of their albums and I like Secret Samadhi,
which was the one after that as well, so, um, yeah, I think in more recent years it
would be something from Live or Radiohead, maybe The Bends from Radiohead, something
like that.
JT: Ok, just
some personal interest questions that aren’t so music-related, but what would you
say is your favorite movie?
RW: Favorite movie?
JT: Yeah.
RW: I suppose anything by James Bond.
JT: Okay.
RW: Any of the James Bond movies. I like the
ones with Sean Connery movies being a Scotsman, uh, so probably one of the James
Bond movies.
JT: Ok, and
then what would you say is your favorite book?
RW: Favorite book? {long pause while he
ponders} The Autobiography of Peter Ustinov who died recently, but Peter Ustinov,
who was an amazing man.
JT: Ok, and
I like to ask this question, which I’m sure nobody else does, but this helps me
identify with the artist. Do you have any pets?
RW: I don’t, but I would like to. I’d love to
have a dog, but I can’t really look after one so I don’t have it.
JT: Ok, and
I’d also like to ask you at this time if there is anything you’d like to say to your
fans?
RW: Stick in there.
JT: Okay.
RW: Without them it stops.
JT: Right.
RW: {he laughs} It’s simple.
JT: Well, I
want to let you know that you’ve got a big fan in me and I’m very impressed with
this album you just came out with, The Next Best Thing.
RW: Oh, well, thank you.
JT: It’s
just phenomenal music. It just blew me away. I put it on and right from the opening
track to the last one, I was very, very impressed.
RW: That’s fantastic. Thanks.
JT: I just
want to say congratulations for putting something like this out. The shocker to me
is that you are able to put something out that’s so good and you just put out
another good album as well.
RW:
Yeah.
JT: What does that mean by
The Next Best Thing? What does that title represent?
RW: It doesn’t represent anything really. I
think it’s just Scottish sarcasm.
JT: Okay.
RW: {we laugh} you know, it’s just, {he
laughs some more} it’s just, you know, it’s, it’s obviously not the next best thing.
I’m sure there’s many things better, but it’s Scottish sarcasm really. I just like
the title.
JT: Ok, what
is the next best thing that a fan should expect from you?
{he’s breathing and pondering}
JT: Are you
writing more material?
RW: I’m just about to start actually. I’ve
got some tour dates, but I have some time off in September and, uh, I’ve just
started in the last couple of days before I go into rehearsal. I’ve started writing
new material, so, you know, I’ll probably have another album together in, you know,
in twelve months or so, because I have lots of ideas, you know. Some people
complain, because, you know, they don’t want albums quite so quickly, but I kind of
feel when you’re writing if you’re enjoying writing then you should really get on
with it cause there might come a time when nothing comes out anymore, you know.
JT: Sure.
RW: Well, hopefully I keep going, you know,
and if it’s, when it starts to get shit then I’ll stop. {we both laugh}
JT: Do you
have any plans to come to the States at some point?
 RW:
I have no plans to, but, you know, it’s
always something that’s possible. I just need somebody to offer me, you know, offer
me one or two gigs over there really, um, I think it will happen. I think, it seems
to me that there’s been a bit more interest with this album, um, in America, you
know. This might help trigger something, because when I do a show, um, in Europe,
you know, I normally play for ninety minutes to two hours and there is a few old
Genesis songs in there and obviously stuff from my solo career, so it would
certainly fit a lot of people’s tastes in America. Just really waiting for the
opportunity to arrive, but I think it probably will next year. I just have a
feeling.
JT: That’s
great. If that does happen, I’ll make plans right away to come out and see you. I
just think you are an unbelievable talent and I just wish you a lot of luck in the
future.
RW: Thank you Josh.
JT: You’re
very easy to talk to. A lot of times you come across talented people and they are
not so friendly. I guess in your case, it sounds like you are very down-to-earth. I
just wish you a lot of good luck and I want to say congratulations on this new
album. You’ve just really outdone yourself.
RW: That’s good of you. Thank you very much.
JT: Sure.
That’s pretty much all the questions I have. I appreciate you taking the time out to
talk to me.
RW: Yeah, no problem. I’ll maybe speak to you
again sometime.
JT:
Ok and thank you for doing this interview for Prog4you.com
RW: All the best man.
JT: Okay,
bye.
RW: Bye.
: : Visit the artist web site : :
 |
|
