Q&A: The Rayes Creates the Soundtrack to a Wistful Journey With Single “Before You Go”
AN ANTHEM FOR BITTERSWEETNESS — indie-rock band The Rayes captures the joy and pain of the human experience with their new single, “Before You Go.” Born in Seattle and based in Melbourne, Rebecca and Jordan Stobbe are a sister duo who started out busking at the famed Pike Place Market. “Before You Go" is the second single from their forthcoming LP , Limb Pulled Taut.
Jordan, who found the inspiration for the lyrics, was thinking of her grandmother when she first envisioned the song.
“My mind often wanders back to the people I love, the people who are far away,” she said in an Instagram post. “And maybe in a sense, it’s true that you can be somewhere in spirit, like a part of ourselves can travel back when our bodies can’t.”
There are few spoken words in “Before You Go,” but the instrumentals speak for themselves. The song begins with piano, setting the melody. Drums and synth follow, building on each other, creating a perfect storm of melancholy and wonder.
The first set of lyrics, delivered about a third of the way through the song, feels like an exhale: “Never wanted to see you cry, only wanted to see the light.”
The second set of lyrics, at the song’s end, reveals a longing for a certainty that may never be achieved: “I, I wanna know, I wanna be there before you go.”
But the song ends on a major chord, indicating a sense of acceptance and gratitude for the present moment, for the opportunity to love and be loved.
“Before You Go” is the soundtrack to your missed connections and bittersweet goodbyes; for savoring the sweetness of summer while bracing for the crisp fall. Read on below for more about The Rayes and their creative process.
LUNA: I noticed your music has been described as a "soundtrack to a late summer ’70s movie," and I definitely see how "Before You Go" could be the soundtrack to a movie scene. Personally, I'm picturing the ending scene in Ladybird where she's driving around Sacramento, and they cut to scenes of her mother doing the same thing. Leading into my first question, are there any particular settings/environments you imagine "Before You Go" playing in?
STOBBE: I could definitely imagine “BYG” as a long-solo-drive kind of song. I think the instrumental-esque aspect of this tune makes for a good moody, angsty driving song. Love your comment about Ladybird! Such a great movie, and that would be a dream to get one of our songs on a movie soundtrack.
LUNA: Who are your main musical inspirations?
JORDAN: I think we go through phases when it comes to what music inspires our writing, and it usually is largely based on what we're listening to at the time. In general, John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was a huge sonic inspiration for this album. Music from the ’70s and ’80s is really our soul music, and the underlying inspiration to what we write.
When it comes to “Before You Go,” we wanted to write an instrumental-focused song that could go somewhere in the middle of the album that would act similar to a respite or intermission, per se. I love how Khruangbin can make such groovy songs with minimal vocals that sound more like another instrument in and of themselves, and wanted to model “BYG” off of that.
LUNA: Any other non–musical artist inspirations?
JORDAN: I guess I'd say that we find the most inspiration by just being all-around sensitive and perceptive people. This isn't always a recipe for a healthy mental state… but it helps us capture the music (laughs). I always like to try to pull from things that I hear or see in my day-to-day life, nature, or experiences — to be observant of what I'm feeling or experiencing, or the things that other people tell me they're feeling or experiencing. I love trying to bring to light things that ride under the radar, but that are common threads in our human experiences and make us all feel more connected.
LUNA: What adjectives would you use to describe your music?
JORDAN: I think our music is pretty varied and diverse from song-to-song and we've gone through a big evolution over the years, which makes it kind of hard to put words that would encompass all in one. But for this upcoming album, Limb Pulled Taut, there are many themes of nostalgia and "being pulled in multiple directions" — if you can count that as an adjective..hah! Our lyric and album title, Limb Pulled Taut, really embodies this feeling, a feeling of being ungrounded and spread thin, like one arm is being pulled in one direction and the other arm in another. And nostalgia — when referring to a sense of person or place. This nostalgia could come in the form of dreams that bring up a deep, indescribable feeling, or the unsolicited thought of a loved one that pops into mind. A sacredness.
LUNA: I love that you are a sister duo band. I have a younger sister who I choreograph with, so siblings who make art together are my favorite. I was wondering, how did you decide to make music together?
JORDAN: Ahh! I love that you do choreography with your younger sister. We may or may not have a secret YouTube account full of cover music videos and choreography that we used to make with our cousins. Definitely wouldn't qualify ours as “art,” more cringe than anything, but so much fun to make back in the day.
We started writing music together with our best childhood friend, Gracia, when I (Jordan) was at the end of high school and Rebecca was in her second year. My friend Gracia and I used to sneak Becca out of school to busk down at Pike Place Market (a big outdoor market in Seattle, where we grew up). I think my mom got a call that Becca was at risk of failing a class because of it… Oops! The summer after that year, we started rehearsing and writing a lot, and then entered a pretty prestigious youth music competition. We were accepted to compete in the competition among other local bands in Seattle, and made it to the semifinals. We barely knew how to play our instruments at this point, and didn't even have a drummer yet, but this is really what planted the seed and gave us that bug for writing and performing, and I guess you could say that's what started it all. We moved into a house together in Seattle, and music became our lives.
Photo Credit: Marcus Coblyn
LUNA: That’s so cool, thanks for sharing! How do you divide up the process of making music?
JORDAN: Usually, one of us starts writing a song, whether it's a verse, a chorus, or both, or even just one melodic line — and then we come together and collaborate to finish the song. I always feel like our music would not be what it is without one another. There is always some idea or lyric or chord change or weird mistake that turns into a gem that one of us ends up bringing to the other and vice versa.
LUNA: What are your favorite parts of making music as a sibling duo? Any challenges?
JORDAN: I think the fact that we are siblings, and that we have been working creatively together for so long makes our communication super straight-forward. This can be for good, and for bad haha. But for the most part, I feel so fortunate to be able to experience that magic of creating art with a sibling. We definitely let a little sibling biker get the best of us sometimes, which our bandmates make fun of, but I think the fact that we have no hesitations and are able to more easily anticipate or read one another makes for an ease of communication when we're writing together, which I wouldn't trade for anything.
LUNA: What do you hope audiences get from your forthcoming LP, Limb Pulled Taut?
JORDAN: I really hope that our audience can feel our quirkiness and authenticity through these songs. I hope that in that, they can feel a connectedness to our music. The music that has made the deepest impact on me is music that I feel translates a kind of humanity, or realness in an artistic way, and this always strikes up strong emotion and inspiration in me. I hope that our music can do that for our listeners.
LUNA: What's next for The Rayes?
JORDAN: Touring! We are saving up so that we can get out there and tour with these songs soon, so keep your eyes peeled for dates hopefully very soon. And we're already dying to get back in the studio, and are amping up our writing again, so I have a feeling the next EP or album will soon be in the works.
“Sister Jane,” a single in The Rayes’ forthcoming LP Limb Pulled Taut, is out now. Watch the music video here.
