The Scottish singer and songwriter is considered a workhorse live. Why he nevertheless came to terms with the Corona-related forced break surprisingly well, even more, why it even came in handy for him, and how the new album came about rather unplanned, he revealed in the eclipsed interview ...
eclipsed: I read that you didn't think it was so bad when you stopped touring rather abruptly. How so?
Ray Wilson: I had problems with my hand, the tendons were overstrained: At the end of a show I used to stretch up my guitar; at some point I couldn't do that anymore. My osteopath told me I had to stop playing, and I replied that there was no way I could, I had gigs for the next two years! When the pandemic stopped us all, it was the right time to stop and think about things. It gave me a break from my tendonitis. But now it's also good and important to get back to work. You get too used to doing nothing otherwise.
eclipsed: Well, you didn't do "nothing", but at least you worked on an album ...
Wilson: Right. But that's not enough. I need to get out and see people. Fortunately, that's possible again now.
eclipsed: What inspired you to write the new tracks?
Wilson: I'd been wanting to work on some ambient ideas for a while that originally came from a friend of mine in Stuttgart, Jethro Bodean, and had been sitting on my computer. I tried my hand at writing melodies to them and sent the results to my guitarist Ali Ferguson in Scotland, a big fan of Pink Floyd and this kind of atmospheric music. He added some guitar ideas, which took it to a new level, I heard real songs out of it for the first time. Then it all migrated to Nashville to my drummer Nir Z, who I had worked with before on Genesis. My old friend Scott Spence and Uwe Metzler also came in and contributed their parts. After about 14 months we finally had something in hand that we were all happy with.
