Frank Ray might still be on the police force if his family and friends hadn’t encouraged him to commit to music full time.
Frank was a police officer in Las Cruces, New Mexico, when he started building a following playing local bars and honky-tonks. The singer was on the force for a decade before his music career started picking up steam, performing live Saturday nights and having to be up early the next morning for police duties.
“It didn’t work out. I was calling in a lot. It got real tumultuous because I couldn’t balance the two. I probably would have leaned towards law enforcement had my wife and my family and my team [not] said, ‘No, brother, you’re supposed to be on stage. That’s what … you’re built to do,'” he recalls. “I like the safety net of being able to have a steady gig, benefits and a paycheck. But we took a leap of faith and luckily it’s worked out.”
A defining moment was when Frank’s former band won a contest and opened for Keith Urban when he performed at the Pan American Center in Las Cruces in 2016, which proved to be an eye-opening experience for the future country star.
“It was my first time that I was really ever on a big, professional tour production kind of stage. Being in my hometown with thousands of people on a Tuesday night singing my songs, it was a big, defining moment for me,” he said. “We built this thing and caught lightning in a bottle, and then I had the support from my family. All the pieces fell into place.”
Frank is currently in the top 25 on country radio with his debut single, “Country’d Look Good on You.”
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