“Work, work, work, die, die, die,” Shilpa Ray sings while playing keys on the stage. "Add Value Add Time" is the fourth track off her 2017 album, Door Girl. The song is rather pretty, almost reggae, but fits well into Ray’s signature edge. “MTA asks add value add time, add value add time yeah, either way I work till I die, work till I die,” finishes the chorus played to maybe 25 people on a Thursday night.
Literally, Ray works as a door girl at Pianos, a two-story club on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. She’s worked an assortment of sales jobs and seasonal jobs, too. She’s a total blues punk rocker who needs time to tour and make her music.
“I make royalties, I do,” says Ray, wearing a sheriff’s badge on her shirt, sitting on the back patio of McAddys in Troy, NY, drinking the drink I bought her. “It depends on licensing, and I sell to anything; I need money to survive. You want music for a toilet paper commercial? OK. I don’t care.”
Ray has three Long Players through Northern Spy, a Brooklyn-based label since 2010 that has deep corners of contemporary music. Ray tells me about a West Coast band named Suss, and I just ran into a friend this week who recently saw Horse Lords; both those acts are on Northern Spy, too. Other notables associated with the label are The Necks, Rhys Chatham, Dan Melchior, Thurston Moore, Beauty Pill, Cloud Nothings, Weyes Blood, and Renata Zeiguer. Shilpa Ray has the third most releases (eight) of the long list.
“The publishing agents are where most of the royalties come from, not so much the label,” Ray says. “The role of the label has changed. They give me a lot of creative freedom. Their market is more jazz, experimental stuff, so pop-oriented stuff is different for them.”
Not that her music is pop, but Ray definitely writes hooks. It’s blues, punk, rockabilly, harmonious, and hardcore. She can snarl, and she can soothe.
“I have freedom from opinions, pushback, and hate,” says Ray. “I save up money and make a record. There may have been some resistance early on, but I did it anyway. The number one rule now is not telling an artist what to do. Like, what is your market? The market kind of failed, you tell me? You upload your music to streaming; it costs you nothing. Done. Move on. Have a nice day.”
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While writing an album for the future (previous album, Portrait of a Lady, came out in 2022), Shilpa Ray is focusing on singles. Making singles is less pressure, and she doesn’t have to do the whole album cycle thing.
“Every time you put out a single, it’s an excuse to go out and tour,” Ray says. “It makes it last longer, compared to going back to the studio, spending a bunch of money on a record, and having it on streaming and getting only a few songs heard.”
The system is crazy now. We don’t live in an album(s) market anymore, regardless of audiophiles like us who prefer listening to a full album. We’re the few and the proud. Portrait of a Lady cost Ray between $8,000 and $10,000 to make, and she says that she’ll never see that money again. She and her band put a lot of work into it, and it is extraordinary.
“It’s not just the recording process; you gotta pay people,” Ray says. “Then, mixing and mastering; it’s a lot of stuff, it’s hard. Especially making it the way you want it to be made is tough. Home recording is one thing, but going to a studio is about liking the sound of the tape, liking the atmosphere of it all.”
Portrait of a Lady was exactly how Ray wanted it. “But people only listen to the same few songs on streaming, over and over,” she says. “They don’t listen to the whole album. There’s this whole section of the album that people are missing.”
There was no missing any of Shilpa Ray (her name is the band name, too) at No Fun. It was one of those show situations where most attendees hang outside the open doors, taking in whatever acoustic opener is playing. The next band is local, and once they finish, half the people leave. That’s slightly disrespectful, but it’s also a weeknight. Whoever stayed got rightfully rocked; my ears were a little muddy the next day.
Anyway, the same songs that Ray was talking about that always get streamed: “Morning Terrors Nights of Dread,” “EMT Police and the Fire Department,” “Manic Pixie Dream Cunt,” and maybe a few others. Excellent songs, no doubt.
“Manic Pixie Dream Cunt” is a twist on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Ray says. “It’s the one-dimensional way to describe the dream girl, but what if you were a Manic Pixie Dream Cunt instead? There’s more to you than just being a Dream Girl. You have power, you know?”
Shilpa Ray has a thing for different song names. Scroll her track listings.
Ray’s roadie, Levi, joins us. He’s from Buffalo, and a huge Sabres fan. Shilpa Ray had started their tour in NYC (naturally) the night before, and all that New York Knicks rioting had been going on. Levi drives; he’s on the car keys.
“One of the greatest drivers, ever,” Ray says. “I gotta see him in IndyCar driver status; I think he would be OK.”
The Buffalo Sabres had not made the playoffs in a very long time, so there was chaos and mania over that, too. “It’s sideshow level, but I didn’t really see it with the Knicks in NYC,” says Levi. “Their winning, yes, but there’s so much shit going on in NYC, you gotta go to Midtown for the crazy stuff. Buffalo rallies at a different level.”
The Buffalo gig on Shilpa Ray’s tour was an opening slot for DEVO. I wonder how the fuck that happened, but Ray has friends who hook her up. She has a cult following. Buffalo is a kick-out, different from other cities. I think that Troy is a kick-out, too, whatever that means, but the show was lightly attended. Ray had never been to Troy before, and she says that it has unsuspected charm. Her booking agent was responsible for this, needing a gig between Toronto and Buffalo.
“I like doing new venues, see what the reaction is [laughs],” says Ray. “No Fun reminds me of a venue in Southern Louisiana—popcorn ceiling, panels—it feels very American. I mean, this is the town of Uncle Sam, right? Freedom.”
What is the personification of Uncle Sam being buried in Troy? He’s dead. It’s gone. A lot of shit is dead and gone, but we’re still here. There’s a guy out here on the McAddys patio fucking with all the plants. He’s still here, too.
So, singles, not albums. Singles now, an album later. Ray wants to tour more; her last tour was in 2025, and 2025 had a lot of shows for her. She’s going back to Studio G in Greenpoint in 2026, co-producing with Jeff Berner.
Ray loves 80s No Wave Noise, and she says that NYC still gets that scene through basement parties. “Watching people drone all day is healing. That’s my take on a jam band.”
Noise is jam for punk rockers, we agree. Thurston Moore is doing all this noise, free jazz shit lately; he’s a student of Glenn Branca, a Godfather of NY noise. “New York is known for having a crazy, avant music scene,” Ray says. “It doesn’t necessarily sell records, but you can see a kick-ass, moody show.”
Recently seeing a JG Thirlwell show, Ray thought a pegasus was going to fly out of the ground. “They're wearing lab coats, and there’s crazy screens in the background; it’s magic. You think it’s just a noise show, but people get up from their chairs and start screaming like they’re watching Elvis. That’s something.”
Ray segways noise elements into her music; it loosens her up. “Why care if you’re going to hit the right or wrong note when you can smash all the notes and then eventually start playing the right notes? You pound the keys and shape with your fingers.”
Being a first-generation child, Ray has a twisted take on Americana. Her outlook and interpretation are silly and funny. “The things you hate have been here for generations, and these are the things that are so interesting to me. I want to know more. I mean, I was born and raised here [New Jersey]…sometimes I want to listen to classic rock and drink a Budweiser and not be fussy.”
Creedence Clearwater Revival, oldies, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Molly Hatchet, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, but we’re not Dylan fanatics. We’re more Townes—he can really play and write. Then, of course, Bruce Springsteen.
“My parents are Indian,” Ray says. “I was the talk of the circles as a kid, haha, this goth Indian child at an Indian party, it was nuts, man.”
We get into PJ Harvey because she seems to touch everything and everyone. Harvey has a unique blues take, and Ray says that her last album was technically a noise album, although gorgeous. “Noise has a harshness stigma,” Ray says. “Harvey told us this, and she’s far from done. I haven’t seen her live, but she presents ideas in a different way while being very quiet and reserved.”
Portrait of a Lady is super unique and rangy. Ray thought listeners were going to be scared of that album; it’s so Balls to the Wall Rock and Roll. It’s not for the big market, not for the 9-to-5 squares. It’s not gentle, not safe.
“I dove off a cliff with that album, and I never incorporated synths before,” says Ray. “I had dance elements, industrial sounds, and did it my way. Pop and hip-hop, you can say whatever you want, but in indie, people look down on you if you curse too much, talk about things that are too serious.”
A lot of independent rock bands have a similar sound. Shilpa Ray is a separation.
Shilpa Ray kept Shilpa Ray going. She tried to quit because being a career artist nowadays is kind of dumb, kind of stupid.
“That would sound cool with this, and what if I did this with this, that against that,” Ray says. “I am thinking about it. I am making arrangements in my head.”
It’s the inner turmoil of the artist. Ray seems laid back—indeed, she’s really chill—but her brain is traveling at light speed. She’s thinking about eight different things at once while we’re here talking. She’s hungry because she smells BBQ. She’s probably going to eat BBQ, and I might, too.
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