Interview: Working with Paul McCartney just another accomplishment for guitar whiz Brian Ray (Pt. 3)

  Brian Ray (Photo by Bob Gannon. More photos by Bob
     Gannon are in the slideshow at the bottom of the page.)

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• Interview: Working with Paul McCartney just another accomplishment for guitar whiz Brian Ray (Pt. 1)

• Interview: Working with Paul McCartney just another accomplishment for guitar whiz Brian Ray (Pt. 2)

 

(Continued from part 2)

When told reviews of the Paul McCartney shows have often mentioned how well the band works with the former Beatle, Ray gives a lot of the credit to McCartney.

"First of all, I’m really flattered to hear that. I guess each of us are huge fans of Paul for everything he’s done through his career. I was raised on Beatles, loved Wings, love his solo stuff. So to me, I was so immersed in the Beatles’ material and their production and the sounds of those records. I remember all of these strange little details like, you know, how the guitar is different in one chorus than it is in the second chorus and so to me all of those details of the records are important.

"And I think it’s the same for all of us that Rusty, Abe and Wix all look at this material very fondly and we want to pick up all of the essence of the records, of the production of the hits, of the spirit of the arrangements. So we don’t want to be karaoke and we don’t want to be too precious. So luckily, I think, we owe a lot of the success of the sound of the band to Paul because he’s so generous and he’s so musical and he’s so fun.

"And he’s not precious about the parts. We come in there very prepared. He likes what we do. He might have a suggestion or two, but most of the time, we just learn the song and we just fall into place. And practice it and go play it. So it’s a lot due to his own Paul’s sort of freedom of musicality. He likes that we kind of kick it around a little bit."

For his own career, Ray is working on a new album.

"It's called 'This Way Up' and you can read about it and I do updates and blog posts and newsletter at my site, cleverly titled brianray.com. If you sign up for the mailing list, it’s spam free. And privacy is completely protected. And I send out newsletters and let you know some of the news, what’s going on in my life. And what’s going on in the band with Paul. And, you know, join me there." He said a release is planned for March or April, though details are still being worked out.

In December, Ray organized a tribute to guitar pioneer Les Paul during the halftime of a Miami Dolphins-Houston Texans game with Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Orianthi, the guitarist who was to tour with Michael Jackson on the "This Is It" tour. The trio, plus 100 young people on guitars, created a wonderful wall of sound. The whole idea took shape from a Ray solo song called "I Found You."

"What happened with the middle section of 'I Found You' is I just had this idea after cutting the basic track, I had this idea I’d like to do something wild. And the thought occurred to me like, what about a marching band of guitars, a guitar marching band. I literally split the Pro Tools session right in half and just started playing this crazy drum beat on my friend’s drum, recorded it and then I took that home with me to my own home studio. And in about a three-hour period, put on about 40 guitars, doing kind of a sort of wartime, a second World War era, a Big Band kind of melody thing, but with guitars playing the role of marching bands horns," he says. "So I had a tuba part and a trombone, a sax part and a trumpet part, but all on guitars and arranged it."

"Later on, I was in New York City having dinner with Stephen Ross, who’s the owner of the Miami Dolphins. And I just thought if there’s an appropriate time in the conversation at dinner, I’ll mention this guitar marching band. I did. He flipped out. He loved the idea. He asked me if I could do more of it and I said, 'Sure.'

"So I ran home and did a minute and a half demo of the 'I Found You' break, like another version of that same break I put in in “I Found You” and sort of explored it more. Sent it off to him and he flipped out. And, long story short, it led to me doing the half time show for the Miami Dolphins-Houston Texans game on Dec. 27. And that served as the inspiration in the template for what became a medley of iconic rock riffs through the ages famously played on Les Pauls for a Les Paul tribute."  (The tribute is on YouTube.)

Ray says there's no news yet about tour or recording plans this year with Paul McCartney.  But, he says, "There will be news. I can confirm that."

But he says McCartney is a great boss to work for.

"Like I was saying, we come into rehearsal. As a band, each of us is prepared individually. Then most of the time, we get to run any new songs as a four piece before he drops in. We’ll get there early at rehearsal and run it. And we’ll already know what our background parts are and stuff like that. And he’s the one that gets to drop into it and start playing.

"Now there are other songs, like the new song from the movie “Everybody's Fine,” “(I Want to) Come Home.” When he brought that to us, we all learned it together from scratch, you know. He just said, “Got a new song” and started playing it on piano. We started jamming to it. Then he went in and recorded it and the next time we got together for the next tour, he played us the record. He sat at the piano and we worked out our parts together. So it can happen either way. Either we prepare and bring it in or he’ll prepare us.

"But either way, he’s very direct about what he’s looking for. If there’s a part he’s not hearing, he’ll ask for it, you know. But he’s super easy going and super fun. He keeps a really nice mood at rehearsal. It’s always funny. It’s always light and we work very hard, so. Rehearsals are concentrated but they’re fun."

Finally, he says there's no mystery to Paul McCartney the man.

"People like they feel they do know him because he’s been so public for so long. And he is public. He’s not somebody who hides away. He’s out there in the world. He’s out there in his life.

"There’s nothing more to know about Paul than what you think you know. That’s exactly who he is. He’s a nice guy. He’s a witty guy. He’s a funny guy. He’s a caring guy. He’s a lovely human being."