If you saw Cody Ray’s performance at Yellow Racket records last Saturday, you saw a show full of quiet intensity.
He confessed his discomfort with stage banter, and sang most songs with his eyes firmly closed, lost in a world of his own. His band played a powerfully sparse mix of folk and jazz. And with the exception of applause between songs, the crowd was totally silent.
It’s hard to believe that 20 years ago, this same guy would have been screaming at the top of his lungs, climbing the walls, and launching his guitar across the stage like a missile.
“When I was 16 I was in a Christian grindcore metal band,” he laughs from the relative safety of two decades. “We played at an all-ages Christian rock club that had all kinds of different bands, from indie rock to really heavy death metal.”
Cody Ray had an extremely religious upbringing Born in Memphis and raised in northeast Arkansas, he began playing music when he was ten. “I got a drum set because I thought drums were cool. But I played for my Baptist church where I was the one kid on stage with a bunch of old people.”
A couple years later he switched over to guitar, but continued playing in church bands though his teens. Over that period, his influences continued to change and his music evolved.
Much of that evolution is tied to his choice to move to Chattanooga.
The year was 2011, and a young Cody Ray was exploring the larger world beyond religious metal. He was now inspired by Radiohead, Band of Horses and the atmospheric, ambient megahits from Iceland’s Sigur Ros.
While earning a degree in creative writing from UTC and making friends in the local music scene, he began to deepen his appreciation for classic American songwriters like John Prine and Guy Clark. “My twenties were spent getting into country and Americana and music that was unique to our experience here in the South.”
Over the next few years he would write and record his own songs and songs he wrote with Bad Scout, a duo formed with his friend Jonathan Willaims. Meanwhile, his skills as a multi-instrumentalist opened the door to touring around the country with acts like Joshua Powell and Tony Bradshaw.
But nearly fifteen years after moving to Chattanooga, Cody Ray’s happy to put down roots here. Our blossoming local music scene is a huge part of that.
“There’s a generation of great bands from when I first moved here like Elk Milk, Dead Testaments, Land Camera and Okinawa that really inspired me,” he recalls. “And now there’s another wave of younger artists like Walter Slide, Confreres, Psychic Dungeon, Anna Baldree and El Rocko. I love getting to watch that happen in front of me.”
Cody Ray’s musical evolution continues this Thursday, February 15th when he plays a stripped down acoustic set at the Woodshop. Jaron Utt and Alex the Band will also perform. Music begins at 8pm. There is no cover charge.