We were lucky to catch up with Gia Ray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Gia, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My senior year of high school I went to a performing arts school and the director of the school used to always say “if you have a fallback plan you will fall back on it.” Meaning, don’t have a fall back plan. I’m not sure I would ever give that advice to someone else, but it sure worked on me. It just made sense for me and how I like to live my life. I’ve always loved extremes, and to go for your dreams 100% with no fallback plan is a huge risk and doesn’t always pay off. And in a way that is a day to day choice, somedays it really backfires and some days it pays off. But the biggest goals/dreams I’ve ever accomplished are because I moved to another country, or to the other side of the country, with a backpack and very little money and just didn’t give myself any option but to succeed. To figure it out.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m pretty sure I came out of the womb telling stories. I was a pretty theatrical child and started writing plays in elementary school and would make my friends be in them (obviously I always had to be the lead) and somehow would convince my teacher to pause call so we could preform them. But it really just kept growing from there. Plays, screenplays, songs, novels, poems, writing is my number one love. Songwriting in particular really became my lifeline, when life gets heavy, when someone gets under my skin, any big feeling I can’t sit through ends up in a song. But the coolest part, is to get to perform that song on stage and have people who hear it and get it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

There are so many brilliant artists who know so much more than me, and I respect and will take their advice to the grave… but that has also been the biggest lesson I’ve had to unlearn. Yes, it’s great to have mentors but also this is art, art is not only subjective, but it’s also personal. I wasted a lot of years directing my art in the direction of others opinions. My first song was a rock song and I had been talking to a label, when I showed them their reply was, “there’s no room for women in rock.” I took that so seriously that I didn’t make another rock song for 5 years, and I love rock. I wish I had just said, cool, then I’m makin it for me. So while I will always value others advice, at the end of the day if I love the song then I’m makin it.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

“I wish I could do what you do.” What I hear all the time, and the truth is, you can! Most just don’t want to because when you actually think about what that initials you realize you have to be a bit crazy to choose this lifestyle. There’s no guidebook over here, we’re just fumbling around in the dark trying to make things happen. People see the performance side and how fun it looks but often don’t realize, that is 1% of what we do. Especially for people like myself, as an independent artist, we’re doing everything from bookings, marketing, publishing, recording, managing band members schedules, the list truly goes on and on. It’s a lot of work. But if you love it, 100% worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thegiaray.com
• Instagram: @giaray
• Facebook: Gia Ray
• Twitter: @playmategiaray
• Youtube: @GiaRay
• Other: Spotify Gia Ray

Image Credits

Brian Wimer
Kailee Kelter
James Carter