After listening to Johnson’s music you will feel like you had made a new best friend. Detail for detail his songs are a connection to the listener’s heart leaving the audience wanting more. Hailing from Fairfield, Ohio, Rayne Johnson creates raw country music with hints of Rock and R&B.
Johnson has earned attention from CMT and Taste of Country and has also received over 55 million streams independently. With the release of his new song, “Country Up,” we sat down with Rayne to talk his background with music, his dream collaboration and if he won the lottery what is the first thing he would purchase.
Courtesy of Rayne Johnson
BC: What was your background with music like growing up?
RJ: “Basically I started singing at a really young age. I don’t remember this but at five years old my mom had me sing a duet with her on Mothers Day. That was probably my first time singing in front of a crowd or anything like that. Growing up in church I just progressed - Youth choir, praise & worship and then continued into a Christian rock band. We always got people saying we sounded like we were country in the Christian rock band.” Rayne tells us, “We started playing country music together and it snowballed from there. We took a small hiatus from music, just to take a break for a little bit. I met some people which has become the manager and camp I’m with now and that’s really the ball I’m rolling with currently.”
BC: Did you choose the genre of country music or was it because so many people said you sounded like a country band?
RJ: “No, I mean country music is what I grew up on. my mom and my dad had different types of music they liked listening to. My mom liked the contemporary Christian music and Frank Sinatra but my dad was the classic country all the time in the truck. I love R&B, I grew up listening to that but I had tons and tons of classic country albums in high school. Country has always been the one I identify the most with and I’m a country music fan so I don’t see why else I wouldn’t be doing country music.”
BC: Can you take us back to the first you performed and how you remember feeling?
RJ: “Well the first time I actually performed was probably praise and worship. I remember I sang with the group and then I went and talked to a good friend of mine who was the youth group leader. I told him I would like to be the praise & worship leader. That was the first time I sang by myself.”
BC: Was that nerve wracking for you?
RJ: “Oh yeah, I was super nervous,” Rayne laughs.
BC: Do you still get nervous now?
RJ: “I think that it’s transitioned from being nervous to a healthy anxiousness. There obviously still is that feeling of anxiety but it’s more of an excitement. It’s like when you’re getting to ready to go on a roller coaster you’ve ridden before.”
BC: How would you describe your music in three words?
RJ: “Three words? I love it.” Rayne laughs.
BC: Your job is working on the railroad - what’s it like having that job with songwriting on the side?
RJ: “So it’s kind of funny. I was hired on the railroad at a real young age and I’ve taught two separate people at my job to play guitar. I even have memories of the guy that I taught guitar to, we would write songs together just for ourselves. It’s always been a hodge podge together. There was never really a hard separation between the two because it was a very cohesive thing - everyone loved it, and they enjoyed what I was doing. I think they were proud too, I’m proud of the job I have. Anytime people ask me what I do for a living, and I say, ‘I work on the railroad,’ they’re like, ‘what! You work on the railroad?’”
BC: “Somebody With a Broken Heart,” is your current track, what can you tell us about that song?
RJ: “I really identified with that song - it really leaned towards my personality, being in a position with a broken heart - I’m the type of guy who sees the glass half full and not half empty. It’s going through a break up but trying to take it for what it’s worth and get the good out of it. The night you spend sulking might be the night you meet the girl you’re supposed to be with.”
BC: What’s your songwriting process?
RJ: “For me, I’d say I’m more of a concept idea person. I’ve written several songs alone, a lot of the time it’s more towards trying to get my feelings out. I feel like the tracks that I’ve written that I’ve cut have mostly been when I’m in a room with someone else. In my everyday life I enjoy being around people, I do enjoy the times where I’m by myself but it’s a minimal peace. For me it’s the same thing with writing, I like to be with other folks and bounce my ideas off of them. I like to be with people that are honest and that tell me, ‘this isn’t very good, or this is good,’ normally my writing process for songs that I’ve cut are written with other folks which works best for me.”
BC: What can you tell us about your new song, “Country Up”?
RJ: “I recorded that song because I felt like it was going to be such a great live song. It talks about so many things in my life - if you don’t have enough country in your life, put a little more in there. There’s things in there about Copenhagen and Busch beer and all these things I do every weekend with my pals. A lot of songs have a good story, they follow a line, they are about a girl or what happened to me. With this song it’s about a good time, can’t wait until the weekend gets here, let’s go out have a bonfire and country up.”
Cover Art for Country Up || Courtesy of Rayne Johnson
BC: What can fans be expecting from you in the near future?
RJ: “Shows and tours are back - depending on where you’re at in the country. We’ve been playing a lot of shows and booking shows. July has been slammed packed with shows, I have shows in August and in the Fall. That is exciting for me because I love that so much. We’re also doing a slow release so every month (give or take) we’ll be releasing a song from the EP and by the time we release the EP it will be all those songs that everybody got, plus a couple more that they haven’t heard yet. It’s kind of nice, you get an EP where you already know some of the songs that you’re going to be getting along with all these songs that you don’t know yet.”
BC: What is deemed a successful show for you?
RJ: “Its funny you ask that, in the last two weeks I played a show in Ohio that was at a humongous country festival and after that, a few nights later we played a show in Wisconsin. Both shows were amazing. It’s easy to put a pin on it and say there was this many thousands of people so that was successful. If you look at it that way then yes, it’s successful by you building your fan base but it’s not like a personal success in how I view it. At the show in Ohio there were a lot of people and a lot of the people knew the songs so that was success. Then, I went to Wisconsin and the crowd was a little bit smaller but even to look out in the smaller crowd to see people singing to your music in states not close to where you live is a surreal thing. I remember when ‘Front Seat’ was doing well and I traveled to California, the second time I’ve been there. I went out there and I thought to myself, ‘what am I doing out here?’ country radio had been playing the song out there and I go to the show, started playing and probably fifty percent or more of the crowd are singing the words. To me that’s a successful show.”
BC: We would love to have you in California again, anything in the works to come back out here?
RJ: “Yeah, hopefully! I’m actually doing a wedding out there soon but I’m in contact and have support with a couple of California stations. Definitely have to get back out there!”
BC: We can’t wait to see you at a show here soon! What’s your biggest dream as an artist?
RJ: “Oh wow,” Rayne thinks, “I still work on the railroad so my dream is for music just to be it. To invest all my time into music.”
BC: Is there something you wish you would have known about the music industry before stepping foot into the industry yourself?
RJ: “I didn’t deal with this but you hear lots of artists say this, ‘just stay true to yourself.’ I’ve never had any trouble with doing that but the music industry for sure in my opinion, they recognize genuineness. They appreciate it. I don’t think that I knew that going into it but looking back that is a helpful thing. Be genuine, be honest and be yourself. You get, ‘no’ a lot more than you get, ‘yes’ and you need to continue down the path you want to go down. I think some people forget or they don’t know about it but they think, ‘what does everyone like right now? what is cool right now?’ and that’s okay. There are times when I hear something on the radio and I like the way it feels and say, ‘oh we should write like this,’ but still you don’t wanna venture too far away from yourself.
BC: For a dream headlining tour, what four supporting acts would you bring on tour?
RJ: “Keith Urban for sure, Chris Lane and can I be really far fetched on this, even if they aren’t around anymore? Cause Merle Haggard for sure, if he was still living. I would say either Morgan Wallen or Riley Green.” Rayne tell us, “And even if I wasn’t playing on it, I’d still go to it (the show).”
BC: Where’s one place that you would love to perform?
RJ: “I don’t have any specific venue because I don’t know it that well but on Instagram I have a lot of support from Germany and the UK. I guess I notice them more because it’s so surprising like, ‘you know who I am? You’ve heard my music before?’ I would love to go overseas to play music.”
BC: That’s incredible! If you won the lottery what is the first thing you would do with the money?
RJ: “First thing I would do is buy the biggest amount of property I could buy to have ducks or Delta Waterfowel come in and make it the most incredible conservation area ever. I would make sure all my friends and family could come out there and give them there own little piece and pay for it, it would be done.”
BC: Who is one artist you would like to collaborate with?
RJ: '“I was brokenhearted because Brett Young got to do CMT Crossroads with Boyz II Men so I would say doing a collaboration with Boyz II Men.”