Jacket and Trousers TOGA ARCHIVES / Overshirt CHÉ / Vest Calvin Klein / Boots Dr. Martens
Mushroom necklace PATTARAPHAN / Chain Alice Made This / Rings PATTARAPHAN , Rachel Strange Jewellery, Giovanni Raspini / Bracelet All Saints, Alice Made This

Through busking on the streets of London, Ray’s goosebump-inducing performances and impressive vocal control – which he manoeuvres from falsetto to powerhouse – earned him hundreds of thousands of fans. Despite having released music for the past two years, it was Ray’s recent track “Comfortable” that went viral and launched him into the stratosphere.

This year alone, Ray has performed with Teddy Swims, supported Principle cover star Tom Grennan, played Radio 1’s Big Weekend, and secured his own headline tour. As we catch up with Ray ahead of his performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival, we discover that this is only the beginning.

You’ve had an incredible trajectory. Has it all sunk in?

Yeah, it’s sunk in. It’s exciting. My journey has been very from the ground up, like literally street level and up. So I’ve been working for it for a long time. So now I’m just excited to be busy.

Jacket, Sweater and Trousers Solid Homme / Boots Manolo Blahnik / Watch Montblanc / Rings Giovanni Raspini, All Saints

Let’s dive into your recent EP, I TRIED. It sees you grappling with maturity and pursuing meaningful connections. As your career continues to ascend, do you feel that real connections are becoming less tangible?

I feel very blessed to have a close circle of people. It can be a bit overwhelming, in this industry, because there are so many people all the time, and interacting with a lot of people is hard. It’s not as easy to find real connections as it was maybe a few years ago. I’ve made a few friends in the industry, I’m very happy about that. I think I’m always looking for connection, it’s always a struggle anyway.

You mentioned that the growth you experienced during the release of the EP was “unprecedented.” Can you share what you meant by that?

It was crazy. In November last year, I hadn’t put anything out from this EP and I started teasing “Comfortable,” which was the first song that was released at the top of this year. I was on 600,000 followers on Instagram and then I was teasing it, and then within two weeks, I was on a million followers. I had that song for so long. I didn’t realise that people would connect with it as much as they did. So many people are jumping on now and it makes me so happy. It’s been crazy.

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You touched on it there about people really connecting with your music. Writing about your emotions and experiences has captured a fanbase that really resonates with and relates to your music. What kinds of messages have you received about your music from fans?

Yeah, and it’s always beautiful to hear these kinds of things. I released this song called “Popcorn and a Smoothie” last year, about the relationship between me and my dad who was quite absent throughout my life. So many people got in touch with me about that, telling me such different perspectives. They might not talk to a sibling or friend; they related to it in such interesting and different ways, but they really connected with it and that just made me so happy. Once I put a song out, it’s no longer mine. It’s so beautiful for these songs to have found a home in so many different people. These kinds of stories, I’ve always tried to hear them.

Jacket, T-shirt and Trousers Craig Green / Boots Manolo Blahnik / Watch Montblanc / Rings All Saints, Giovanni Raspini 

You describe yourself as “unapologetically honest.” When it comes to songwriting, I feel like honesty is such an enamouring trait, but how does it feel to release work that is so personal?

There’s so much that goes into creating songs for me. The writing process sometimes can be long. It can take a day, it can take weeks or months, and then producing the song and trying to find the perfect sound for it. So it’s hours of work trying to craft this thing. So once I release a song, it’s the best feeling. I try not to listen to my music [laughs]. Because after I’ve written my song, I close the book a little bit. So I love whenever I perform these songs afterwards, it’s like I’m really giving the fans their own experience and letting them interpret their own way and that’s what music should be, to me.

When you perform your songs live, do they take on a new shape for you?

Absolutely. Performance for me is the pinnacle. It’s my favourite thing to do with music. That’s why I started busking in the first place. So when I do perform these songs, a lot of them are quite deep and personal stories, so it’s easy for me to get to that place. But then it’s just a beautiful thing. It’s a bit different, depending on the crowd I’m singing it to. Some days I might be more into this song than this one, certain songs will hit me at different times. I learned how to sing by feeling it. I envy people who can sing effortlessly because I’ve never felt like I could do that. I have to really be quite purposeful. My live performances are very emotional, I think.

Jacket, Sweater and Trousers Solid Homme / Watch Montblanc / Rings Giovanni Raspini, All Saints

Is that almost because you’re reliving the emotional experience when you’re performing?

Yeah. A lot of the time. Subconsciously and sometimes consciously. I feel like I’m a storyteller when I’m performing, so I definitely go through the phases of those emotions.

Does that get easier over time?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Every performance is so rewarding. So it just keeps getting more fulfilling and easier.

Give me a window into your process – how do you translate an emotion or experience into a song?

It can be different for me a lot of the time. When I first started writing, I was using my guitar. I’d play chords and hum melodies and words would come out. I like to imagine that these songs already exist and I’m just finding the right words and the right melodies to put the puzzle together again. Sometimes I’ll start with more of a beat, an instrumental when I’m working with a producer, sometimes I might write something I’m feeling in my notes and then turn that into something more underlined. I quite like being spontaneous with my writing, because I am constantly looking for inspiration as I’m living. As a writer, this is kind of what we do. A monotonous process of writing might take away a bit of the magic of real life; real life just happens, you don’t really plan on it. So I try to keep that when I’m writing.

Sweater Gant / Shirt Mr Marvis / Tie Stylist’s own / Rings PATTARAPHAN, Giovanni Raspini, Rachel Strange Jewellery

As well as I TRIED., your EPs have been titled i felt. and i was. What’s the story behind the titles in this series?

Thank you for noticing that! I like seeing my emotional growth and these tales that I’m going through as I get older, as I become a proper artist. i was. was very much a place of raw emotion. My first song “Hollow” was very emotional and I was very much feeling low in myself. And then you have a song like “Comfortable.” And that’s way more of a self-aware song where I’m acknowledging my personal flaws and my role in the messes that I might have gotten myself into. I’m just trying to portray this section of my teenage years and early 20s. As we get to the fourth EP, I really want to get to a place where I’m confident in myself, people can learn more of my story, and then we go into an album where people understand who I am as an artist. I’m laying the groundwork for my fans.

How has achieving fame through TikTok, where reactions are quite instant and there’s a short attention span influenced your songwriting?

It hasn’t influenced my songwriting, but definitely the way I promote and market my music. It’s a whole different thing than it used to be when I first started writing, but I try to make sure that the way I write songs is for honesty. If I change that, it wouldn’t be quite as authentic as it is now.

Jacket, sweater, trousers and sneakers Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO / Overshirt Bound / Rings PATTARAPHAN, All Saints, Rachel Strange Jewellery

Lastly, what does the future hold for Victor Ray?

The kind of artist I am is quite a traditional one. So I wanna release albums, I want to really tell stories, let the world understand what it’s like to be someone like me – from growing up where I grew up here in the UK, from a Black British background. I want to get as far as I can go by doing that. I feel like now we’re going to a really exciting place where artists like Shaboozey, Beyoncé did this country album. I’ve got a friend called Myles Smith who’s doing well in the pop/folk world. I’m really excited for the world to understand that there’s a lot of Black British talent and there’s a lot of stories here in the pop world, and not just in R&B and hip-hop. I’m excited to really push the boundaries and just take it as far as it can be taken so people can really aspire for more than maybe what they feel like they’re restricted to.

Jacket and Trousers TOGA ARCHIVES / Overshirt CHÉ / Vest Calvin Klein / Boots Dr. Martens
Mushroom necklace PATTARAPHAN / Chain Alice Made This / Rings PATTARAPHAN , Rachel Strange Jewellery, Giovanni Raspini / Bracelet All Saints, Alice Made This

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