A new single is coming from Michael Ray! The Florida native just announced “Spirits and Demons,” his duet with Meghan Patrick, as his next single. The song is from Ray’s Dive Bars & Broken Hearts EP, out now.
Ray announced the news on social media.
IT’S OFFICIAL! My new single #SpiritsAndDemons featuring @MegPatrickMusic is headed to country radio. Listen starting August 28th!!! 🥃💔 pic.twitter.com/fXKfWssx1X
— Michael Ray (@Michaelraymusic) August 1, 2023
Ray loved “Spirits and Demons” as soon as he heard it, but he also knew he wanted someone else to sing on it with him — he just didn’t know that it was Patrick he wanted all along, at least not at first.
“Sometimes you hear a song, and it hits you: that’s just how it is,” Ray says of “Spirits and Demons.” “You play enough bars beyond the city limits, you see it all go down. Really good people who get in their feelings, the way a good time or a way out becomes a bottomless pit. The more I listened, the more I thought it needed something else.”
Ray has been friends with Patrick for a long time, which might be why it took him a while to realize her voice was perfect for “Spirits and Demons.”
“We went through so many thoughts and names; they were all great, but nobody felt quite right,” Ray recalls with a laugh. “And it’s funny, because the answer was right under my nose. I’ve been friends with Meghan for years, in the way you’ve got your ‘Hey, I’m off the road. Wanna grab a beer?’ friends when you’re home for two or three days.
“So many of us are out there weeks at a time, chasing the dream,” he continues. “When you’re always gone, those friends who get you and get the commitment it takes, where you pick up right where you left off? They’re gold. Meghan’s not only a friend and a great hang, no matter who’s around, she’s got a voice that can blister concrete – and a gift to reach right into a song and rip its heart out, put it in her throat and meet you line for line with some intense emotions.”
For Ray, it means even more that he got to sing the fiery song alongside someone he is so close to in his personal life as well, and someone he hangs out with often. The two first performed the song together at The 5 Spot, a local Nashville bar, unaware of how magical they would sound singing it live together.
“Not only do I have the woman, who like so many things on this record, is exactly what I heard in my mind, but I’ve got someone who’s actually one of my friends,” Ray explains. “To be able to sing with her, that’s awesome; and to see how people responded at The 5 Spot, when we’d never sung it in front of people, that tells me everyone else feels what she brings to this song, too.”
Dive Bars & Broken Hearts might have just been released, but the 35-year-old already has his mind on more music, and a lot of it.
“We’re talking about going in soon to start the next side,” Ray tells Everything Nash. “I’m writing, and listening to a lot of songs, getting set up to get in the studio as soon as we can, and not let much time slip by. We want to try to keep things close together. I’m excited.”
Dive Bars & Broken Hearts and all of Ray’s upcoming shows can be found at MichaelRayMusic.com.
Read ‘Michael Ray: 11 Things to Know About the Country Music Singer’ here.
