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RAY WILSON
A Brief History...
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Ray
Wilson was born in Dumfries, Scotland, on September 9, 1968. In his early
teens, Wilson quickly took to music, inspired by his older brother, Steve, a
guitarist who was in a couple of amateur bands at the time. By the age of
14, Ray Wilson was in rock groups with his brother Steve and performed live
for the first time on stage in front of several hundred children at a school
related function under the band name Pink Gin. The adrenaline felt by Wilson
from this experience left him with little doubt that he had found his
calling as a musician. Wilson would be in other bands during his teens,
including The End, which performed mostly David Bowie cover tunes, one of
Ray’s early influences.
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By this point, Wilson was suffering from
depression. He felt hurt, frustrated and angry with the Tony Banks and Mike
Rutherford’s decisions. Especially, due to personal commitments, both
financial and otherwise, that he had made to accommodate the band’s initials
plans for a second album which had now suffered as a result. The late ‘90s
and early ‘00s were a dark period for the singer and songwriter who had
isolated himself while he attempted to deal with his personal situation.
Despite his depression, Ray did manage to appear on The Scorpions’ Moment
of Glory album, where he sang the band’s hit single “Big City Nights”
accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic. The performance was later included
on the band’s DVD of the same name. |
In 1988, Ray Wilson met pianist Paul Holmes at
a bar in Edinburgh where his then girlfriend performed. The two musicians
formed a songwriting partnership after an impromptu live performance of The
Eagles “Desperado.” Within two years, the duo formed the band Guaranteed
Pure, which also featured his brother Steve on guitar and, eventually,
bassist John Haimes. Guaranteed Pure recorded two albums, including Swing
Your Bag, which was recorded at ex-Marill ion
vocalist Fish’s recording studio, The Funny Farm. The title track from
Swing Your Bag was featured on Fish’s Outpatients ’93, a CD
compilation of various artists on Fish’s now extinct Dick Brothers record
label. Fish was instantly drawn to the band, and felt the title track from
the album was reminiscent of ex-Van Halen singer David Lee Roth’s remake of
“Just a Gigolo,” which had been popular in years past. Despite Fish’s
personal endorsement, the band failed to gain any
commercial recognition or major record label interest, and the Guaranteed
Pure disbanded. Paul Homes, who had made a better living working in the
piano bar where he and Wilson first met, decided to return to the circuit. |
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We did not hear much from Ray Wilson for the better part of a year, until he
decided to do some acoustic shows with his brother Steve and vocalist Amanda
Lyon at Maddogs in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival in August 2001. The 13
shows booked consisted of cover tunes and highlights of material Ray
recorded with bands like Guaranteed Pure, Stiltskin, and Genesis. To
Wilson’s amazement, the club dates sold out quickly, and he began building a
grass roots following based upon the popularity of these shows. Not as a
former member of Stiltskin or Genesis, but in his own right as a solo act.
Following his success at the Fringe Festival, in September 2001, Ray
announced additional tour dates, building upon the momentum established a
month earlier. One of those gigs, at the Kashmir Club in London, was webcast
across the world on the Internet. It was during these early solo shows that
Ray’s rapport with audiences first started getting noticed as was his gift
for storytelling in between songs.
Following the shows, Ray Wilson independently released Unplugged, a
single disc live album recorded during this series of sold out performances
in August. The album was later re-titled Live & Acoustic when
the project was picked up by Inside & Out Records in July 2002 upon the
insistence of MTV who had apparently copyrighted the “Unplugged” moniker for
acoustic albums. |
Ray Wilson, who was financially strained by this point, had been asked to
join a band called Stiltskin led by guitarist and songwriter Peter Lawlor in
January 1994 with a starting paycheck of 150 UK pounds per week. Stiltskin
also included Ross McFarlane on drums and James Finnigan, formerly from the
band Hue and Cry, on bass, piano and organ. The group entered almost
immediately into Water Music Studios in London to record The Mind’s Eye,
which was released in October 1994. The debut single from The Mind’s Eye,
“Inside,” was marketed as part of a major Levi’s Jeans campaign in Europe,
which helped rocket the song to #1 in Europe and #37 on the Mainstream Rock
Chart on Billboard in the United States (although it did not fare as
well on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart). Following a highly
successful European club tour, a few festival shows and two additional
singles: ”Footsteps” which had moderate charting success, and “Rest in
Peace,” which failed to dent the charts, Stiltskin returned to work on a
follow up album to The Mind’s Eye, which by this point had gone Gold
in the UK and r eaching #10
on the UK album chart. Unfortunately, tensions between the band members ultimately resulted in the disruption of the
writing sessions for the much anticipated second album causing the band to
disintegrate by early 1996. Once again, Ray Wilson found himself without a
band.
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The response to the live album, while not
commercially overwhelming, was very encouraging and led Ray to return to the
studio for his first solo album. It also lead to a collaboration with the
German band Turntable Rocker, who co-wrote “Love Supreme” on their 2002
album, Smile, with Ray who also contributed guest vocals. Later in
2002, Ray re-recorded his Cut vocals for “Another Day” for popular Trance DJ
Armin Van Buuren. The newly remixed version, called “Yet Another Day,”
rocketed up the Dutch dance charts to #1 and had minor success in 20 other
countries, including the United States. The trance version of Wilson’s song
would later surface on Van Buuren’s 2003 album, 76. While radically
different than anything Wilson had done before, the success of the dance-pop
single would eventually lead to an additional collaboration between Wilson
and Van Buuren.
In April 2003, Ray Wilson released his first solo studio album, the aptly
titled Change, and signed on to tour as an opening act for the
popular Canadian ‘80s rock band Saga and select dates with Joe Jackson.
Change was a radically different sounding album than what fans might
have expected based upon the hard rock of Stiltskin and his work with
Genesis. Change was a strongly melodic, folk-rock driven record with
an intense emotional edge clearly seething with heartfelt lyrics by Wilson.
The album was well received critically, and Wilson toured rigorously through
Europe in support of the project. |
Shortly after Stiltskin disbanded, Ray Wilson was discreetly asked to
audition for Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford in Surrey, England to replace
the lead vocalist role in Genesis left vacant by Phil Collins who had
privately left the band three years earlier after a charity performance in
1993. Wilson auditioned at Genesis’ private studio, The Farm, where he was
asked to sing old Genesis classics like “Land of Confusion” and “No Son of
Mine.” Ray’s confidence in the studio and vocal abilities quickly earned the
interest of Banks and Rutherford and put him at the top of a short list of
candidates for the lead singer spot. A month later, after a second
audition, Wilson learned that he got the job and returned to The Farm to
complete the recording of the band’s Calling All Stations album,
which was released in September 1997. As part of his deal with the band,
Wilson was awarded a contract for two albums with Genesis. When he arrived
at the band’s studio, Wilson did contribute to the writing of songs like
“Not About Us” and “There Must Be Some Other Way,” but largely the album had
already been written by Banks and Rutherford who had been working on the
project for some time while searching for a vocalist. The new trio was
joined in the studio by two drummers, Nick D’Virgilio and Nir Z, the latter
of which was also chosen by the band to tour with Genesis on their 1998 tour
in support of the album along with touring guitarist Anthony Drennan.
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In October 2 004, Ray Wilson
released his sophomore studio solo album, The Next Best
Thing. Again, the aptly titled project was another strong solo release
with more sophisticated production values and even more diversity than his
previous album, Change. Among its 12-core tracks, included a
modernized remake of his #1 hit “Inside” made famous by his former band
Stiltskin. Once again, Ray toured heavily in support of the album in Europe.
Ray also found time to co-write and sing on the song “Roses” with the
German progressive rock band RPWL which would later appear on their World
Through My Eyes album in January 2005.
In May 2005, Ray released the double live
album Ray Wilson Live, a 32-track concert recording featuring 11
Genesis classics, plus favorites from his own solo catalog, Stiltskin, and
more. Amidst his other projects and his active European touring schedule,
Wilson reunited with Armin Van Buuren to re-record a trance remix version of
Cut’s “Gypsy” in August 2005 for Van Buuren’s Shivers album. Ray also
performed live with RPWL, which later became part of their live album,
Start the Fire: Live, released in October 2005.
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The Genesis tour was planned for both North
America and Europe in large venues as they had played in past tours.
Unfortunately, the failed commercial success of Calling All Stations
and poor ticket sales resulted in a rethinking of the tour. North American
dates were
scaled back to theater shows, but ultimately even theater shows i n
North
America were cancelled due to lack of interest. The European
leg of the
tour did carry on as planned, but ticket sales in many cases did not meet
Banks and Rutherford’s expectations.
Shortly after the conclusion
of
the tour, Michael Rutherford informed
Tony Banks that the lack of
commercial success of Calling All
Stations, which had sold only 109,583 copies in the United States, had
caused him to rethink carrying on with Genesis, which ultimately led to
Banks and Rutherford having confidential discussions
of ending the band with the new line-up.
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In 2006, Ray Wilson and Stiltskin reformed with a new band
line-up after a deal to use the name had been struck between Ray Wilson and
original, now ex- Stlitskin member, Peter Lawlor. The new Siltskin line-up
included: Wilson, Ali Ferguson, Lawrie MacMillan and Ashley MacMillan along
with Ray's fellow writer/guitarist Uwe Metzler. The group released
Stiltskin’s second album, She, in October 2006. The band quickly
embarked on a 2006/07 European tour to promote the new album, and received
rave reviews from magazines such as Musix, Melody and Rythmus and CRS. The
Stiltskin tour was commemorated with the release of Stiltskin Live in
April 2007. Stiltkin’s 16-track live album was recorded on October 25, 2006
at Bonn Harmonie in Germany in front of a sold out crowd and marked the
group’s first official live recording.
The year 2007 also saw Ray’s participation in the first ever official
Genesis biography, Chapter & Verse, which was released in September
of that year and reissue of Genesis’ Calling All Stations, which was
remixed, remastered, and repackaged with bonus audio and video content as
part of the 1983-1998 Genesis box set released in October in Europe
and November in the United States. In addition to the added inclusion of
former non-album tracks, the new package, released just over a decade after
the original Calling All Stations album, included new interviews with
Ray, Tony Banks, and Mike Rutherford on the project. |
Wilson was initially asked about
participating in the band’s remake of “Carpet Crawlers” for the Turn It
on Again: The Hits compilation album, which was to be released the
following year in 1999. The initial concept was that Peter Gabriel, Phil
Collins, and Ray Wilson would each sing a verse of the song; however, in the
end, the band chose not to include Wilson and to stick with the popular
early to mid-70s line-up of Genesis that originally recorded the song in
1974.
Wilson, who did not know of Banks and Rutheford’s decision to disband the
new Genesis line-up, shrugged off his lack of inclusion on “Carpet Crawlers
‘99” with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins and went off to work on another
project while he awaited a call to return to record the next Genesis album.
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In November 2008, Ray Wilson
will release Propaganda Man, a new studio album, followed by a
European tour. While
some
may
say his two years in Genesis
are only a footnote in Genesis' 40+
year
history, Ray
continues to write, record and tour, proving repeatedly
that his career is just beginning and his star is still very much on the
rise.
Wilson has turned his adversity and past successes into a positive vehicle
for his craft and, in many aspects, his future success is among the most
promising in the world of Genesis... |
In 1999, Wilson along with Genesis drummer
Nir Z and former band mates Steve Wilson and John Haimes formed the band Cut
and released an album in Germany called Millionairhead. The recording
contract for Cut with Virgin Records had actually been obtained by Wilson
prior to joining Genesis, but the project had been shelved due to his
commitments to Banks and Rutherford (which Virgin h ad
no issue with since Genesis was on Virgin Records as well). Despite a couple
of singles, some critical success, and a string of well-attended club dates,
Cut ultimately disbanded by 2000 due to lack of commercial success and
Virgin’s decision not to renew Cut’s record deal. Band members parted ways
with Nir returning to work as a session drummer and others returning to
other projects and commitments. It was at this time that Mike Rutherford and
Tony Banks, via their management, contacted Ray and informed him of their
decision not to carry on with another Genesis album and his contract was
paid out by the band. |
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Dave Negrin,
December 2007
OTHER RAY WILSON LINKS OF INTEREST:
The Official Ray
Wilson site
The Official Stiltskin
Site
The 2001 World of
Genesis Interview With Ray Wilson
The 2005 World of
Genesis Interview With Ray Wilson
World of Genesis.com - Ray
Wilson/Stiltskin Album Reviews
Ray
Wilson & Stiltskin CDs available On-Line For Purchase |
Special thanks to Ray and Tyla Willson. This Ray Wilson biography is ©
2007-08 by David Negrin and may not be reproduced in whole or in part
without permission.
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