Taking No Prisoners: Interview with Alex Ray on new single “BOY YOU AIN’T”
By Kelly Carciente
Alternative-pop singer-songwriter Alex Ray isn’t taking any prisoners on her latest single, “BOY YOU AIN’T”. Released on August 6th, Ray’s untempered frustration is on full display, directly targeted at one unlucky ex-boyfriend. This Nashville-based singer spills everything from her creative process to her advice to upcoming indie artists in an exclusive interview with Jaded Productions.
“BOY YOU AIN’T” is Alex Ray’s sixth single since her 2023 debut, “thinkin we should talk.” Beginning with heavier guitars, Ray has never shied away from letting her sonic influences bleed together. Now, although she describes “BOY YOU AIN’T” as her “heaviest single,” she is solidifying her sound and her identity as an artist.
BOY YOU AIN’T
Over Zoom, days before the release of her single, Ray emphasized her excitement for finally putting “BOY YOU AIN’T” out into the world. This new track bites back with all of the things she wished to say to her ex-boyfriend. Drawn from deep frustration at the tailend of their biggest argument, Ray recalls spitting one-liners to her friends and cowriters saywhen and Spencer Scardina (SAINT CLOUD), transforming a venting session into fiery callouts. Despite the deserved attention, Ray says she is “just a little nervous for the people in [her] real life to hear some of the lyrics when it drops.”
Despite her merciless lyrics, Ray does recognize how this past flame has brought some value to her life, recalling that he is the one that pushed her to start her YouTube channel which has grossed over 31 thousand subscribers. So, when low-hanging fruit like “You can’t hide/You’ve got a tiny–” or “I know you’ve got no friends/Drunk on the weekend,” it’s obvious this song emerged after a deeply-heated argument. Still, Ray described her relationship dynamics which warranted such feedback, claiming his narcissistic tendencies were immeasurable: “I’m really thankful for him in a lot of ways, but as a relationship/situationship, the back-and-forth went on. I was like, ‘oh he doesn’t care about me, he cares about what everyone thinks of him. I am just a little tool in his toolbox for making the world think better things about him.”
That is why her favourite line from this track is, “jump on a cheap trend,” as it captures the burden of being with someone who believes the world revolves around them: “I think when we date people who are very egotistical and caught up in their own world, they are just trying to find the next thing so people like them… you know… that people worship them, people wanna put them on a pedestal. And that was very much how he was.” Even then, Ray still wished he would find the space to stay authentic, rather than living through facades for the sake of being admired. Claiming this dynamic to be “the antithesis to everything I want to be,” Ray ends this thought on hoping for growth and the relief of finally letting go of the issue: “I was like ‘oh I’m over it now. Cool!”
Her angry messaging follows her through to her music video for the single which she co-directed and edited with her current boyfriend Phillip Roetter—who happens to work in film, making the production costs immensely more affordable. In this video, Ray sings directly into the camera, displaying not only her frustration, but also how each line is directly spoken to the person the song is inspired by: “I wanted to have a solid immersive performance experience that was me talking to the camera at this piece of shit guy… that’s what the vision was. Like, if he ever got a hold of this video, I’m talking straight to him.”
MESSY SONGWRITING
Drenched in alt-pop and elevated by trap drums, “BOY YOU AIN’T” carries bright angst through deep registers and Ray’s rich alto. But, this pop sound was far from the original demo. As Ray is set to release her debut EP, messy, in the fall, she began to rethink the validity of her own sound. She goes as far as to say “BOY YOU AIN’T” is her most aggressive, tongue-in-cheek track on the EP, completely juxtaposing some of her more stripped-down songs. Ray said, “I loved that demo, but as we kept making music and actually started refining like, ‘this is what Alex Ray’s project is going to sound like’, I looked at ‘BOY YOU AIN’T’ and was like ‘that’s too far’.”
This track, much like the rest of her singles, exemplifies Ray’s tendency to deviate between genres, drawing elements from her vast catalogue. She notes artists like Jin of BTS and Charlotte Sands who have both released projects that completely transcend genres and that are “all over the place.” When asked about her sound, Ray describes her triad she tends to draw from: alternative rock meets trap and hiphop percussion and pop music. She references, “you have the lyrics of Taylor Swift meet the music of Charlotte Sands meets Beauty School Dropout.” Her new project will also emulate 5 Seconds of Summer’s Ashton Irwin’s ‘90s rock sonic influence. She explained, “I think I took, like, the rock elements and the feelings of the 5 Seconds of Summer guys and then the exploration of, like, pop music from Charlotte Sands and the lyrics of the singer-songwriters I loved.”
Her songwriting process can vary, oftentimes letting her words speak for themselves: “I don’t stew too much on a lyric first time around.” Nonetheless, she values her words and hopes to live up to her own musical idols: “I am a child of Taylor Swift, lyrically.” She claims “BOY YOU AIN’T” lives in the realm of Taylor Swift’s “glitter pen” music where “we’re not here to talk, we’re here to have fun and jump around … we have emotion and we’re gonna feel that emotion.” Still, Ray will dive into lyric-forward songs where storytelling outweighs musical composition on her upcoming EP.
“There is a world of opportunity now.”
Ray leads this sonic melting pot into messy, allowing for clashing sounds and clashing themes to coexist as a collage of her own emotions post-breakup. Ray aimed to pour out everything she was too scared or embarrassed about saying out loud. She aims to speak candidly about all the messy parts about herself and these relationships, from messy emotions to messy, or toxic, behaviours.
“Some people are gonna listen and think that’s very toxic, but that’s kinda the point. Like, I think all of us as humans have the point where we are not the healthiest version of ourselves … I think as a society, we want to think, like virtue signal, that we’re too good to ever think like that, but we’re not! We’ve all dated that dude, and we broke up and we’re like ‘fuck him, I hope he gets hit by a train’. And we’ve all had that moment and I wanted to write an EP that just talks about those moments that nobody has talked about, you know? So maybe people are like, ‘yeah, I’m allowed to feel these emotions’.”
Cover art by Shantell Cruz | Graphic by Rebecca Sobrevilla
VULNERABILITY & PROFESSIONALISM
Ray has always been authentic and vulnerable in her own battles. She recalls moving to Nashville to pursue an internship in music, thinking she would become an Americana singer, before her life took a ˚180. She recalls going through an intense breaking point, experiencing major physical and mental health obstacles before choosing to go to law school (and graduating valedictorian!). She also felt stunted by lacking the tools and knowledge to market herself as a singer and get her name out into the world. Her music was then put on the backburner. With a desire to bring creativity back into her life, she started her Twitch channel at the tailend of her schooling. After becoming an overworked attorney, music fell away from her again. Her music came back to her after recovering from being sick and taking a long overdue break from her job.
“So then finally, this spring of 2024 I had a complete mental break, total mental breakdown.”
Ray started to entertain, creating content and taking music more seriously by booking venues, setting up cowrites and production sessions. She also left her job as an attorney to work for a law research firm, where she can finally take things easier and set aside time to work on her music.
Ray never shies away from talking about the highs and lows of having bipolar disorder on the internet. She reflects on how so many artists at greater scales tend to hold back from sharing vulnerable moments with their audiences or followers for the sake of keeping a mysterious or private life, differentiating their work as their brand from their own personal lives, whereas Ray herself says, “I think my brand that I care about is that I am being vulnerable in my lyrics, and I want people to think they can connect to that.”
Of course, Ray has cultivated an online presence on Twitch and YouTube where she has spoken candidly about many of her darker moments, from manic episodes to complete mental breaks and the challenges of finding the right medications. Despite the fact that “it is not cute to talk about, it is not glamorous,” she still appreciates her vulnerability having lasting imprints on people who can relate to her, hoping to reduce the stigma associated with it: “But I have had people also tell me, ‘you saying that actually really helped because I’ve been wondering how anybody keeps a job down or keeps their shit together while having bipolar, and it helps to know that you’re not’.”
Ray also compares and contrasts her situation to that of Chappell Roan who has also candidly shared her difficulties managing her bipolar disorder, but who has also faced major criticism for displaying the exact patterns of someone in manic or depressive episodes. She believes the grace given to her compared to the consistent backlash Roan faces whenever either candidly display behaviours in line with this illness stems from Roan’s immediate, overnight fame, as opposed to the gradual exposure many other independent artists face online. As a result, Roan is held to immeasurable standards:
“Chappell happened so fast that it got to her that people didn’t like her. And the first instinct no matter how big or small you are is to clap back in some way. And that only makes it worse. … it makes you look unhinged, and that’s not fair, to be clear. I think everybody is unfair to Chappell… So I think it’s this weird phenomenon that… Number 1, celebrities are held to an unattainable high standard to being perfect. People can get cancelled over anything anymore, right?
“Number 2, I think people want their favourite celebrities to be these pretty little, like, figurines they look at on a shelf and then they see at a concert, and it’s like this amazing thing, and then they go back on the shelf and that’s it. My summarized thoughts are she is held to too high of a standard. It sucks when you’re a bipolar person and you’re in the limelight and, like, you’re in a manic episode, you say some reckless shit.
“Number 3, people love supporting and spreading awareness about mental illness until somebody you know with mental illness starts exhibiting symptoms of the mental illness. They love being like, ‘oh my gosh I support you! Whatever you need! And you’re bipolar, I totally understand!’ And then you show symptoms and they’re like whoa this is too much.’ … I feel really really badly for her because she’s wanted this for so long, and all of a sudden the world hates her for just being what made her big in the first place, and that’s the weirdest thing. … You get too big and you show too much of yourself and then it’s game over.”
Nevertheless, her time in law has afforded her foresight to recognize when her peers are being taken advantage of.
Ray continues to stay vulnerable on the internet, through her discord servers, her Twitch account, and her YouTube channel. She says she is able to “draw the line in the sand” with her audience, but the line is murky when an independent, small artist:
“I’m like ‘listen, like, to some extent, I care about you, you are definitely a part of this community, but I don’t owe you access to my personal life. … I’m not saying I don’t value you being here’.”
She also sheds light on the importance of creating boundaries when building a career as a content creator or a musician: “Number 1 good boundary is that I have really great moderators on all of my social media accounts and they will block crazy stuff way before I see it. Number 2, if you’re an artist, I think it is… you don’t wanna create parasocial relationships… I think like some people make it to be this really hard problem and, ‘oh my gosh how can we avoid these, like, boundary breaks and parasocial relationships’, and it’s, like, not that hard though. I think it’s just a play-it-by-ear situation…and don’t text kids dude.”
Otherwise, Ray has developed a consistent balance between nurturing her community through authentic fan engagement and knowing when too far is too far.
As she embarks on this new musical journey with her upcoming EP messy, Alex Ray is setting herself apart with genre-transcending alternative pop. She hopes “BOY YOU AIN’T” will give her listeners the same catharsis and detachment it once gave her. Listen to the new single now, and make sure to keep up with Alex Ray for more details on messy.
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