YESTERDAY & ME, released independently by Waco, Texas-born artist Kayla Ray, was an ‘Album of the Year’ at Lonesome Highway in 2018. Showcasing Kayla’s crystalline vocals alongside profoundly personal songwriting and with nods to previous musical eras, it was a noble effort to keep traditional country music alive and kicking. She follows a similar template on her recently released record, THE WORLD’S WEIGHT, released on the Real AF Record label. With the growing interest in traditional country music and the backing of a record label, this album should raise her profile significantly and introduce her to a much larger audience. She parked her touring van en route to Ohio to chat with us about her move to Nashville, the new album and other significant events in her life since we last spoke six years ago.
You are a resident in Nashville now when you're not touring. How does living in Nashville compare to your hometown Waco, Texas?
I moved there in early September. I got an opportunity to release my new record and get a publishing deal, so I moved. It's been very different. I left Waco, Texas, about five years ago and have been travelling and moving around since then. Waco has grown a lot in the last five years, but the Waco I did know and the Nashville I'm getting to know are much different. Nashville is far and away the biggest city that I've lived in, but I like it. There's always music happening and no shortage of art, but traffic and lots of people at the grocery store take getting used to. I'm living on the Upper East Side, close to the American Legion, which is supposed to be the hip side of town; it's where I could afford.
Congratulations on the publishing deal and signing with Real AF Records for your new album.
I'm really thrilled about that. My friend Bryan Martin, whom I've known for a long time and long before he came to Nashville, asked me to work on a movie project, which was really a fun way to write because I got to write from somebody else's perspective, which I'd never thought about trying before. We were working on that, and then there was a writer's strike, and the movie business shut down for a while, and that got shelved. But during that time, Bryan mentioned a few times that he was starting a record label. I was working on an album independently, which was crowdfunded two years ago. So, it's been a long in the works. The record was just done when Bryan started pushing, and since the record was really what I wanted to record, so I told him I'd come on board if he would take it as it was, and he did. I didn't hear from him for about nine hours, which was the longest nine hours of my life, but he took it. It was recorded in Oklahoma City, mixed in Austin and mastered in Nashville; I've never had a project to have been in so many different pockets. Real AF Records is under Average Joe's Entertainment, which is interesting because they pioneer an entirely different type of country music to what I do. But it's cool because they have this attitude of being the underdog and doing things a little differently. So, my publishing deal is just with Average Joe's Entertainment, and my record deal is with Bryan at Real AF Records.
So you had THE WORLD'S WEIGHT recorded before signing to the label?
Yes. As far as the recording went, we had gone into the studio thinking that the album would be independent; that was neat. I got to do exactly what I wanted. My good friend Giovanni Carnuccio produced the album; we had the musicians we wanted and a great room to record in. Because it was crowdfunded, we had complete control and the freedom to do what we wanted. As an independent artist, there is only so much one person can do, so I feel lucky to have the label behind me after the record was finished. Turning over song control has been hard, but they have been good; I can't complain. But of course, any help is a gift. It's hard to be everywhere as an independent artist. It's all part of a learning curve for me and them. The label has a few Americana artists, and that's closer to where I find my home with them than some of the pop/country acts they have.
Are you comfortable under the Americana umbrella? For me, the album is pure country.
I feel very much that it's country music. I don't want to be branded with what many people associate with country music today, but it does often make my music hard to market and find my niche, so I'm okay with Americana if that's what people want. For me, Americana is simply American music.
The album's production is striking. Can Giovanni Carnuccio take complete credit for it, or did you have an overriding input?
It's a joint thing, but he worked so hard on the record, so the majority is Giovanni. We spent months and months sending tracks back and forth to see what we both liked so that when we went in to record, we would have a unified idea of what the mix should sound like. Had he not had the patience to hear me out, it could have been totally different. His ear is impeccable, and he worked the files down to the most minute layers and built the arrangements from there.
Do the songs follow a similarly personal template to those on YESTERDAY & ME?
Yes, they are personal. That movie I mentioned that I worked on was the only time I wrote outside myself. Everything else to this point has been personal, very much so. Because it took such time to release, I got the pick from a big group of songs that spanned quite a few years, but yes, they all are pretty personal. I did include Diesel No.9, a kind of silly crooner swing song I wanted to do, but outside of that, they are all pretty personal.
Should we be worried about your well-being with titles like To Drink Alone, The Least You Could Do and the title track The World's Weight?
It's country music, and that's how it's supposed to be (laughs). But no, you don't have to worry.
Is the pendulum swinging back to traditional country music in recent years?
Yes, I do feel an overwhelming shift in that direction, and I'm happy to be a small part of that. I don't know the roots of that; we all speculate a lot about that. A lot of it is from emerging from the pandemic and listening to music that is real and relatable again. Maybe it is because younger people are getting to an age when they are interested in their grandparent's kind of music. Whatever the reason, I see it happening, which is exciting.
Have you been performing in Nashville since moving there?
I actually enjoy being on the road, and I don't want to be overly accessible in a market that is already so saturated. I enjoy living in Nashville and going to shows there, but so far, I've had no desire to go down to Broadway and play. I'm not above that, but I've worked hard to reach this point and don't necessarily want to go backwards. Right now, I'm focused on touring, particularly the east side of the country, branching out and playing a lot of rooms out there.
You're busy touring solo at present. Will you get the opportunity to bring a band on the road with you, or is that a logistical challenge?
I'd love to tour with a band; that's my biggest hangup right now. I've been touring solo for six years now. The new album is such a cool 'band record,' and I'm friends with all the musicians, so it's really tempting to play with them. I may before the end of the tour, but for now, it's just me.
When you write, deciding how the material would work in a live setting, is that a factor?
No, that may be really bad business and might not be right, but I don't put much thought into that when I sit down to write. When the songs come to me, I try to latch on to them as they are. Maybe they won't work solo and I'll hold them for a band show later, or maybe I'll pitch some of them to somebody else or work out some funky sparse versions that I can play solo.
You are studying for a Master's Degree at the University of Oklahoma.
I am; it's nuts, and it feels like forever. I am getting right down to the end of it and should have it finished next year if I stay on track. I'm taking the clinical courses next semester, and it's about time to start my internship now. I've always told myself that I would not neglect music to study, so I've been chipping away at it for six years now while I've been on the road, and it's been fun; it gives me something to keep my brain occupied.
You also developed a music therapy course for inmates in Waco, Texas?
I did that for about two years, most predominately with Waco-based inmates. I previously had a music management degree and came up to Nashville to visit my friend Erin Enderlin. She and I went to a symposium at Vanderbilt, where Rodney Crowell was playing for free. We went along primarily to see Rodney play, but the symposium was about music therapy, which changed my life. I loved all the studies that have been conducted on music therapy, and the progress that has been made since then is remarkable. I know what a huge healing music is for me, so I wanted to learn as much about music therapy as I could. So, I went back to school to study, and it led to this six-week curriculum where everyone brings in songs to inmates and discusses the songs with them. What I took for granted was my freedom to listen to music. Those inmates in there only get to listen to whatever music might be on the TV when they're allowed to watch the news. So, it ended up being a really emotional working with the inmates. Still, I stopped doing it when I could not be as accountable as I wanted to be and thought it would be more damaging where you might coax someone into a vulnerable spot and then leave. I did enjoy it, and the integration system at home in Waco still uses my curriculum, so somebody is still doing it.
Your social media fan club, Room 402—The Home of Kayla Ray's Family & Friends, is a great place for people to get to know you and your music and see you perform.
That's the place I get to be the weirdest. Willie Nelson said, ' If I can't get them all at once, I'll get them one at a time.' That's what Room 402 is, but the beauty of it is that many of the people there are also forming friendships, which is a joy that I didn't think about or anticipate. That group is a great place of solace for me, besides being a lot of fun. The Covid live streams led to the forming of this core group of oddballs that we are all in there.
Interview by Declan Culliton