“There were all these killer players. I was shy and kind of sat there, but Etta said, ‘I like that little white kid’”: Brian Ray wowed Etta James at 18, lost-out on Shakira and landed his gig with Paul McCartney –after auditioning at the Super Bowl

Brian Ray wears all-black and plays a black Gibson SG with white pickguard.

Since 2002, Brian Ray has held down the enviable gig as guitarist and bassist in Paul McCartney’s band. At the same time, he’s built a successful side career as a solo artist – sometimes with his garage rock band, the Bayonets – and has released a series of punchy power pop albums and singles that recall the ebullient, hard-driving and hook-laden sounds that dominated the Southern California scene in the late Seventies.

“I’m a West Coast guy, so that stuff is in my roots,” he says. “The Plimsouls, Dwight Twilley, the Knack – they were awesome. Of course, power pop can be traced earlier to the Raspberries and the Sweet, and then that got adopted by Cheap Trick. Even Tom Petty was power pop at times. I have my rootsy side, but I also have my pop side. In my music, they sort of dance together.”