Frank Ray At The 2023 CMAs
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00:00Live from the CMAs, I'm Jeff Kirkshen, that's Justin, and we are here with Frank Ray.
00:05What's up, y'all? How's it going?
00:06Now, I gotta say, our program director, Raz, back in Philadelphia, he told us that you are the guy you gotta hear live.
00:13Oh, well that's good. That's certainly the desired effect.
00:15And listen, I love the new single, I love your music. Your vocals are kind of insane.
00:20Oh, dude, I appreciate that. Thank you.
00:23So the fact that we can sit here and say, like, those vocals you hear on the track, even better live, that's pretty cool.
00:29Yeah, tequila helps.
00:30Okay, I was gonna ask. Okay.
00:32That's what it is.
00:32So on my own little world, okay, I was a singer and an a cappella singer in college, actually.
00:38Ooh, that's like the best and hardest kind of scene.
00:40Oh, it was very difficult. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
00:43Nobody ever appreciates it.
00:44Dude, I was a part of a barbershop quartet. I get it.
00:46Oh, yeah. Were you a T1 or lead?
00:48I was a T1.
00:49Yeah, I could tell.
00:50At that time. At that time.
00:52Now things have, they've kind of dropped a little bit.
00:54So you mentioned tequila, right?
00:56Yeah.
00:56But is there really a method to the madness of performing and constantly having to sing, maybe every night?
01:02Yeah, you should, actually. Maybe your voice is an instrument like anything else, right?
01:05Yeah.
01:05You know that.
01:05Yeah.
01:05And so really taking care of it is priority, which I don't. I don't.
01:11It's a lot of water, a lot of tequila. But I do have a combination. I have two beers and two shots before every show, at least, minimum, right?
01:18Two beers and two shots before I hit the stage, because I guess it's like the right combination for me.
01:22And then once I get up there, everyone's just like, oh, we should just send that guy some shots.
01:25And it gets out of hand really quickly.
01:27It's like the pre-flight beers. You have the pre-concert drinks.
01:31Yeah, dude. I mean, it's the thing. But two beers, two shots is my formula.
01:34What song does it hit you? Because for me, I would be on the floor after two beers and two shots.
01:40Yeah. It's happened a couple of times where I do this toast, right?
01:45And we speak in Spanish and it goes, para arriba, para abajo, para centro, para adentro.
01:48And we take a shot, right? You know what it is.
01:50I married a Mexican woman.
01:52There you go. See? And so, but we do that.
01:54And everybody thinks that they're the only ones buying you shots, but they see shots coming up.
01:58And so I'll be seven or eight shots deep before the first five songs.
02:01And yeah, I might walk off like 45 minutes early.
02:05Yeah.
02:05Good night, everybody.
02:06I wanted to ask you a little bit about that Hispanic heritage.
02:09You know, I've been in country music for a bit now, but you don't see a lot of Hispanic heritage in country music.
02:15Right.
02:15It's kind of cool to be.
02:16Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of a new era.
02:19Yeah.
02:19Right. But not that it's not a new idea.
02:22I tell people all the time, Latin influence has been a part of country music since its origin.
02:26We just haven't been represented for the better part of 25 years.
02:29And it certainly happened back in the 90s with Rick Trevino and Emilio Nevada.
02:33If you go a little further than that, you got Johnny Rodriguez, you got Freddie Fender.
02:36And all these artists have kind of paved the way for artists like myself.
02:41And I'm just trying to do the same thing now.
02:42You know that feeling when you hear a song for the first time and like hits you in the back of the throat a little bit?
02:46Yeah.
02:47I was driving around and Jesus at the Taco Truck came on.
02:50Come on.
02:50With Shai Carter.
02:51Dude, that's it.
02:52I did the repeat where you listen to the whole thing and you pop it back on again.
02:55Yeah.
02:56Amazing.
02:56How did that come about?
02:58That's a song that was written by Ben Burgess, Nathan Chapman, and Shai Carter.
03:02And then they brought me in on it and there was a few things I wanted to tweak on it that made it just a little more authentic to the culture and not so on the nose.
03:10Yeah.
03:10Although it is pretty on the nose.
03:11When you say taco anything, it's on the nose about Mexican culture.
03:14Absolutely.
03:15But it really is a song for having such a kind of a goofy title, so to speak.
03:21It's a song that has a lot of substance and tackles some real issues.
03:24And it's not a story that a lot of people have told about immigration and stuff like that and really just talking about the issues.
03:30Yeah.
03:30It comes across my screen.
03:31I'm like, what?
03:32This is.
03:32And then I'm just like, oh.
03:34Yeah, dude.
03:34I need to brag on Justin.
03:35We did drive from Philly to Nashville.
03:37We did.
03:38And he said, hey, you know, we're going to see all these great artists.
03:40We're going to see.
03:41I just want to meet Frank Ray to ask him about the song.
03:43It's so good.
03:43In our second interview of the day, he got his one question.
03:46Justin, you can head to the bar now.
03:48You're good.
03:48He told me not to nerd out.
03:49I go, we're going to do like a couple nerd out moments.
03:51There's one of them.
03:52There's one of them.
03:52I love it, man.
03:53Frank Ray, thank you so much for joining us for our live CMA coverage.