Interview With Lana Love and Ray Ray Scavo III

Special Feature

For this months Artist Spotlight, we shine the light on the duo behind the single “Antidote” on WMG / Sparta, Grammy Award winning engineer and producer Ray Ray Scavo III, and Lana Love, known for her dynamic appearance on NBC’s The Voice and The Rehearsal.

Lana and Ray Ray have devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their music careers, and both have learned some hard lessons along the way. Although their paths are remarkably different, both possess an infectious and positive energy, and you can just feel their love of music when they are together.

FutureMusic got to hear many of their collaborations and they both artists bring a truly unique flavor to their productions. Ray Ray, coming from more of a hip-hop and rap pedigree has serious engineering chops that allows Lana’s voices to shine with an intimacy and visceral power that’s often just simmering just below the surface.

Their new single – “Antidote” – is modern power pop, but some of their other collaborations genre-bend in wild and wondrous ways. Tracks from their new album, such as “Tripping Over Blurred Lines”, mix a country authenticity with banging street rhythms that feels like the best chance humanity has against the upcoming AI onslaught. We sat down with Lana and Ray Ray at Penthouse Studios just above Times Square in New York City to learn more about their studio work and what brought these two unique talents together.

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FutureMusic: What was your first musical memory?

Ray Ray: When I was about 3 years-old, I remember watching my father play the bass guitar, and as soon as he put it down, I grabbed it and tried to hold it on my lap like he did. His bass was a vintage Tiger Stripe Aria Pro ii ZZB Deluxe. I went on and played that bass at hundreds of shows. Later, with Kevin Geigel at the helm, I laid down my first studio recording ever with that same bass. Unfortunately, that bass would eventually go with my Dad when my parents separated, and I thought I’d never see it again.

And you know what’s crazy? Not even a few days ago, I saw that same bass hanging on a wall in music shop in my old home town on a Facebook post and I knew it had to be my father’s. I immediately reached out to the music shop and got a response from someone who turned out to be a friend of my fathers. I said I think that’s my father’s bass and he was like, Ray this is absolutely your Dad’s bass. In fact, we used to be in a band together and he sold it to me. He was a wonderful person and even though he knew how valuable it was, he sold it back to me for an amazingly cheap price. I can’t even thank him enough. And now it’s in back in my possession…finally home where it belongs.

Lana: Although I don’t remember it, my mom says she played recordings through a tape recorder of classical music to her belly while she was pregnant with me. Sure enough, I practically came out of the womb singing Phantom of the Opera. My first memory of making music was figuring out how to play “Music of the Night” by ear on the piano when I was 5 years-old.

FutureMusic: Ray Ray, did you play an instrument growing up and/or have any formal musical training? If not, how did you learn?

Ray Ray: Yes, I grew up playing the bass and guitar. The bass was my heart and soul though. I slept with it every night next to me in bed and I would play until I fell asleep and as soon as I woke up. I did do band in school and all that, but I taught my self how to play the bass from watching my Dad and instructional videos. I remember when I was really young probably 7 or 8, my Dad got me a Mel Bays bass lessons video on how to play the Blues. I watched it over and over as I learned basic Blues scales and styles. But I was always hungry to learn and I had this weird frustration when I couldn’t do something immediately. Almost like I knew I was going to be a master at it and I was mad at my body for not having the muscle memory yet.

FutureMusic: What inspired you to start making your own music?

Ray Ray: My sister and I would write songs all the time as kids – mostly funny songs to make my Mom laugh. We didn’t really have much growing up and we lived in a contentious household, so we really leaned on music and art to get through things. We constantly came up with ridiculous songs to entertain friends and family, but they were mostly for ourselves. And than much later on in life when I became  a producer/engineer, I started making different music based off of necessity, a client coming with a specific need and me going – all right, I can do that. And before you know it, I had exactly what they wanted even though I didn’t know how I was gonna do it. I always knew I’d figure it out.

FutureMusic: Lana, at what point did you have the realization that you had a special singing voice? 

Lana: I can’t pinpoint an exact moment when I had a realization that I could sing, it was just always my absolute favorite thing to do. I was obsessed with it as a kid and still am. I remember begging my mom for voice lessons, but she made me wait until I was 8 years-old. After my first lesson at Peggy Still School of Music in Atlanta, GA, my teacher came out and told my mom, “She’s going to be a singer one day.” Peggy is still a dear friend and mentor to me.

FutureMusic: Ray, you’ve faced many trials and tribulations on your journey to be a Grammy Award winning artist. Can you discuss how you got your start producing/engineering?

Ray Ray: Well, I grew up in a very hostile house. My father was a very talented musician, but also had a drug addiction. That resulted in him abusing us for most of our lives until my mid-twenties. I always played in bands and tried to stay out of the house as much as possible. I played bass for gospel choirs, school band, punk rock bands, emo bands, even a European Power Metal band that allowed me to tour overseas. Anytime I had an opportunity to play music in my life, I would drop everything I was doing and run to it. I would even quit multiple jobs when I was young when Kevin would call me to play bass on an artists album at the studio. But as soon I would return home, it was back to complete chaos.

My Dad allowed me to discover my gift for music, so I always believed I could save him with it, but one day it went too far and became too much. He was attacking my mother and I snapped. I remember hearing the screaming and the dishes shattering from him throwing them at her as I ran down the hallway. As I got closer to the mayhem, I turned into an animal and my instincts took over and I…
…freed my family that day from his abuse. From that day forward, everything changed. I would only see him one more time again after that episode when I was at court getting a restraining order against him for my family. We had 90 day PFA from him so we had 90 days in the house to pack our stuff and find somewhere to live.

We all pulled together and found a home to rent while we figured things out. Unfortunately, nothing was working out for me with music, with life, with jobs, with anything. I was really struggling and felt I was truly lost. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew if i stayed where I was, I would become nothing and my life would be meaningless.

So I called my friend Kevin Geigel who at the time was head engineer at a studio in Queens, New York and told him I had no where to go in life and all I wanna do is make music. I’m either going to NYC or LA, so I figured I reach out to him first. He told me, Ray I don’t have any where for you to stay, but come to New York and intern at my studio, as well as be a session musician for clients, you never know what can happen.

Knowing my family was finally safe and I didn’t have to be there to protect them, I knew it was time to go. So I sold everything I owned, packed my bags into my car, said goodbye to my family, and took a big leap of faith. To try and become who I knew in my heart I was meant to be. I had to leave behind the people I loved most in life and go to somewhere with no where to live and no guarantees.

I started as an Intern and began sitting next to my friend and mentor Kevin Geigel every day for the next to years. I lived in my car in front of the recording studio in Queens until one day one of the studios I was working at, gave me closet with an air mattress that would now become my home. It was especially fortuitous because my car got repo’d the day before.

I would then study and learn from every producer and engineer that walked in the building. How to produce and record in any DAW. I learned Logic X, then Protools, then eventually learned FL Studios, and now I use all three to produce all my music.

One day Kevin decided he didn’t wanna record anymore and only wanted to mix, so he looks at me and goes I quit and you’re hired. Your first sessions tomorrow – have fun! The next day I sit down at the console, after all the hours of asking countless questions to anyone who could answer, and I hit that record button for my first session. Right then and there, it hit me all at once. This is it! This is what you’re meant to do!!

Unfortunately, I would later have a crazy falling out with the owners of that studio, which resulted in me losing my home and the last of my possessions. Once again, I found myself with nothing. But in life I learned no loss comes without a gain. And not two days later, I would meet my future wife. I started interning at Premier Recording studios in Manhattan and engineering at Fenix studios in Staten Island at the same time.

I would eventually run into GhostFace Killah at Fenix studios. He walked in the room while I was working on beats and was like “wait you made this?!” And I was like yes sir! He was like “show me everything you got!” Fast forward and we’ve been working together for almost 8 years now, and I won a Grammy working on a song with him, Kendrick Lamar and Summer Walker off of Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers. Next I would release a major album featuring Kanye West, Busta Rhymes and many more – all recorded and some produced by me. As well as Supreme Clientele 2 on the way. Not to mention Lana, and my upcoming Album “Sorry I’m Human.” I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for me next!

FutureMusic: Lana, when did you make the decision to pursue music as a career and what was the deciding factor?

Lana: Honestly, I don’t think it was ever a choice – it definitely chose me. At one point, I considered becoming a dermatologist and going to med school, but that didn’t last long. Deep down, I always knew I wanted to do music.

I was one of four students accepted into the musical theatre program at the University of Florida, so I decided to pursue that path. Shortly after, I moved to New York and studied at the American Music and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). After graduating, I booked a tour with Disney and spent several years performing in musical theatre shows around the world.

Then, I had a chance meeting with Nacho Cano from the Spanish band Mecano at a coffee shop in SoHo. He gave me my first shot at lyric writing for Malinche: The Musical, a project I worked on in several capacities for many years. That was the start of my journey into songwriting, which eventually led me to explore writing for myself.

FutureMusic: Lana, Ray certainly has faced some serious adversity, what was your biggest setback career-wise and what did you learn from it?

Lana: When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I learned this one the hard way.

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I got involved with a company that made a lot of promises. They said I’d open for a major artist, tour the world, and be the face on every billboard – the works. I spent about a year developing music with them, only to trash it all and start from scratch in a new city. Without going into too much detail, it was heartbreaking to discover that my “record deal” was all smoke and mirrors, built on coercion and keeping my mouth shut.

Marilyn Monroe has this great quote, “Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.”

In the end, I held out for the 50 cents.

FutureMusic: Ray Ray, did you have any mentors aside from Kevin? And if so, what did you learn from them?

Ray Ray: I had a few friends and family members that would become mentors to me: My Uncle John who ended up being a father to me and taught me how to be a good man and how you’re supposed to treat your family. The second mentor is my Uncle Matt who taught me how to work really, really hard for what you want in life. Kevin Geigel, who I mentioned before, but needs another shoutout, helped me tremendously and continues to guide me to this day on becoming an engineer and dealing with situations sonically that I’ve never encountered. I really owe a lot to him for taking his time to teach me and constantly encourage me to pursue anything I can imagine. I can’t thank him enough.

FutureMusic: Ray Ray, how did you and Lana connect?

Ray Ray: Lana and I met through Ghostface Killah and his manager, Shawn Wigz. I am Ghost’s head engineer/producer, and they met her at the Chelsea Hotel where she was a waitress serving them champagne. One of the hotel guests knew Lana could sing and sat on top of the piano at the lobby bar and drunkenly yelled “Lana has to sing. She’s the next star of our generation!” Lana jumped on the grand piano and blew them away playing an original tune “Helium” that we would later go on to record together.

Wigz told me about her and insisted we should work together. Shortly after, Ghost brought her in to record vocals on one of his records. We hit it off, and she reached out saying she had some music. Wigz said, “Trust me, do it!” So we met up, and honestly, I was nervous, but we made magic that day. We’ve been creatively pushing each other ever since.

Lana: (Laughs) That’s pretty close, as I remember it, the entire Wu Tang clan came into the Chelsea Hotel at around 2am after the Tribeca Film Festival. I was serving tables there, but had just finished my shift. Well, some of them start jamming on the iconic piano there in the back room, and one of the girls who was living there, who knew I could sing, jumps onto the piano with a drink in her hand and says: “Lana has to sing!!”

So I get on the piano and bust out some Lady Gaga and mind you, I have no makeup on, I’m in my server outfit, I’m actually at this point wasn’t even sure I wanted to do music anymore, but what have I got to lose…

Well, Ghostface perked up and came over to me and asked, “What else ya got?” And I said, I have this song “Helium” that I wrote. Well, I just start singing it and the room went silent. And I was like, oh sh*t, Okay, we’re all in now…” And they just kept asking for another one and another one and another one. Then someone brought a harp into the room and everyone started jamming and vibing and Ghost was like what are you doing with your career right now because you should come over to the studio.

But that didn’t even happen until like five months later when Ghost wanted me to come in and record on one of his songs and that’s when I met Ray. After recording, I was like I haven’t sounded like myself in so many years. I just hadn’t heard my voice in that raw, real way…

FutureMusic: So Ray Ray, what were you doing to get her to sound like that?

Ray Ray: Well, I’m known as a Hip-Hop guy, but I love R&B and I love recording singers, so I knew exactly what to do. I put a U87 on her and ran that into a vintage Neve 1073 and then into an original Teletronix LA 2A compressor and what I realized immediately is that Lana could really sing sing and didn’t need Autotune or anything, and she had this beautiful, warm tone, so it then went into a SSL console where I worked the EQ to boost a bit at 8K, but also the SSL has this input gain that can give a vocal that extra little crunch. So, all that gave her this little extra crispiness that got the vocal to pop. Then, when she came out of the booth and was like “Wait. Why do I sound like this?!” And everyone pointed at me and that was our first real connection.

But it was really Wigz who was in my ear like, you need to connect with Lana, she’s got some really sick music and you guys need to work together. So we got together and it was just magical to me. She would start playing her songs to me and all the music would immediately come into my head and I knew exactly what to do. And it was so fast. Like after eight hours, we were completely recorded, sequenced, basically done.

FutureMusic: Lana, how has working with Ray changed the way you write songs?

Lana: Ray’s hip-hop background deeply influenced my approach on this album – I found myself writing in bars with internal rhyme schemes and stream-of-consciousness prose. I’m absolutely obsessed with words and usually lean toward contemplative power ballads, but if you sped up my lyrics, they’d make a killer rap.

Ray has this incredible ability to pull the best out of me. He encouraged me to play the keys and some MIDI parts myself for these records, which was the first time I felt truly empowered to do that.

When we work together, it’s like wielding a magic wand. We have this unique, almost mystical process. I usually start by playing a song or two on the keys that I’ve been working on that week. Before I know it, hours have passed, and we’re completely delulu – staring at FL Studios, making funny noises, and talking in accents. Once the beat is done, I head into the booth to record vocals. Most of the time, I end up recording around 4 a.m., which, as any singer knows, is no small feat. But we try to keep the vibe of the night intact in the song. If we revisit it the next day, it never feels as potent.

Ray Ray: So our process has fallen into a pattern where Lana will come to me with a new song she wrote, sit down at the piano and sing to me. I’ll just close my eyes and as she’s singing to me I feel like her words just take me somewhere and I’ll just follow her to this new world. And when I land, I immediately start to look around and determine how I’m going to set the stage.

For “Tripping Over Blurred Lines,” Lana didn’t intend it to be a country song or anything like that, but when she started playing it to me, I was like, I need my acoustic guitar right now! However, when I tried to play it by ear on the guitar, I realized she was playing complex major chords, but as a bass player by trade, I couldn’t figure out what those were and felt the song should really be in a minor key for more emotion, and it’s much easier for me to play. (Laughs)

So I start playing minor chords and she just looks at me, and then starts chasing what I’m doing and next thing you know, it backs into a country song. That determined the instrumentation, which we then played all live. Live piano, live electric bass, we recorded stomps and claps instead of a kick and snare. I picked up an extra piece of air-conditioning hose that was lying around from a recent installation and used it as a washboard. But suddenly when the chorus comes, I was like this needs to go into my lane, and I added 808 kicks, high-hat and snare drum and turned it into more of a hip-hop song. All this really just happened in my head as she was singing to me.

FutureMusic: Ray Ray, what artists have inspired you the most?

Ray Ray: I have a very diverse musical taste. I’ve gone through so many phases of my life and that always made me look for new music that fit what I was feeling at the time. From Iron Maiden and Ozzy, to Earth Wind and Fire and Prince, to WuTang and Kendrick Lamar, to Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, to Infectious Grooves to System of a Down…I feel like I take a small piece from every song I’ve ever heard and some how try and use it in my songs.

FutureMusic: Okay, let’s talk shop. What is the one plug-in you can’t live without?

Ray Ray: Lately it’s been Plugin Alliance Bettermaker Stereo Passive Valve Pultec EQ – Just love the Heat Knob!

FutureMusic: What is the one piece of outboard gear you can’t live without?

Ray Ray: I’m torn between my Neve 1073 and my Empirical Labs EL8X Distressor.

FutureMusic: What is the most important thing to make a hip-hop production banging?

Ray Ray: The Drums!! I put a lot of focus into making sure the pocket’s there and stuff I create is infectious and addictive. When it comes to hip-hop I want my kick drums to feel like your getting stomped out and the snare to feel like your getting slapped in the face. (Laughs)

FutureMusic: Are you involved with the Mastering process, or do you outsource it?

Ray Ray: I typically like to outsource my personal projects cause I love to involve more talented minds in the process that might hear things in a different way. Sometimes their input may change the whole record for the better, but I do master some of my work when I feel like I’ve taken it exactly where I want it and I’m scared someone else might not take it where I want it to go.

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Ray Ray Scavo III Studio Gear

• Computer: Apple Mac Studio
• Monitors: Augspurger
• Interface: Apollo X8
• ProTools 12 Ultimate / Apple Logix X / FL Studios
• Waves SSL channel strip
• Soft Tubes Tube Tech CL 1B
• Brainworx bx_console SSL 9000 J
• Lindell Audio 354E
• Soundtoys Echoboy
• Valhalla Vintage Verb
• Waves Tune / Celemony Melodyne
• SSL console
• Little Labs headphone amp
• Antelope Satori
• Empirical Labs Distressor EL8X
• Neve 1073 SPX
• Lauten Audio Eden LT-386

FutureMusic: Since our readers can listen to “Antidote,” tell use how you produced and engineered this track.

Ray Ray: I used analog gear to record “Antidote” and all our other songs on the album. I usually start with the Lauten Audio Eden LT-386 microphone, that goes into my Neve 1073 SPX mic pre and EQ where I shape Lana’s vocals. I then send that into my Empirical Labs Distressor EL8X, from there it goes into my Apollo X8 interface and finally into my computer.

I do have a patchbay that everything is connected into as well. My monitor controller and talkback unit is the Antelope Satori, and for headphones I use the Little Labs headphone amp, which is great. I record into ProTools 12 Ultimate. Some of the plug-ins I use on Lana’s voice are Waves Tune for vocal tuning, or Melodyne. Then I go into a Waves SSL channel strip because I love the gate on the SSL. I use it to control anything that was missing with the first EQ and artifacts that get added from compressing.

Next the signal goes into a Soft Tubes Tube Tech CL 1B plug-in. I’m also a big fan of either our Vox or the L1 limiter, a CLA 76, Brainworx bx_console SSL 9000 J, and the Lindell Audio 354E Multi-Band compressor, and for saturation, I use Black Box. For background vocals, I’m a huge fan of the plug-in called Tilt, and the SI Imager. For vocal effects. I usually use Rverbs Plate Reverb, Valhalla Vintage Verb, H Delay, Waves Doubler, and sometimes Echoboy by Soundtoys. For production, I use FL Studios and Logic X. I bounce back back-and-forth between them and ProTools. For “Antidote,” I used a lot of Omnisphere and Nexus 2 and then sound designed the sounds from those two VSTs to be exactly what I wanted.

For my drum production, I either made the sounds by recording real drums and sampling them, or I went to Splice for drum one shots and random percussion, as well as some drum samples from a Cymatics bundle I purchased. That said, most of the sounds I custom recorded and made for this song.

FutureMusic: What’s the most important thing that you’ve learned about yourself in your music journey?

Lana: I think the most important thing I’ve learned is understanding what I am and am not willing to do in this industry. Everyone has their own moral compass, and I’ve become very clear about the direction of mine. My gut instinct is spot-on now, but it took a few blows to really understand where my boundaries are. I’ve learned how deeply I can be hurt, and by the same token, how unconditionally I can love.

Ray Ray: I really want to help others who come from the same struggles as I did in some way.  I’d also like to create a program to help people find ways to express themselves and find their passions. I think that’s a very important part of life.

Written by Lana Love and co-produced by Grammy Award-winner Ray Scavo III (GhostFaceKillah, Kendrick Lamar, Lin-Manuel Miranda), “Antidote” is out now. “It’s about recognizing your role in your own story,” reveals Lana Love, “and reclaiming your power by choosing how you respond to negativity. Only you can save yourself. You are the antidote.”