BRIAN RAY

From playing the “Monster Mash” with Bobby Pickett at17 to touring the world with Paul McCartney, Brian Ray has had a career like no other

- Joe Bosso

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."

Ray's latest album, My Town, is something of a "best of" collection in that it includes his singles from the past decade, but it also features four new cuts that he recorded with his McCartney bandmate Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums, as well as bassists Scott Shriner (from Weezer) and Davey Farranger (from Elvis Costello's the Imposters). The record's lead single, "Bad 4 U," which Ray co-wrote with his label head, Steven Van Zandt, is an irres ible nugget of ear candy that boasts hooks at every turn and packs a knockout guitar solo. "When the Earth Was Round" and "Hold Me Close" are raucous, ridiculously catchy rockers, while the coral sitar-flavored "All the While" dips into Sixties psychedelia and features Ray channeling Jimi Hendrix ona cosmic guitar lead.