Nick Ray

Nick Ray is a Southern rock singer and songwriter from New Orleans who had to leave a music town to find his crowd.

SALTYmf found Ray through Band Groupeez and had been following him from a distance before he made the trip to the McBastard Studio. He played three songs for Salty's Live Music, then sat down with Brad Banyas for the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast. Ray said it was the message that drew him in, and Brad, who reckons people now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, took that as high praise.

His father played the hole in the wall bars and never wanted to make a business of it, and Ray started learning from him at nine or ten. He grew up on Creedence Clearwater Revival above everything else, with Bad Company and Buddy Holly close behind. Then came the detours: producing and engineering hip hop, then five or six years fronting a hard rock band along the Gulf Coast, then back to an acoustic guitar and Neil Young. New Orleans got under his skin, but Southern rock never quite fit there. Within a couple of years of moving north he had radio shows, TV news spots and more gigs. He warns young players off saturating a market, because nobody wants to be a McDonald's on every corner.

By his own count, which he admits is conservative, Ray asks himself what he is doing at least three times a month. He calls himself a glass half empty man who deals with borderline depression, and says staying positive is something he has to fight for, with his publicist steering him away from the rabbit holes. When the urge to quit comes, the alternative looks simple: a twelve pack on a lake every night, a job at whatever store is nearby, the entrepreneurial brain switched off. Then he plays it forward. The beers run low, he buys another twelve pack, gets the fishing rod out, and before long he is sitting there asking what else there is. What pulls him back is the next gig.

He started out at fourteen or fifteen with stars in his eyes. Back then a song in his headphones could take him away from whatever was going on at school or at home, and he wanted to know how those records were made. The rock bands he idolized turned out to be mostly the opposite of role models. His advice now is to get the stars out of your eyes early, do the work, and stay away from the things that will destroy you. The guy in the corner playing a three hour set might be exactly what some kid wants to be one day. He says Atlanta and parts of Alabama respect their musicians more than anywhere else he has played. Search Nick Ray Music, or a famous 1950s film director comes up instead.