Raynes are the transatlantic trio that are quickly moving up the rank in the music scene. Described as “expensive folk”, implementing pop elements to create “a slicker and shinier sound than straight-down-the-middle folk”, Mat Charley, Joe Berger, and Mark Race had given their band a one-of-a-kind sound that can’t be replicated. I had the chance to talk to their band about their latest single, “Come My Way”, how they want their audience to feel when listening to their work, and more.
What’s your favorite thing about creating music?
There are so many answers to this. The ability to create something out of nothing; the feeling of fully realizing an idea; discovering the perfect lyrical turn of phrase; the camaraderie that comes with playing and working together in a band; knowing that we’re able to truly reach and effect people from all over the world with something as simple as a song.
How do you, yourselves, feel when listening to your own music? Is there a certain feeling that your songs evoke that you hope is replicated within your audience?
That’s a great question. We feel a lot of excitement and hope, for the most part, when listening to our own music. Some of that is probably because it is our own music, and it’s always a rush to experience something that you’ve created. But we think that those feelings do transfer to listeners––we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that confirms that, and we hope that really is the case.
Do you hope to induce that same feeling to your audience during live performances, or do you change the composition of a song to spark something new?
Because we often play as a trio, with just acoustic instruments, we do arrange the songs we play live in different ways than on the records. There’s definitely an intimacy that comes with that sort of set-up, as we can strip away everything but the essentials and really let the lyrics and melodies speak for themselves. It’s been really interesting and lovely to see the responses in real time––so many people have come up to us to say that they’ve loved hearing our songs in those arrangements. We have dozens of unreleased songs that we play at shows, and a number of them are slower and much sadder than the singles we’ve released so far, and we’ve had all kinds of people chat with us after and tell us that one of them made them cry. When we see some really tall, tattooed guy in the audience with tears in his eyes, we feel like we’re doing something right.
How do you get rid of writer’s block?
Luckily, knock on wood, we have yet to really experience any real writer’s block. There are times when we may not necessarily feel like sitting down and working on a song, of course, but we’ve been very fortunate in that whenever we try to write something we’re always able to.
Who is an artist/band that you’ve always wanted to collaborate with?
We admire so many artists, it’s hard to pick just one. We’ve often talked about working with Lewis Capaldi, as well as Julia Michaels, Dua Lipa, Harry Styles, and dozens more. So if any of them are reading this, hit us up!
How did the concept of the music video for “Come My Way” come about?
We knew from the jump that we wanted it to be relatively simple––there’s often an impulse to frame a music video around a story or a narrative, and we just wanted to do something very natural and real and not attempt to artificially increase the production value or anything like that. Basically, we wanted it to feel a bit like a live performance while also serving as a little vignette of the friendship and closeness that the three of us share. We had a great director who was really able to work with the locations and the light in a beautiful way, and we’re very happy with it. It’s nothing too fancy, but it’s us.
What’s your favorite lyric from “Come My Way”?
We all have different ones that hit us at different moments, but “where else would you go?” is probably the most affecting line, all things considered. There are a lot of questions in our songs––like, lyrics that literally end with a question mark––and this one in particular really captures both the naivete and the hope of love at the same time.
Since the release of your past two songs, “Lemon Drop” and “Second Thought,” have you noticed any major changes in the way you compose your songs?
We’re definitely pretty restless when it comes to writing songs; that is, we don’t like to return to the same ideas over and over. We have our favorite sounds and chord progressions and melodic phrases, like any artist, but we’re always expanding on them and building from them. Playing music all day every day, it quickly gets boring to just keep cycling through the same handful of chords, so we definitely are constantly exploring, whether it’s studying up on theory to add more complexity and color to a progression or looking through libraries of sounds to find some weird sonic palette we wouldn’t normally use. So there hasn’t really been a marked change in our methods, really, but there is a constant evolution.
Finally, what’s one thing you’d want to tell your listeners?
Honestly, just: thank you. It really is an incredible feeling knowing that people are listening and that so many care so much. Our friends and families have always been incredibly supportive, but it’s wild knowing that there are people who we’ve never met, in countries we’ve never been to, who have been following us for years and really are touched by what we’re doing. So, thank you.
Raynes
