Georgia Cortes Rayner Interview
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: Music I think is very much in my blood. My Mother loved(s) music and dancing, and my Father played guitar and was also apparently a very good dancer. My first memories of music involve my Mother and singing along to songs with her on the radio in the car, like Janis Joplin’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee.” There was always lots of music and dancing in our house. As a musician myself, it wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s that I learned to play the guitar and started singing. The first guitar I bought, a lovely thin body acoustic Australian made Maton, is still one I use today.
Jump forward 30 years, to about 5 years ago, when I found that I had some songs in me that I needed to write. At that time I was working in Local Government as a Strategic and Natural Resources Planning Manager. I had really enjoyed my time working in this field, but there was now something missing spiritually, and something else really calling me to follow a different path. I was looking for something where I could try to make a positive contribution, even in just a small way. It was music, and specifically becoming a singer/ songwriter.
Some key people emerged at that time to encourage me to make a change, take the leap, that I had another path I needed to follow and it would be right. It really felt that, if I did what was good for my soul it would also be good for others. This became my mantra. It was like, if I am not where I am supposed to be doing what I am supposed to do, then maybe that also impacts someone else being out of place, maybe I am even taking up a space where someone else should be. It’s a bit esoteric sounding, but to me it felt and still feels as solid as the ground.
So at 52 when the opportunity arose to make a change I leapt at it, and became a full time singer/songwriter.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: Yes, this is a hard question to answer, because it is really varied. When I look at the songs on The Past Is a Passenger, they are all different. They all stem from a story, or background context, which is why in the hard copy CD I had to have the largest booklet I could get (24 pages ha ha) to fit the stories and lyrics in there. I felt it was important for those like me who are interested in where a song may come from to include that detail.
There is usually a purpose or an intent to the song when the process of writing starts. I will pick up my guitar and just start playing, and usually a bit of a riff will emerge and then the words follow into that. They usually do arrive together. Occasionally I will get some words while walking that I later build a riff around, but most times the music and words arrive together.
Overall, I suppose you could probably group the songs into a few kinds of categories of process.
Some were written to really capture and manage a feeling or the energy I was experiencing and putting that into song, like “Flame.” “Flame” was written incredibly quickly, like in a day in November 2019, about what is now called the Black Summer Bushfires in Australia.
We live in a small coastal beach village, with one road in and out, surrounded by bush. So when the fires were predicted to follow a pretty catastrophic path (which thankfully they didn’t in the end) we were all just feeling utterly terrified. You could smell smoke, it was dry, windy, and fear was really tangible in the air. There were a lot of conversations being had about what was causing the fires, climate change, fuel loads etc., but here we all were together to be imminently impacted by a raging bushfire, whatever the cause, whatever your views. It was almost paralyzing fear.
So “Flame” was therapy to get that energy out, express it in song. The rhythm, the words all captured that energy in my body and got it out. When I finished writing it, really there was a shift and I could then kind of get on the business of confronting what we would have to do if fire came.
Others with creatives also reached for their creative tools to get this energy out, with my neighbor and artist Kerry Swan, taking to paints to create what has become the painting that goes with my song. Her painting has a song, and my song has a painting.
The fire didn’t come to our little village, but it did come to many around us and our friends and families. So it was a difficult time for us all.
Other songs on The Past Is A Passenger are memorial songs. There are three of those, “You’re Still Our Superman,” “We Are Here” and “Make Believe.”
“You’re Still Our Superman” is about Brian Cockbain, our neighbor who passed away at a very young age very suddenly. Brian has a wife and three boys. He was a very well known and well loved person in our community. His wife Donna was having a gathering in memorial of 5 years since his passing. I asked her if she would mind if I wrote a song for Brian, for her and the family. The song is really many of the things that Donna was saying to me, that the plans her and Brian made, for like house remodels, and trips they wanted to do, she was just following through with all of those things. So life was fine day to day, but he wasn’t there…but it almost seemed like he was and it was hard to believe he wasn’t. Everywhere we all looked we still saw him, and always will. So “You’re Still Our Superman” is really trying to capture what we all think and feel most days about Brian.
“Make Believe” is for my Father. This was actually the first full song I wrote at the start of my singer/songwriter journey. I was estranged from my Father when I was very young. He and I did meet, however I don’t remember him. When I was around 30 we found out that he had passed away when I was 8 years old, and he was only 35. It’s too long a story to explain here, though I do go into more detail in the CD liner notes and in live shows. But this song describes for me how his absence was such a big presence in my life. I imagined him there throughout it, and perhaps in spirit, I think he was.
Q: I was wondering how you would explain the themes and concepts on The Past Is A Passenger?
A: Well I had written these collection of songs and they were about loss, lost connections, lost people, love, looking for belonging, and current existential questions about our current time in this world. I have always been looking for clues from the past and how it makes us who we are today, and how it influences who we may be in the future.
When I looked at the collection of songs that made up The Past Is A Passenger, and I was finalizing the artwork for the CD, my husband John said to me ‘So how would you describe it. Like do you have a little statement about what it is?’ Initially I was really thrown off by that question, and thought , well they are just the songs I’ve written, it’s a CD…what else can I say about them?.
That was a really good question for him to ask me at that particular point and it made me think about what the songs really were about. You know when you are close to something you sometimes just forget the bigger picture. I could see they were kind of different styles or genres of songs and thought well how do I describe them? Overall thought I thought they were songs about life, love, loss, family, environmental angst and survival – inspired by the past, present and the future. So that has become the summary of what the album is about and it’s true and feels right.
Q: What is your recording process like?
A: Yes, it’s just so different from the process of performing and writing. This is the first time I had ever tried to record music, so I really didn’t know what I was in for. First up I set myself up to do it all myself at home. I got a little Boss BR 800 and a Steinberg UR22mkII, using Sonar (now cakewalk) and Cubase. I did about four songs with drums, bass, guitar and vocals, sometimes keyboards.
After a few months of that and getting some just really kind of basic demos done, I realized what a definite specialist skill recording and producing is. It would take me years to learn this technical stuff, and that was time I didn’t think I had at my age, ha ha. I would never finish or have a polished product if I kept on that path.
It was then when I had heard that Stewart Peters and Snez had set up a recording studio , Soundshed Music, about 40 minutes up the road from me. Stewart is a world class musician and recording producer, Snez is a singer/songwriter. I sent Stewart the demos I had done to see what he thought of the songs and if he wanted to work with me. He said cool, so off we went. The first song we did was “You’re Still Our Superman.” Covid arrived and there were still a couple of songs that needed rerecording, that was “Make Believe” and “We Are Here.” Some health issues emerged for me, and there was about a year and a bit where nothing happened.
When I was able to get back to it, I rerecorded vocal and guitar tracks at home, using my Steinberg UR MK 11, cakewalk and an audio technica condenser mic, my old thin body Maton, a Mini Maton and a nice Cole Clark guitar I bought off Swanee. I sent the final tracks back to Stewart and he mastered them at his place and added in just a bit of other instrumentation. I really do love the production that Stewart did and am so grateful to him for the work he did on this album.
Q: You mention there are a lot of genres on the album - are there ways in which you connected to a signature sound?
A: I am not sure if I have a signature sound. I think from a recording point of view Stewart had some template settings for my guitar and vocals. All the songs are really acoustic, with vocal and guitar at their core, even the rocky songs like “Flame,” “Isn’t it Time” and “So Much Ugly.” So my hope is that the vocals and the guitar are really part of the main sound in all the songs.
Q: Have you started playing shows or virtual shows?
A: I have been playing live shows!!! Yes that is very exciting. It is still very hit and miss, with covid, weather and sometimes just staffing levels at venues meaning shows are hard to plan and sometimes are cancelled last minute. At the moment I am playing a lot of local markets, which I really love. On January 20 2023, I am doing a live to air 2 hour radio concert at Studio 3 2NVR 105.9 Nambucca Valley Radio. You can stream that on -line from anywhere in the world. I will have the details of that on my website georgiacortesrayner.com under gigs, and on social media closer to the date.
Q: Can you talk about your musical history?
A: Music I think is very much in my blood. My Mother loved(s) music and dancing, and my Father played guitar and was also apparently a very good dancer. My first memories of music involve my Mother and singing along to songs with her on the radio in the car, like Janis Joplin’s version of “Me and Bobby McGee.” There was always lots of music and dancing in our house. As a musician myself, it wasn’t until I was in my early 20’s that I learned to play the guitar and started singing. The first guitar I bought, a lovely thin body acoustic Australian made Maton, is still one I use today.
Jump forward 30 years, to about 5 years ago, when I found that I had some songs in me that I needed to write. At that time I was working in Local Government as a Strategic and Natural Resources Planning Manager. I had really enjoyed my time working in this field, but there was now something missing spiritually, and something else really calling me to follow a different path. I was looking for something where I could try to make a positive contribution, even in just a small way. It was music, and specifically becoming a singer/ songwriter.
Some key people emerged at that time to encourage me to make a change, take the leap, that I had another path I needed to follow and it would be right. It really felt that, if I did what was good for my soul it would also be good for others. This became my mantra. It was like, if I am not where I am supposed to be doing what I am supposed to do, then maybe that also impacts someone else being out of place, maybe I am even taking up a space where someone else should be. It’s a bit esoteric sounding, but to me it felt and still feels as solid as the ground.
So at 52 when the opportunity arose to make a change I leapt at it, and became a full time singer/songwriter.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: Yes, this is a hard question to answer, because it is really varied. When I look at the songs on The Past Is a Passenger, they are all different. They all stem from a story, or background context, which is why in the hard copy CD I had to have the largest booklet I could get (24 pages ha ha) to fit the stories and lyrics in there. I felt it was important for those like me who are interested in where a song may come from to include that detail.
There is usually a purpose or an intent to the song when the process of writing starts. I will pick up my guitar and just start playing, and usually a bit of a riff will emerge and then the words follow into that. They usually do arrive together. Occasionally I will get some words while walking that I later build a riff around, but most times the music and words arrive together.
Overall, I suppose you could probably group the songs into a few kinds of categories of process.
Some were written to really capture and manage a feeling or the energy I was experiencing and putting that into song, like “Flame.” “Flame” was written incredibly quickly, like in a day in November 2019, about what is now called the Black Summer Bushfires in Australia.
We live in a small coastal beach village, with one road in and out, surrounded by bush. So when the fires were predicted to follow a pretty catastrophic path (which thankfully they didn’t in the end) we were all just feeling utterly terrified. You could smell smoke, it was dry, windy, and fear was really tangible in the air. There were a lot of conversations being had about what was causing the fires, climate change, fuel loads etc., but here we all were together to be imminently impacted by a raging bushfire, whatever the cause, whatever your views. It was almost paralyzing fear.
So “Flame” was therapy to get that energy out, express it in song. The rhythm, the words all captured that energy in my body and got it out. When I finished writing it, really there was a shift and I could then kind of get on the business of confronting what we would have to do if fire came.
Others with creatives also reached for their creative tools to get this energy out, with my neighbor and artist Kerry Swan, taking to paints to create what has become the painting that goes with my song. Her painting has a song, and my song has a painting.
The fire didn’t come to our little village, but it did come to many around us and our friends and families. So it was a difficult time for us all.
Other songs on The Past Is A Passenger are memorial songs. There are three of those, “You’re Still Our Superman,” “We Are Here” and “Make Believe.”
“You’re Still Our Superman” is about Brian Cockbain, our neighbor who passed away at a very young age very suddenly. Brian has a wife and three boys. He was a very well known and well loved person in our community. His wife Donna was having a gathering in memorial of 5 years since his passing. I asked her if she would mind if I wrote a song for Brian, for her and the family. The song is really many of the things that Donna was saying to me, that the plans her and Brian made, for like house remodels, and trips they wanted to do, she was just following through with all of those things. So life was fine day to day, but he wasn’t there…but it almost seemed like he was and it was hard to believe he wasn’t. Everywhere we all looked we still saw him, and always will. So “You’re Still Our Superman” is really trying to capture what we all think and feel most days about Brian.
“Make Believe” is for my Father. This was actually the first full song I wrote at the start of my singer/songwriter journey. I was estranged from my Father when I was very young. He and I did meet, however I don’t remember him. When I was around 30 we found out that he had passed away when I was 8 years old, and he was only 35. It’s too long a story to explain here, though I do go into more detail in the CD liner notes and in live shows. But this song describes for me how his absence was such a big presence in my life. I imagined him there throughout it, and perhaps in spirit, I think he was.
Q: I was wondering how you would explain the themes and concepts on The Past Is A Passenger?
A: Well I had written these collection of songs and they were about loss, lost connections, lost people, love, looking for belonging, and current existential questions about our current time in this world. I have always been looking for clues from the past and how it makes us who we are today, and how it influences who we may be in the future.
When I looked at the collection of songs that made up The Past Is A Passenger, and I was finalizing the artwork for the CD, my husband John said to me ‘So how would you describe it. Like do you have a little statement about what it is?’ Initially I was really thrown off by that question, and thought , well they are just the songs I’ve written, it’s a CD…what else can I say about them?.
That was a really good question for him to ask me at that particular point and it made me think about what the songs really were about. You know when you are close to something you sometimes just forget the bigger picture. I could see they were kind of different styles or genres of songs and thought well how do I describe them? Overall thought I thought they were songs about life, love, loss, family, environmental angst and survival – inspired by the past, present and the future. So that has become the summary of what the album is about and it’s true and feels right.
Q: What is your recording process like?
A: Yes, it’s just so different from the process of performing and writing. This is the first time I had ever tried to record music, so I really didn’t know what I was in for. First up I set myself up to do it all myself at home. I got a little Boss BR 800 and a Steinberg UR22mkII, using Sonar (now cakewalk) and Cubase. I did about four songs with drums, bass, guitar and vocals, sometimes keyboards.
After a few months of that and getting some just really kind of basic demos done, I realized what a definite specialist skill recording and producing is. It would take me years to learn this technical stuff, and that was time I didn’t think I had at my age, ha ha. I would never finish or have a polished product if I kept on that path.
It was then when I had heard that Stewart Peters and Snez had set up a recording studio , Soundshed Music, about 40 minutes up the road from me. Stewart is a world class musician and recording producer, Snez is a singer/songwriter. I sent Stewart the demos I had done to see what he thought of the songs and if he wanted to work with me. He said cool, so off we went. The first song we did was “You’re Still Our Superman.” Covid arrived and there were still a couple of songs that needed rerecording, that was “Make Believe” and “We Are Here.” Some health issues emerged for me, and there was about a year and a bit where nothing happened.
When I was able to get back to it, I rerecorded vocal and guitar tracks at home, using my Steinberg UR MK 11, cakewalk and an audio technica condenser mic, my old thin body Maton, a Mini Maton and a nice Cole Clark guitar I bought off Swanee. I sent the final tracks back to Stewart and he mastered them at his place and added in just a bit of other instrumentation. I really do love the production that Stewart did and am so grateful to him for the work he did on this album.
Q: You mention there are a lot of genres on the album - are there ways in which you connected to a signature sound?
A: I am not sure if I have a signature sound. I think from a recording point of view Stewart had some template settings for my guitar and vocals. All the songs are really acoustic, with vocal and guitar at their core, even the rocky songs like “Flame,” “Isn’t it Time” and “So Much Ugly.” So my hope is that the vocals and the guitar are really part of the main sound in all the songs.
Q: Have you started playing shows or virtual shows?
A: I have been playing live shows!!! Yes that is very exciting. It is still very hit and miss, with covid, weather and sometimes just staffing levels at venues meaning shows are hard to plan and sometimes are cancelled last minute. At the moment I am playing a lot of local markets, which I really love. On January 20 2023, I am doing a live to air 2 hour radio concert at Studio 3 2NVR 105.9 Nambucca Valley Radio. You can stream that on -line from anywhere in the world. I will have the details of that on my website georgiacortesrayner.com under gigs, and on social media closer to the date.