Raye Zaragoza has released 4+ records all independently, toured as Tigerlily in the Broadway touring version of Peter Pan (updated for indigenous representation by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse), wrote the music for the Netflix series 'Spirit Rangers', and has placed songs in a substantial number of TV shows from Greys Anatomy to Station 19. We talk to Raye about the toxic hustle narrative in music and how to unlearn it, listening to your intuition vs. listening to the industry, decentralizing how you identify as an artist, running a successful and supportive Patreon community, and so much more.
Raye Zaragoza has released 4+ records all independently, toured as Tigerlily in the Broadway touring version of Peter Pan (updated for indigenous representation by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse), wrote the music for the Netflix series 'Spirit Rangers', and has placed songs in a substantial number of TV shows from Greys Anatomy to Station 19. We talk to Raye about the toxic hustle narrative in music and how to unlearn it, listening to your intuition vs. listening to the industry, decentralizing how you identify as an artist, running a successful and supportive Patreon community, and so much more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of the Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss,
[00:00:19] Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And this is episode 133, and this week we're featuring our conversation with Raye Zaragoza.
[00:00:28] Aaron: Yeah, Ray is a singer, songwriter, actress. As we talk about here, creator maker of things who is based in LA originally from New York City, she has been putting out records for the last decade, completely independently, never on a label.
Most of that time, about half that time, she said is without any kind of management, so like pretty much has close to DIY as possible. She has written original songs for the Netflix series Spirit Rangers, and also took about a year and a half to tour as Tiger Lily in the Broadway. updated Broadway production of Peter Pan.
She places a bunch of songs in sync and tours all over with her original music. And also comes from K the, creative family. Her father was an actor and her brother is also an actor currently on ghosts.
[00:01:15] Michaela: Yeah, and this conversation was really fun. We got to.
Dig into what it is to diversify your creative output. She has many balls in the air all the time. As well as how we label ourselves and how we kind of expand that vision for our identity and how that then impacts our careers. We got really into the nitty gritty of. Patreon, she has an active Patreon in kind of what she does to nurture that and just the power and strength of building our own community.
[00:01:44] Aaron: She says that her Patreon is her label, essentially, which is really cool.
[00:01:47] Michaela: Yeah. Which reminds me of our conversation with Liz Longley. And as well as evolving our personal needs and how they balance with our career needs and making those shifts as necessary as we get older.
[00:01:59] Aaron: And speaking of community, we too have a Patreon.
If you've heard our show before, you know that our Patreon gets advanced notice of guests. They can submit questions topics, vibes they'd like us to touch on with the said guest. And it's ever evolving. As we talk about in this episode with race, sometimes there are really active seasons and sometimes there are slower seasons because we all have life.
But on top of the extended offerings we have over there, our Patreons get the. Immense personal satisfaction of supporting the production of our show in the only way you possibly can currently. And so if that sounds interesting to you, you can check out a link below in our show notes.
[00:02:37] Michaela: And if you're a visual person, this and all of our past conversations are available on YouTube.
So without further ado, here is our conversation with Ray Zara Gza.
thank you for coming on. You've been on our list for a while, so I'm glad this finally happened. And we always kinda like to start with just a, how are you and where are you physically and creatively?
[00:02:59] Raye: I love these questions. So I'm good. A little tired. I flew back from Nashville yesterday at like 9:00 AM and I had done like nine sessions, wrote nine songs in seven days, and it
[00:03:12] Aaron: wild.
[00:03:12] Raye: yeah, it was amazing. It was a whirlwind. I still feel like I'm kind of like mentally there. I'm trying to like unwind like, okay, I'm home now.
I'm at home. I live in Los Angeles, California, in the Valley, in like Studio City area. And I'm currently sitting in my boyfriend's studio. He built this studio in our back house. And so yeah, it's a, it's cozy little morning looking out onto the. La like basically still summer, it's 85 degrees today.
[00:03:40] Michaela: Yep.
[00:03:41] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:03:41] Raye: But, um,
[00:03:42] Aaron: Crazy.
[00:03:43] Raye: And creatively, you know, I was in Nashville working on a new record and I'm currently working on a new record, which will be my fourth album, full length record. But then also juggling a bunch of different creative things. I wrote about, five songs for my new record in Nashville, but also did some sync sessions, always writing for sync.
And then actually wrote a song with Aaron and our
[00:04:05] Michaela: Mm
[00:04:06] Raye: Devon for my brother. 'cause I'm also developing my brother as a music artist right now. And so, very focused on this new record, but also always, having these different side projects that keep me feeling like, yeah, I don't know. I try not to get too focused on one thing.
[00:04:20] Michaela: mm.
[00:04:21] Raye: stresses me out to be too focused on one thing. I like to have a lot of like balls in the air at one time.
[00:04:26] Michaela: Yeah. I mean, Again, you and Erin have worked together for a long time or several years at this point with the,
[00:04:31] Aaron: there's no quid pro quo here.
[00:04:32] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:04:33] Aaron: As a disclaimer, like
[00:04:34] Raye: yeah, yeah.
[00:04:37] Aaron: these, these are independent things.
[00:04:38] Michaela: Yeah. and I've known of you, but just preparing for this I was, looking on the internet, all of your credits and things and talk about diverse range and a lot of balls uh, spinning.
So, you know, You have your project, your singer-songwriter stuff. You tour you put out your own records, you write for other people. You've landed a ton of sync, which is also like kind of unicorn vibe because I feel like everyone in the sync world is like their placement rate is what. I'm not in the sync world.
Only just by proxy hear about it. when my songs land, it's amazing, but it's not something where I put my attention. But looking at your list do you still write for the TV show?
[00:05:17] Raye: Uh, the
[00:05:18] Michaela: Rangers.
[00:05:18] Raye: done. We did
[00:05:19] Michaela: Okay.
[00:05:20] Raye: and then, yeah. That was it.
[00:05:21] Michaela: Okay. Wild. And you were in the traveling Broadway production of Peter Pan.
[00:05:27] Raye: Yeah,
[00:05:28] Michaela: So are you like, never stopping? Are you just, like workaholic mode? Is that your vibe or is it, how do you kind of balance, do you have to kind of intentionally be like, take a break building quiet time?
[00:05:41] Raye: Absolutely. I think that the building quiet time, take a break, quote unquote soft season era Ray is like a new thing. I released a song called Soft Season about that, which is so funny because it's like, let's work talk about something about taking a break. But I definitely work in seasons and I like to like work cyclically using different parts of my brain and my body so that it's kind of like working out where it's like on Mondays let's do legs and then Tuesdays like arms.
So it's like I try not to fatigue. Like try not to go too hard in one way. And so then when I feel kind of burnt out like one thing I can shift to the other. and so basically, you know, I've worked in pretty much in the past four albums I've done. worked in these like three year album cycles and then in between album cycles I've just done different things and it's kind of just happened that way.
But in between my second album, woman in Color and my third album for that spirit, it was The Pandemic. And I was offered this amazing opportunity to write the songs for uh, Netflix animated Children's Show, spirit Rangers. it just happened to be the perfect timing. And so that was kind of my mid, you know, album cycle project.
And working on that show was incredibly creative. But it was also very interpretive because you know, I was given a script and like a blurb and like, we need you to write this. And so I was very much trying to make the showrunner and the writers like their vision come to life. Whereas with my music, it's very much like, what's my vision?
So it was cool 'cause I was flexing different muscles and by the end of that show being done, I was like ready to make a new record. And I felt like the well was very full
[00:07:19] Michaela: Hmm.
[00:07:20] Raye: I was using a different set of muscles for that past, like two years. And then, you know, after hold that spirit my third record and touring on that.
I literally went immediately into doing Peter Pan for a year, which was a also just kind of a random opportunity that that came onto my plate. Um, And I auditioned to be the new and improved Tiger Lily for the new Broadway tour of Peter Pan, written by Larissa Fast Horse. Amazing indigenous playwright.
And what was so cool about doing that for a year was it was a whole different set of muscles. It was like quite literally
[00:07:52] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:53] Raye: muscles.
[00:07:54] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:07:55] Raye: but I also, I felt like I didn't have to use so much of like my creative driving force brain because I was singing someone else's words.
I was speaking someone else's words. It was the same show every single night. A lot of it was physical. It wasn't as much I need to create this from my own. And it almost gave me this like brain break for a year because I was in Master tour and just like listening where I gotta be every day. I was like a member of a company for a year then by the end of that I felt where I'm now, you know, I've been like out of that for a year.
feel like the well is very like, full to create a new body of work. And so, yeah. So to answer your question, I definitely am known amongst a lot of my friends as like a workaholic, but I think I'm able to sustain it without burning out because I'm constantly shifting you know, muscles and like what I'm doing that year.
[00:08:47] Michaela: And I would imagine being in the touring company that it doesn't just give your brain a break from the creative. Task of writing and making music and art. It also gives your brain the break from creating what your business is going to be. So like, if you're making an album, but also how are you gonna release that album and plotting a tour, all of those other decisions.
And how do I generate work to make more income? That stuff requires so much creative energy that I find, we talk about this all the time of like, we love doing the work, but then when you're doing the work, if Aaron's producing a bunch of records, he also has to be out there trying to generate more interest to book records for when these records are done.
that part is draining and hard to balance all the time. So I would imagine that kind of reprieve
was nice.
[00:09:41] Raye: It really was also for that year, I was traveling nonstop, so I didn't have an apartment. I didn't pay rent, Oh
[00:09:48] Michaela: my God. Yeah.
[00:09:48] Raye: pay any bills really. I was kind of like swept away on this like pirate ship, literally
[00:09:54] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:54] Raye: for a year. And it was really liberating.
was a lot of shift that was hard. And then a lot of it that was hard to shift out of like, one of which, you know, like being an indie artist, you know, I've released all of my albums independently. I've never worked with a record label. I've hardly worked with management. I've only worked with management for maybe half of like, the years I've been active.
so I don't really have anyone telling me what to do. Mm-hmm. of wake up and I'm like, what am I gonna do today? And it's like a huge privilege. But being in a tour, it's like, your days are mapped out and if, if you have a rehearsal, you have to show up. know, You have understudies, but generally, like you're doing every show, you know, even if you don't feel well, like you're up there, you're doing it.
And if we have a travel day, gonna have to go. And it's nonstop. It's like touring as a musician as well. It's like we have to do it. but it's like there's a lot less agency when you're like in a company,
[00:10:39] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:40] Raye: of many. And so that was actually kind of hard for like my ego a little bit.
I was like, I can't just do whatever I want. And then shifting back out of that actually like, there was so much benefit to that, that was really wonderful. And then coming home and like the reentry from that was wild. Just like actually, like every day usual things in life were like hard. I was like, oh, we didn't have to worry about this for like a year and a half.
Like,
[00:11:01] Michaela: yeah, Mm-hmm.
[00:11:02] Raye: was very interesting.
[00:11:03] Aaron: I've experienced that back when I used to tour,
[00:11:06] Raye: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:06] Aaron: because I wasn't the front person. Like
I, I was just following like what the day's schedule was, which was nice. I mean, It's like, again, you don't have to plan anything, but like, built into that, it's kind of like, constantly waiting for flights.
Like you have to be somewhere, it's really important, but then like all of a sudden you have all of these hours that like, I want to use the word like force wasted, but like, you have to be somewhere and you're like in between obligations that are like essential. did you have that experience?
Like, like kind of forced? Yes. There it
is.
[00:11:35] Raye: was a lot on that tour. A lot of like sitting on buses and being like, oh, I like, I feel car sick, but I can't get off this bus. I can't stop
[00:11:44] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:44] Raye: Like
There's like, you know, 40 other people on here with me. Like learning how to follow the leader a little bit and be more of a passenger
[00:11:51] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:51] Raye: was actually like a really beautiful lesson for me because, you know, as a front person and as a solo artist who generally, I only tour solo.
I'm touring by myself and like, I don't really have to think of oh, like does everyone else wanna go to lunch? is everyone else doing? Like they give us a, the bus stops here and you have to go. Like, It's not like we just choose our own adventure every day.
And there was a part of that was, that was actually very healing and I kind of like, it was
[00:12:13] Aaron: Mm.
[00:12:14] Raye: like surrender to the management of the tour. Whereas you know, when we're touring on our own, especially like, I've done so many tours like McKayla, I'm sure you can relate where it's just me or just
[00:12:25] Michaela: Yep.
[00:12:25] Raye: one other person and it's the tour manager brain, even
[00:12:28] Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yep.
[00:12:29] Raye: all the time.
so getting to be a part of a situation where couldn't be in charge even if you wanted to be,
[00:12:36] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:12:37] Raye: actually You know, It had its difficult moments, but it was kind of nice to just, be like a little bit of a passenger for a bit, you know.
[00:12:44] Aaron: Yeah, When I've been in that situation for long periods of time on the road and having to follow the leader, I noticed that like I guess my drive, my creative brain, my like doe brain like kind of starts to atrophy a little bit and that like at first I'm like, oh, I have all this time in the van like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this.
And then like after a while it's eventually just like, I'm just gonna read to the end of the internet. And then I guess start at the beginning like, did you have that kind of experience?
[00:13:10] Raye: I tried not to. What was cool and different about touring with a Broadway show versus touring with music is that unless we had rehearsals, generally our days were free,
[00:13:20] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:21] Raye: we basically had until five every day, or like six sometimes or, or even seven, depending on the city.
And, you soundcheck once in that city and then
[00:13:30] Aaron: Right.
[00:13:31] Raye: you're done. You show up like 30 minutes before you go on stage basically. And so I actually got to see more of the country than
[00:13:39] Michaela: He, uh mm-hmm.
[00:13:41] Raye: music, because also it wasn't like we were in a city
[00:13:44] Michaela: You weren't traveling every
day. We were in a city for at least a week,
Mm-hmm.
[00:13:48] Raye: and many times we had so much time to kill during the day. So, And also what was really fun about this show is that we had kids in the show and all the kids wanted to like, go to the park, go to the museum, like really see every city. And
a lot of the adults like, we would try to join the kids for a lot of things.
And getting to see the country, like through the eyes of a little kid who's never seen all these new places was actually really fun. And I actually got more time to visit with family around the country than I would've. cause you know, getting to go on a vacation to new places is expensive.
And touring with music you hardly have any time. So, It actually was a huge gift 'cause I tried to get out of the hotel and not do the whole like, let's just watch TV all day thing, even though I'm tired. I'm like, let's go sit in a park, let's go see of Greenville, South Carolina, you know?
and so yeah, that was a real gift for that.
[00:14:37] Aaron: Yeah. That's amazing. I had a friend that was in the touring production of Frozen for, I want to say five years. It might have been three. It was a substantial amount of time, long enough that like he, did that and saw places like This is awesome, and then got bored and then. Rolled and got his masters while he was touring.
Like
[00:14:55] Raye: That's
[00:14:55] Aaron: sitting there, like so there was like big chunks of the production that he wasn't in. So there's pictures of him like sitting backstage, like half reindeer, half like, you know, and then his, head is off and he is like on a laptop writing papers for
his masters and then like running back out, like, yeah,
[00:15:10] Raye: just like literally on headphones, like editing, like a song for
[00:15:13] Michaela: yeah.
[00:15:13] Aaron: Yep.
[00:15:13] Raye: yeah, that was cool. Was I wasn't really writing for an like my own project that year, but I was doing a ton of sync sessions, like
[00:15:19] Aaron: Cool.
[00:15:20] Raye: from different cities. there were tons of people in our show that were like in grad school or college
[00:15:25] Michaela: that sounds like a dream. I'm like. You're just getting paid.
[00:15:29] Aaron: You're getting paid. You don't have to do any, you don't have to handle like any logistics.
[00:15:32] Michaela: Like I'm currently in grad school, so I'm like, that sounds way easier than what I'm doing at home with two children and working. Yeah.
[00:15:41] Raye: Absolutely.
[00:15:42] Michaela: I wanna be in a traveling company.
Yeah. so like the way that your personal home life is then put on hold,
[00:15:49] Raye: Absolutely.
[00:15:50] Michaela: what did that feel like and kind of recovering from it? Because I was talking to somebody about how tour
[00:15:56] Michaela: can feel like this alternate reality.
It's so weird because it feels like, oh, this is my life now. It's really hard to keep up with home life, but this is not that long. And so it's gonna be over soon. And this isn't life. But when you're on like. That long of a bigger tour where you're in cities for longer time and for a year.
[00:16:15] Raye: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Michaela: how did you navigate that?
[00:16:17] Raye: I think for me it only worked because of the exact time in my life it happened. I was like out of a really rough breakup and I remember like after that breakup, this was like three years ago, like texting my agent, being like, put me on the road like I want to tour
you know,
I had since the pandemic been grappling with wanting to tour less, and so I pretty much had told myself I wanna like go for it. Let's, get on the road. And so it came at the right time. And then actually at the end, towards the end of Peter Pan is when I met Sean, my amazing boyfriend now. And so now that we live in a house and like, a lot has changed in my
[00:16:56] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:57] Raye: Like
There's no way I would do that right now. It was perfect for that time, but even now like, I just, really don't feel the drive to tour much at all anymore. And I'm down if it's worth it, but it has to be really worth it now because You know, I think I've worked, like for me, like my whole twenties of being on the road and all the hard work I've put into my music is to be where I am now, where I can, have a really stable and beautiful home life. And so now that I have that, to pull me away from it has gotta really be worth it, but my life looked very different two years ago when I was starting the Peter Pan tour, and I'm glad I did it while I did because I don't know if I could really ever see myself doing it
[00:17:37] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Raye: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Michaela: as your kind of feelings towards touring, have shifted? Personally, how have they shifted professionally within the messaging that to be a musician you have to have a live business essentially. And I mean, it's so deeply ingrained in me that like to be, quote unquote legit, you have to have a tour presence.
And that touring is I'm obviously a millennial and like what people are building careers on TikTok, but that doesn't feel real.
[00:18:07] Raye: Right.
[00:18:07] Michaela: build a career is you go out and play a million shows and that's so ingrained in me still.
[00:18:12] Raye: Yeah.
[00:18:13] Michaela: How has that kind of moved?
[00:18:15] Raye: you know, and I'm also from New York, like you guys like, I come from that same world of like boots to the ground, live show,
[00:18:24] Michaela: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:18:25] Raye: you know what I mean?
[00:18:26] Michaela: Totally.
[00:18:27] Raye: York way, like
[00:18:28] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:18:29] Raye: guitar on your back at all times. Like, You never know when the next live performance opportunity is gonna come your way.
where I'm from, you know? and like my dad was on Broadway when I was a kid, so like, I grew up watching him backstage, just being like, live performance is the coolest thing on the planet. It's what I wanna do. I was a child actor and I did, like a lot of theater as a kid growing up in New York City.
And to me, like live performance equals life. That's how it's always been. And I think I'm doing a lot of unlearning of that. that I don't still believe that, but it's not as sustainable for me as it was before. I deal with an autoimmune thing, so like I have to like be gluten free and I have to like, be really mindful about the things I put in my body and my stress levels.
And that's really hard on the road.
[00:19:13] Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:19:14] Raye: year I've really been like, I wanna put my health above everything. And so it's been hard because I still grapple with it all the time. And like, I do love being on the road. I will always be first and foremost a live performer. And so, yeah, I mean, the answer to your question is like, I, still don't know.
I think for me right now, the goal is to not rely on live performance and touring as my main source of income. So that if I don't wanna tour, I don't have to, but
[00:19:44] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Raye: to, and I can, I will. And to like, have like a higher threshold of what I will go on the road for, like monetarily and and also try to do as much as I can on the West coast and things that are a little closer to home so it feels a little bit more sustainable.
But it's something I still grapple with and I think always will and I will never stop performing because, you know, I'm like a Broadway kid, first and foremost. an open mic kid,
when I first started playing music, I did like open mics like six nights a week.
And I'll never stop, but it's, less about the life performing and more about the travel that's so hard and just unsustainable,
[00:20:17] Aaron: for sure. we hear it time and time again and we feel it time and time again. It's such a slog. I mean, We kind of named our show after it. and then like you get on stage and you get to play and you're like, oh, I get it.
[00:20:26] Raye: yeah,
[00:20:27] Aaron: like, you know,
there's like the afterglow of an hour or two after the show where you're like, yes.
this is, this is why I do it. And then you wake up in the morning in Toledo and you're like, I gotta find coffee.
[00:20:36] Michaela: Well, and that's what I mean,
[00:20:37] Aaron: no offense to Toledo. My family apparently is from Toledo, but
[00:20:39] Michaela: this is the second time we've dissed Toledo on this
[00:20:42] Aaron: podcast. At
least.
[00:20:42] Michaela: At least podcast at somebody.
[00:20:44] Aaron: We had a really horrible time in Toledo one time. Yeah. So if anybody is there, wants to bring us back and change our minds, we,
[00:20:49] Michaela: yeah, we would stay at a different hotel if we were back in Toledo than we did last
time. think
[00:20:55] Aaron: We were
also, in Toledo too. Like I think I was on tour and, we got a speeding ticket in Toledo
yeah, we were supposed to play like an
[00:21:02] Michaela: outdoor show.
[00:21:03] Aaron: Outdoor show, like as the baseball game was ending. It was cool. It was fun. it was spot was like
[00:21:07] Michaela: the whole stadium comes over to this field where you're gonna play
[00:21:10] Aaron: and it was like the hangout area after and it was like, it looked cool and it was like June or something, you know, like when you like want to be in the sun and it's nice.
And it ended up raining. And we got stuck in some back room waiting to find out where we were gonna play, which was like the, for hours. For hours, ended up being like the back corner of this really loud bar that like nobody knew we were at. We played, we made a horrible hotel
[00:21:31] Michaela: decision.
We played, yeah.
We played in a bar to like, almost nobody. People were like seated. And it was one of those gigs where my parents came and I, just remember that feeling of just being like, God, mom and dad, why do you have to see me like in this moment? This is not my
life. my gosh.
You know?
[00:21:49] Raye: those stories.
[00:21:50] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:21:50] Raye: Ugh,
[00:21:51] Michaela: And then we stayed in a horrific hotel that we were convinced we woke up with a bunch of bites.
Anyways this, this is
[00:21:59] Raye: the actual worst
[00:22:00] Aaron: it was. you can experience on the It's disgusting.
And I think it was like a one-off, right? Yes. So like that was the whole thing. There was no like redeeming show the next day. It
[00:22:07] Michaela: was like that was a, and then breakfast was a nightmare the next day. It was just like one thing after another. So that's why, no offense to people who love Toledo, I'm sure it's beautiful.
We had a specifically bad experience but, but I do think as you get older, you start to grapple with your own relationship to touring and then what your goals are for your career. Because it's like, if my dream is to build a touring business or a musician career that looks like Brandy Carlisle's, for instance, like I need to be focusing on touring.
That needs to be my number one priority. But if I'm trying to build a career that doesn't look like that maybe I don't even have an example of what it looks like, but I know what my priorities are in my life,
that's gonna be different.
[00:22:52] Raye: I've been trying to find those examples. I'm like always searching for them. I'm like, who's going on my, my dream board
[00:22:58] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:22:58] Raye: because tough. 'cause it feels like touring equals success as a music artist. And so, what I've been trying to do recently is almost like Artist from who I like, what I feel like I am, think of myself more as like a creator and like creative.
[00:23:17] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:17] Raye: And that being like a music artist and a touring artist and a recording artist is like a part of that puzzle,
[00:23:23] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:24] Raye: like the only thing. And that there is no like hierarchy anymore. I had this shift a couple years ago.
I was like, maybe I'll start thinking of myself as a songwriter first. And now I'm realizing, no, it's not about being a songwriter first. It's about being an artist touring, artist songwriter, even composer and like things, you know, for TV and dah dah dah.
And like all of it just kind of like is in the same bucket and it all important and like nothing really is more important than the other. It just depends on the season I'm in.
[00:23:53] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:23:54] Raye: helping me. But also like, you know, I love Julia Michaels and I just saw her speak
[00:23:58] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:59] Raye: Grammy Museum and, you know, in many ways, like she's a songwriter first, she is in writing sessions all the time.
And was interesting about hearing her speak was that she is like stage anxiety and stage fright. so I'm sure she also grapples with how much she wants to be on tour. And like, she's Julia Michaels, she tours a ton. Her artist project is incredibly successful.
I feel like her songwriting is like the biggest part of what she does throughout her week. And so that was really inspiring to me because, don't work in pop music, but maybe in the folk music way, I can build something that pulls from inspiration from Julia Michaels or different people who have a little bit more of an alternative way to look at being an artist,
[00:24:38] Aaron: this is something I've been working on with myself for a few years at this point. Is having like, diversification and viewing it all as a bucket that's pointed in the same direction.
[00:24:48] Raye: exactly.
[00:24:49] Aaron: I have like an ultimate goal of what I want to do.
Like,
[00:24:52] Raye: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Aaron: don't know, I guess like to get fully down that path, but like, you know, at the end of my life, look back and be like, what is my life's work? What did I do? Rather than it being like, this job or this job, it is like this thing that I accomplished. World, like this difference that I made in the world or like, and what is that? And so I have all of these, outlets
[00:25:09] Raye: Yeah.
[00:25:10] Aaron: follow to make that happen.
[00:25:12] Raye: I love that. that's so important. It's all about, is it all pointing in the, right direction. And I think I was talking to a friend about having a mission statement, like as an
[00:25:20] Aaron: Yes. Mm-hmm.
[00:25:21] Raye: person. And like,
It's really easy for me, I feel like I'm very clear about like who I am, what I like, and what resonates with me as an artist and if it's aligned or not.
'Cause I feel like I've spent a lot of time discovering like who I am as a person and as an artist. Which like felt almost like a necessity which we can get into. But just like when I first started playing music, feeling really put in a box. And so I feel like I've had to like really define who I am in order to get out of that box.
But, i've realized that it's all about the story. like you're saying, Aaron, it's like, if we're reading like my autobiography like later in life, does this all feed into the story? Is it all aligned? What I loved about working on Spirit Rangers was, you know, it's not.
My music, but also the like message of the show aligns with my message as an artist. It aligns with my message as a human being. Peter Pan. The fact that it was like rewritten and reclaimed like by an indigenous playwright, like that's so aligned with like my message as a person, my message as an artist.
And so, it all felt like it was going in the same direction. I try to keep the channel open for these different opportunities and I feel like if I think too hard about I'm razor it goes with the touring recording artist, then that's almost like I'm closing that channel down for these
[00:26:35] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:26:36] Raye: sometimes weird and odd things to come into my life, you know?
[00:26:39] Michaela: yeah. And I think having that openness of yes, it's good to like look for examples like you said, of who's on our vision board, but then knowing that what we might create is going to look different because maybe it's never been done. And like when we are too focused on well, I wanna have a career that looks like that person, it limits our belief system of what we're able to do.
I've struggled with, when I first started putting out records, it was kind of more in like the honky tonk realm and I was touring all the time and playing bars. So that informed my aesthetic and my songwriting. And as life has changed. My music has changed 'cause I'm not playing three hour bar gigs in honky tonks anymore.
[00:27:22] Raye: Yeah.
[00:27:23] Michaela: And I've kind of struggled with grappling with like, do people keep expecting that from me? And will I lose people if I shift? 'cause I really don't wanna do that anymore. And trying to like fit yourself in these categories and really owning that, like the evolution has to happen and you will lose people
[00:27:43] Raye: right.
[00:27:43] Michaela: you'll gain other people and some people will be with you for the entire ride
[00:27:48] Raye: yeah,
[00:27:49] Michaela: be growing and changing as well.
[00:27:52] Raye: yeah. Because it might even challenge their perspective, like maybe your audience is so used to like, oh, this is what it looks like for a touring artist or a music artist that they follow and now you're getting to open up, their minds of what it can look like, and that's
[00:28:07] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:28:07] Raye: them, you know? and that's what I've loved about. I know that you both are on Patreon too, for the pod, and I've been on Patreon for seven years now, and I am so grateful to Patreon, not just for the financial security it's given me, but almost like been this bucket of cheerleaders who are
[00:28:25] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:26] Raye: to me.
Like, ' I'll be really open on my Patreon in ways that I'm not on social media 'cause it's like private, just be like, I'm about to do this. Or like, this song what do you guys think of this? is this wild? And like, everyone's always so supportive and just being like, we believe in you Ray, like anything you do, we're on board for.
[00:28:42] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:28:42] Raye: like, you know, obviously within limit, but it's really cool to have a little club of people who's really I, feel like cheering for me as a person more so than just wanting the music. And so that's, really helped me I think in my journey too.
[00:28:57] Aaron: we can take a second to kind of dig into that a little bit more, like obviously we're on Patreon, but like it's conversations that we've had between ourselves and then with other friends that also have Patreon, pages and accounts and all that. it seems like it's like just totally metabolized into what you do and part of your flow and part of your career.
How do you do that? a lot of people we talk to, it ends up feeling like another task rather than just being like something that is
aligned with what you're doing. Does it feel that way to you? Have you, like, how have you made that so sustainable for yourself?
[00:29:26] Raye: to be honest, I was really active on it. in the beginning, like the first four years there's also been seasons on Patreon. There have been years where I've felt like people stuck it out for me and I wasn't posting as much.
'cause one, I was working on spirit rangers where like everything was under NDA.
[00:29:43] Aaron: Right.
[00:29:43] Raye: literally couldn't share what I was working on. And so it did feel like an extra task in those years because anything I created for Patreon felt like an extra thing.
[00:29:53] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:29:53] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:54] Raye: working all day on a show.
So those years were hard. Even Peter Pan was hard 'cause it was like, everything I shared felt kind of redundant because it was like the same show every night. But when I'm in an album cycle, I feel like Patreon is, so fun and it doesn't feel like an extra task. So basically like to break it down into tangible things, like anyone listening who's interested in Patreon.
Like
[00:30:14] Aaron: That's us. She's talking about us. We're listening. How do you do it?
[00:30:17] Raye: I, I will change it up and try to Recycle content. So for example, like I made a record with Tucker Martine in 2019, and we had to print lyric sheets for all the musicians. And I brought a Polaroid camera to the recording. We were recording for two weeks in like, basically like a lock-in, in Portland for two weeks.
It was so fun. I took Polaroids like every day maybe like three a day. And then for the higher tears on my Patreon I would take the lyric sheets, I would sign them, make little notations, just like fun things I could do when I was like sitting around at the studio when we weren't doing vocals.
And I would mail them to like my higher tier.
[00:30:54] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:55] Raye: I've always done is try to do little tangible things like that because all it is is a stamp. You can like roll up some paper and like a Polaroid and that's a stamp. You don't have to like go to the post office. It's not like $4 a send, it's just a stamp.
I collect postcards when I'm touring and then stack them up and then like once a month I'll send little postcards to different patrons,
[00:31:13] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:14] Raye: just a postcard stamp, 35 cents. I'll do that on planes or things, and that's fun for me. Some people might find that to be a chore to write 10 postcards a month.
I think it's like a blast. But even not with the tangible things. I do like a live concert just for my patrons every month and I try to like tell them in advance or have them vote on when they want it to be so they feel like they're definitely gonna show up 'cause they voted for when it's gonna be.
[00:31:37] Raye: And the most fun thing I do, and I try to do it for every album cycle is, and it's kind of wild, but I will upload. Like 20 demos. and I'll take a poll and I'll be like, what are your favorite songs? And I tell them every time I'm taking their opinions into consideration as I am all of my industry folks that I send the playlist to and my team and all of these things.
So like, just because the patrons like these 10 songs best doesn't mean those are the 10 songs on the record.
[00:32:02] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:32:02] Raye: so fun. People get so into it and then when they get the record, you know, certain tiers and higher their names are in the liner notes, so they really feel like they create this with me.
You know, I don't have a record label, so I consider my Patreon to be like my label.
And so that is really fun. Even if I'm choosing an album cover or like a single cover, I'll like upload three and then take a poll and ask about what their favorites are, and I'll take that into consideration. Unfinished songs I'll upload. So I try to have it be things that I would be doing anyway
or things that are being recycled. And, And also, yeah, I do wanna create value and like do as much as I can for them and put an effort into it. But I feel like the things that they all respond most to are instead of like texting your friends, what do you think of these photos?
What do you think of these songs? I just ask my friends on Patreon, who've many of them been there for seven years. we all have a respect with each other. They never share anything or download it. I trust them and not that leaking my music would
[00:32:59] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:33:00] Raye: big a deal.
[00:33:01] Aaron: Gonna
put it on Napster
and like, like, oh shit, razor Um, Yeah, and just like treating them like, like a group chat really,
[00:33:10] Michaela: yeah.
[00:33:10] Raye: it's ebbed and flowed. There have been years where I've, you know, made a lot more than I'm making now. And then there are years where it's been like less and it goes up and down, you know, and I just kind of move with it.
And a lot of people though have been there since the very beginning and I feel like they'll stick it out with me no matter what. yeah, it's fun. it's a little community, you know.
[00:33:30] Michaela: I love that I have a Patreon for myself I started it in the pandemic and I was so gung-ho and I was just like, this is so fun. I was doing tutorials on how to learn songs and
[00:33:41] Raye: yeah,
[00:33:42] Michaela: didn't have kids then, so I was like, it was,
[00:33:45] riverside_aaron_+ michaela_raw-synced-video-cfr_the_other 22 hours _0465: yeah,
[00:33:45] Aaron: no
[00:33:45] Michaela: kids,
[00:33:45] Aaron: no touring. It was like,
[00:33:47] Michaela: yeah, wow. I was like, here you go.
And then my mom had a stroke and I was like, I can't do anything. And there are people that are still on there from. Whenever the pandemic was, what, five, six years ago? and at a certain point I wrote on there like, these tears, don't mean anything anymore. I can't commit to doing anything on here.
Whenever I can, I will still like be active on this, but like, please know my life situation has changed so much and it's been remarkable that I still have, it's such a small, I think I've got like 20 some people probably.
[00:34:22] Raye: great. Yeah.
[00:34:23] Michaela: people have literally been on there since the very beginning, have just ridden the waves of my personal life.
And this podcast will come out probably after my Kickstarter's done, but I'm launching a Kickstarter today.
[00:34:36] Raye: Amazing.
[00:34:37] Aaron: And thank you. And it's my first record in 10 years, not in a record deal.
[00:34:43] Raye: Wow.
[00:34:44] Michaela: where I own. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah I'm, I'm like very, it's been such a, like an intentional mind shift to be excited about this, to like know that it it was intentional and like I wanted ownership again.
But leading up to it, I like have been sharing with my patrons about the Kickstarter and, there's a lot going on in the US right now and a lot of with like SNAP benefits running out. And I've felt like, oh my God, is this inappropriate? And anyways, and I shared with my pa, I felt like it was such a safe space to share with them. Like these are the feelings I'm grappling with as I lead up to this launch
[00:35:20] Raye: Yeah.
[00:35:20] Michaela: like trying to remind myself that music is needed, like take myself and my ego out of it.
And one of my patrons who's been in it for a long time, like wrote back and said, I need this more than ever.
[00:35:30] Raye: Yeah.
[00:35:31] Michaela: one little comment
[00:35:33] Raye: Right?
[00:35:34] Michaela: been ringing in my head every time I've been like, is this not a good time? When is a good time? And just having those people where sometimes, especially on this indie level, we can, I think, forget like how much our work and the sharing of our lives matters to people.
Not because they're super into us, but because they feel connection and love and support reciprocated. I.
[00:35:58] Raye: Yeah, I mean, I think the worst thing that could happen with everything going on in the world is for like, indie artists to stop making music and stop, reaching out for community and support. I think that would be so awful. That would be
[00:36:11] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:36:11] Raye: of what we need. but I totally know, I mean, I was at a writer's round, two nights ago in Nashville, and someone was like, everyone's taking their music off of Spotify, but like, I have an album being uploaded today, you know, and I don't know how I feel about promoting it, but she was like us indie artists, you know, we probably, it's maybe the big pop artists that can make those ripples and like
[00:36:29] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:36:29] Raye: whatever.
But like, we're in d like, it's just different. So these are things that I grapple with as well. And I really do think that at the end of the day, it's about the community and making music is building community and our community needs us. And all of my favorite artists, you know, if they stopped making music or stopped asking for me to buy their shirts because of, what's going on in the world, I'd be like, no, don't stop.
Please.
[00:36:52] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:36:52] Raye: to, I
[00:36:53] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:54] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:36:54] Raye: please.
[00:36:57] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:36:57] Raye: Yeah.
[00:36:58] Michaela: one of the things in promoting that you and I emailed about was the big question that everyone seems to be asking. Do I hire a publicist?
[00:37:07] Raye: I know. I was talking to Erin about this in our session too. 'cause gosh I, wanna know like, it's like I want someone to just hand me the answer being
[00:37:15] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:37:16] Raye: I wanna like, open a card and it be like, don't do it.
But it's just such a risk. So openly, like I spent upwards of like $20,000 on PR for
[00:37:25] Michaela: Yep.
[00:37:25] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:27] Raye: I can't afford that,
And I have nothing bad to say about that PR firm. I just think that, like, where I'm at in my music career just doesn't really make sense. It's like, it's just disproportionate. Like the
[00:37:38] Michaela: Yeah,
[00:37:39] Raye: I don't know if it's worth it. I don't know, maybe it's like an ego thing of like, I want
[00:37:43] Michaela: totally.
[00:37:43] Raye: and I wanna be validated, you
[00:37:45] Michaela: Yep.
[00:37:46] Raye: like, if my record isn't written up by NPR or rolling Stone or da da da like, is it real, is it
[00:37:52] Michaela: Yep.
[00:37:53] Raye: Especially as someone who's indie, it's like I already don't have, the label validation.
And then I go into these head spirals of does validation even matter? it's like hard to know. And so I am still thinking about it and I don't know, but, I just did this really fun thing at my house a couple weeks ago with my friend Jeremy does like online marketing, social media marketing for the management company friends at work.
So he works with John Legend and Charlie Po. And he basically told us, gotta be on TikTok.
[00:38:22] Michaela: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:38:24] Raye: its own basically constant publicity,
[00:38:27] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:38:28] Raye: and like I was always someone who was like, ah, like TikTok is for, I don't know, gen Z
[00:38:33] Michaela: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:38:35] Raye: like I am just gonna stay on Instagram.
And
[00:38:37] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:38] Raye: recently I just did this challenge where I like took his advice and I was made a TikTok every day for like a month. I did really low lift stuff. Like every TikTok I made took me like less than three minutes.
[00:38:51] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:51] Raye: pretty much took one clip out of one of my songs and it was a protest song, so it kind of had like a little bit of a bite to it.
This clip was like seven seconds and I just like, was eating breakfast and like, singing the song. the 30 times I posted on TikTok, it was like 15 out of them. I just did that same thing I grew my followers from like 1500 to like 5,500 in like that month.
[00:39:14] Aaron: Wow.
[00:39:14] Raye: And so of me is like, maybe instead of publicity, I like doubled down on the things that are in my hand that don't cost as much money.
but you know, I, I'm like every other millennial, I'm always like, side eyeing social media and TikTok and like,
[00:39:27] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:39:28] Raye: day.
But I actually think that maybe instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars, I just get over myself and just do that. But
these are the things I think about every day. I mean, we,
[00:39:38] Aaron: we all do. You know, And it's like publicists used to be the only way, because the way people heard about you is like in magazines, in the newspaper but that's obviously nonexistent anymore. we know from people that work at publications that like, they need the artists as much as the artists needs them, they need artists to share it so that artists will go to their, website so they can sell ads.
But we're in this like weird conundrum middle ground where like those quotes from Pitchfork, from NPR, from whoever, like carry weight, because we still need like third party validation.
like credit and social proof that like our three minute song is worth somebody's attention it's like, do we spend 20 grand on a publicist,
or do you take half of that 10 grand and like, work on something like branding. So everything you post is cohesive. And so people don't even need to like, as they're flipping through their feed, watching 9,000 different topics per minute, even if they don't fully watch they're subliminal.
Like, Oh, that's Ray. Like, Oh, there's Ray, and like, so it's like that, like really subliminal, like ping touch point, know.
[00:40:39] Raye: We can only pay for so much,
[00:40:40] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:40:41] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:40:42] Aaron: Geez.
[00:40:42] Michaela: Yeah, I mean, I am, planning this record and so I've been having conversations like with radio promoters and I still am planning on hiring a radio promoter.
'cause I've seen where that like
actually translates to. Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:55] Raye: Yeah. translates to fans radio is still prevalent. But the promoter was telling me what's your plan for publicity? 'cause I know a lot of artists are questioning hiring publicists these days, but having those press quotes really helps with radio.
Oh are you guys all in on it
[00:41:12] Michaela: together? I think what's eventually gonna have to happen, unfortunately for publicists is like the scale is gonna have to change because they're still charging so much money.
[00:41:25] Aaron: They could hang the carrot on the stick of like, oh, we'll get you on late night tv.
But like, a, that's disappearing, and B, it doesn't move. Any metrics like,
[00:41:32] Michaela: well, the, other thing that is difficult to know, especially for fans, is even if you get booked on late night TV or CBS Saturday morning, that costs money. So you then also have to have thousands of dollars to make that happen, to be on it.
So the question is, even if I get these big press bumps, will it translate to enough streams or sales where it's streams and you're getting fractions of pennies that it will even break even?
[00:41:59] Raye: right,
[00:42:00] Michaela: these are the, questions that I feel like everyone is grappling with and I definitely don't know the answer.
'Cause I've also seen how, like some data came out that like, TikTok doesn't actually build real human fans, but just builds attention on the platform. So it's just building for the platform.
So like. No, there is a lot of that. I feel like for me and what I've observed in my like 30 days posting on TikTok is it's like 90% that,
Mm-hmm.
[00:42:27] Raye: like,
I've gotten like three new Patreon folks
[00:42:30] Michaela: Ooh,
[00:42:31] Aaron: that's cool.
[00:42:32] Michaela: Love
it. for me I was like, those three folks are worth it.
Yeah. Yeah,
[00:42:37] Aaron: for
sure. 90% of the comments I'm getting the follows, the interest is all just.
[00:42:43] Raye: on the platform, not going anywhere. But I also, sometimes I'm a little cuckoo and I go the extra mile of like, if someone like comments on something, I'll like comment them back and be like, thank you. And then I'll be like, oh, by the way like, you know, if you wanna like find out more about what I'm doing, like check out my new record
[00:43:00] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Raye: I'll just like tell people like literally like one by one
[00:43:03] Michaela: Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
[00:43:04] Raye: it converts.
And like I'm a part of like the Patreon ambassador program, which you guys should be a part of if you're not already. And we've like gone around and like tell each other like what works. And whenever I've said that everyone like, is like, right. that's like not scalable. I'm like, I know it's not scalable, but I love it.
[00:43:18] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:43:19] Aaron: not scalable
yet. Somebody's gonna make something that like
that. It of ought, yeah.
[00:43:24] Raye: anyway, if anyone out there is listening and you can help us decide if publicity is like, like
[00:43:30] Michaela: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:31] Raye: send me a dm.
[00:43:31] Aaron: yeah,
we have this conversation more and more, including, we talked about this a lot with Jay Edward Keys, who's the director of editorial for Bandcamp.
Like, that conversation.
yeah. And so we were very much like, do we need a publicist? I'm, and he was like,
[00:43:43] Michaela: maybe we should have a publicist on and be like, what is your real, what's
[00:43:47] Aaron: your end of it?
[00:43:47] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:43:48] Aaron: Well, I mean, 'Cause like we, we also, you know, in the interest of transparency, like we get pitched by publicists probably daily like, for
[00:43:54] Michaela: sure. Yeah.
[00:43:55] Aaron: And like, just Jay Edward Ruiz was saying like, we don't like bring people on because of who the publicist was that sent it. But like a publicist can tell us in a paragraph.
Who the person is and why it benefits our show. Whereas like when we get direct pitches from artists, it's like, you spent a long time on that page and that's awesome. We read two paragraphs of it.
[00:44:13] Michaela: there's those,
[00:44:13] Raye: about making a good email.
[00:44:15] Michaela: yeah. It's, It's messaging.
[00:44:17] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:44:17] Michaela: And, and it's like filters, like, I definitely will kind of give more regard to an email that comes from publicists that I know who I have a history with that I know represent quality music and artists who are really working, who would meet the standards of what we're considering for the guests that we wanna have on show.
Because we want people who've been doing this for several album cycles who have weathered the storms, not brand new.
[00:44:45] Aaron: we have publicists that pitch us like viral TikTok stars we're like. Not yet.
Like three years from now. Like after they, you know, they're on the way up after they come down
and the come down, then come back Yeah, yeah,
[00:44:55] Michaela: yeah.
So there's still, this isn't to like vilify publicists at all. They have a really hard job. So I'm curious, maybe we should have a post on just talk about like the changing, 'cause I'm sure they're also like, we need to also have a music journalist on who's like, everything is changing, like journalists are having a hard time.
on that hopeful note.
[00:45:14] Aaron: I mean, I've been thinking about that the whole time. talking about how does touring work, how does releasing a record work? Like, all of that. We're trying to figure out, we're trying to keep tabs on what works, but like the way that we do that is constantly changing too.
So it's like the ground is moving like this the
more and more I think about it and have these conversations Doing something like that you're doing that's so diverse across multiple platforms and mediums and outlets. There's so much stability there, because it's like you can kind of just follow what is flowing and what is inspiring and it's long way of saying like, it seems so smart.
That seems like a great idea.
[00:45:45] Raye: I think someone told me like a while ago about you gotta like recession proof
[00:45:50] Aaron: Yeah. Fully.
[00:45:51] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:45:51] Raye: I heard that thing before the pandemic and it really stuck with me. And you know, like both of my parents work in finance. Like my dad, he also is an actor, but like, he was like a tax lawyer.
My mom is a retired business professor and like worked for Bank of Tokyo and they're like very, immigrant minded. Like my mom's an immigrant from Japan, where it's like, you gotta create safety. You
[00:46:12] Michaela: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:46:13] Raye: sure that you're stable and like, I'm a big dreamer and I've achieved so many of my dreams, but I love stability and I
[00:46:21] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:21] Raye: a diverse portfolio
[00:46:23] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:46:23] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:24] Raye: And that honestly like, has created a lot of peace and nervous system regulation for me because, there's years that sink is slow.
I'm not panicking.
[00:46:36] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:46:37] Michaela: Yep.
[00:46:37] Raye: there's other things that can go up and down too. So, Yeah. I think that's super helpful
[00:46:43] Aaron: Yeah, Totally. I know that you listen to our show, so you know that we like to wrap up our conversations with the uh, choose your own adventure question. It's either something you would tell younger, right? That's just stepping into this as a career or something that somebody's told you along the way that resonates and fills your tank.
[00:47:01] Raye: Ah, yeah. I do listen all the time. And of course I didn't even think about this in advance. Like What would I say? Um,So I think one thing I would tell like younger Ray is to not be afraid to do the things that maybe all the boys are doing.
I think, like I really wanted to learn how to produce when I first started making music. And I remember viscerally sitting at a computer. Thinking like, I wanna learn how to produce. And this was when I was like 18, 19. then someone told me like, like 2% of producers are women.
Like, It's just not really like what, the women are doing. so I didn't do it
[00:47:37] Michaela: mm.
[00:47:37] Raye: I never learned. to this day, I can do very minor things. And feel like that discouragement really stuck with me.
[00:47:45] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:47:45] Raye: I guess what I would just tell younger Ray is like, yeah, like maybe, don't worry about what everyone else is doing.
If you wanna do it, like give it a shot, try it. there is space for you and just because there's people that don't look like you doing that doesn't mean that you're not welcome and that you can't thrive in that space. And for me, in my music, I'm always trying to empower.
Youth of color, indigenous youth, especially because we're definitely a minority, you know, indigenous people people of color in folk music. And I'm always like, go for it. Like, It doesn't matter. What everyone else is
[00:48:17] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:17] Raye: Like
If you believe in it and you are gonna put the work in go for it. that's what came up for me.
[00:48:23] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:48:24] Michaela: I love that.
[00:48:24] Aaron: as, soon as you said that about, coming up and shying away from being a producer, I'm like, having created with you, it's like you have a producer's mind. You have
like a, a vision and like there really is only like,
yeah, for real. Yeah,
for real.
It is not too late, season.
Yeah. There,
there really is So few producers and engineers like sliding faders there's so few.
[00:48:44] Raye: my boyfriend Sean, he's always trying to encourage me to like learn how to produce, but I'm like, how am I supposed to learn how to produce when like I live with him because I've become like this lazy passenger princess here.
[00:48:54] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:48:55] Raye: a Grammy, Grammy winning Yeah.
[00:48:57] Aaron: Yeah. I'm like well, why can't you just help me do
[00:49:00] Michaela: it?
[00:49:01] Aaron: Yeah, yeah,
[00:49:02] Michaela: yeah.
[00:49:03] Raye: gotta
[00:49:03] Michaela: But at least you have I was like, you have at least like a kernel of interest. I've never been interested.
[00:49:08] Aaron: That's the thing too. And that's okay. Like, You know it, you know what I mean?
[00:49:12] Michaela: Well,
yeah, that's some,
[00:49:12] Aaron: there's somethings like I should, because there's not women
[00:49:15] Michaela: doing
[00:49:16] Aaron: that.
You know? There's like that. I
[00:49:17] Michaela: think about that in the diversification in artistry, like leaning into the other things that you're interested in. for me, I've never really been in interested in production or whatever. I'm interested in writing prose and essays and teaching and like, so diversifying in that way has been my lean and not thinking, oh, I should diversify in the way that artists typically diversify, like producing or whatever.
So really following your interests, I think is
important. And like what was so fun about being in a show for a year is that one of my first interests before I even found music was comedy,
[00:49:51] Aaron: Mm-hmm. '
[00:49:51] Raye: cause I never really think of myself as like, actors. Like we all had to go through some kind of like classes and dah, dah, dah.
And I was like, how can I fit in comedy into folk music? And that's actually been a fun thing to think about and explore in my head. Especially just with TikTok and just like making funny videos that pertain to my music or pertain to like, a song. And it's so funny 'cause my music is not funny at all.
Like A lot of it's really serious, like
[00:50:16] Aaron: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:17] Raye: music and
commentaries on America. cool, like to lean into the things that you love. And I think that a really well-rounded artist is not just music, but it's also everything, their hobbies and like, Joni Mitchell's a painter and like all the things
[00:50:33] Michaela: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:33] Raye: us is like a part of it.
so yeah, I was thinking about that too, and like how, like can I incorporate more of myself into my music? it's a fun thing to think about.
[00:50:42] Michaela: Yeah. Yeah. That's a beautiful way to wrap up as
[00:50:46] riverside_aaron_+ michaela_raw-synced-video-cfr_the_other 22 hours _0465: well.
[00:50:46] Aaron: Yeah, for sure. Thank you, Ray for, for sitting with us, like just after getting home. We appreciate you taking the time.
[00:50:53] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:50:53] Raye: Of course. Such an honor. I'm such a fan. You're both Yeah. just doing such a service for our community Mm-hmm.
literally if I have a question or if I am. grappling with something, I'll just like listen to like four episodes of the podcast in like a day and I'll always get my question answered. And it's very comforting ' cause it feels like our corner of the music industry can sometimes feel, you know, like we're not in pop, we're like our own little subsection.
And so yeah, you're both like such a voice for all of us. So I'm just so grateful for what you do. So thank you.
[00:51:22] Aaron: Thank
[00:51:23] riverside_aaron_+ michaela_raw-synced-video-cfr_the_other 22 hours _0465: you.
[00:51:23] Aaron: Thank you so much.
[00:51:24] Raye: Yay.
[00:51:25] Aaron: All, all right. Great to see you.
[00:51:26] Michaela: Bye bye.
[00:51:28] Aaron: See