Ray Stern is not your typical indie circuit regular. She is the vocal powerhouse and the primary creative engine driving The Universe Featuring Ray, a project that feels less like a band and more like a shifting celestial event. Most artists spend decades trying to find a footing, but Stern hit the ground at a sprint. At just 18, she secured a Toronto Independent Music Award nomination with her electronic duo, The Peace Leeches.
And that was just the preamble. She spent her formative years sharing stages with the heavyweights of the Canadian rock canon—Finger Eleven, The Trews, Sloan and the Arkells. Sitting across from her, you do not just see a performer; you see a decade of Southwestern Ontario’s musical evolution wearing a coat of neon paint. 519 caught up with the multi-talented force to talk about the grind, the glitter and the grit.
We started with the branding. In an industry obsessed with authenticity, Stern’s name feels like a deliberate piece of performance art. I asked her if Ray Syd Stern was the name on the birth certificate or a calculated persona.
"It’s my full real made-up name! No, it’s mostly real," Stern says. "I think it’s cool to make up whatever name you want, like why can’t we just name ourselves and rename ourselves our whole lives? Ray is a nickname I’ve had forever and Syd I chose due to being obsessed with Syd Barrett among other things, but Stern is the last name I was born with."
The Syd Barrett nod makes sense. There is a psychedelic fringe to everything she touches, a refusal to sit still in one genre for too long. But while Barrett famously retreated, Stern has spent 10 years leaning into the London and Windsor scenes. We talked about her first major vehicle, The Peace Leeches, which feels like a lifetime ago despite its lasting impact on local fans.
"Well 2019 is the 10 year anniversary of The Peace Leeches full-length album release so that’s pretty cool," she says. "I wish I would have planned ahead for a 10 yr reunion show because I am asked about that all the time from Peace Leeches fans. At 18 y/o Corey and I began writing songs and gained momentum really quickly. I think we were so successful because we were so original and unique at the time for this area."
The Peace Leeches were an anomaly in a sea of generic garage rock. They were weird, and they were loud about it. Stern recalls the visual assault they brought to the stage, which was arguably as important as the electronic beats they were dropping.
"I made unique stage clothes for us, we used body paint and I always had a pair of eyeballs painted under my eyes so I was always looking at the crowd," Stern says. "It was super wild and fun and the music was danceable and positive but kinda dark too which is generally how I like music. What a good time though, in our short run we opened up for so many big named acts, Finger Eleven, Ill Scarlett, The Trews, The Arkells. I feel so lucky and grateful for the success we had in such a short time."
That visual flair did not vanish when the duo split. If anything, it became more integrated into her DNA. Her current shows are a riot of props and art pieces. I wanted to know where that aesthetic comes from—if it is a distraction or a supplement. Her answer was surprisingly honest.
"I just had this realization not long ago about what inspires me," she says. "Like, so many things are inspiring, just one word in the English language is enough to spur an entire song or movement in the world, but for me, I’d say my biggest inspiration is boredom. Ha-ha sounds like I am easily bored but it’s more like I have a lot of energy and its best put to work being productive and creative so I just mess with arts and crafts."
But it is more than just keeping busy. There is a symbiotic relationship between the sound and the sight. The art is not just a backdrop; it is a marketing tool and a physical extension of the frequency she is trying to broadcast.
"My music also is the big inspiration for the art," Stern says. "I think wanting to promote my music creatively has inspired a lot of my stage pieces and art backpacks and stuff."
Watching her perform, you notice the connection. It is soulful and witty, avoiding the pretension that usually kills "art-rock" dead. I asked her about the mechanics of her songwriting. How do you get from a blank page to a soulful hook?
"My writing process has changed over the years and from song to song," Stern says. "I usually always start with the music though, because that is the energy creator. I feel like there’s a whirlpool of material floating in the ether above our heads and when I lose myself in the present moment and disappear into the music that I’m creating, there’s those sweet moments where it’s like the vortex opens up and funnels the gold down into my mind and it just flows effortlessly, like a 'Flow State'."
I realized that who I am (rainbow, wild, artsy) has to be expressed or it will be repressed... I decided to give my dream everything I could, so I left home to pursue my dream as The Universe Featuring Ray.
It is an esoteric way of describing the "Flow State," but it rings true. You can hear the difference between a song that was manufactured in a boardroom and one that was caught like lightning. Stern is a firm believer in the latter.
"It’s a completely different feeling then sitting at a white paper with a pen trying to make something brilliant happen," she says. "That works too, but there’s usually less soul in those moments. We can sense those things. I like to feel through music rather than think through it."
This emotional honesty is likely why she was tapped to write "My Superpower" for Positivity Day in 2018. In a world of cynical indie rockers, Stern leans into the light. But do not mistake her for a sunshine-and-rainbows caricature. There is a depth to her optimism that feels earned.
"I do think that is a big part of who I am," Stern says. "I’m not a positivity warrior or anything; I think it’s just a well developed aspect of me. I did the positivity day song from a self reflective view point like I do with a lot of my songs, because I think positivity starts within, starts with positive thinking. There is definitely a thread of positivity weaved within even my darkest, painful songs because my writing is very true to who I am and I’ve always known, or had faith that there is light after the dark so I hope that can help people in pain."
And she is not afraid of the dark. She understands that you cannot have one without the other. It is a nuanced take on mental health that many artists miss by trying to be "relatable" through performative sadness.
"I used to think you must always be positive, and I think that is a good goal but it’s not realistic," Stern says. "Negativity is a great learning mechanism to teach you about yourself so now I allow myself to feel negative if it’s how I feel in that moment, but striving to see the light in those situations always helps the negativity pass."
This willingness to embrace the unknown led her to North Carolina. It was a strange detour with a band called Grown Up Avenger Stuff. It sounds like the plot of a low-budget indie film: girl gets a Facebook message, girl moves to the American South.
"Oh man, it was definitely crazy," Stern says. "Like right up my alley kinda crazy ha-ha. This family band from North Carolina messaged me on Facebook saying something like 'Hey I know this sounds crazy but, do you want to move to North Carolina to join a rock band?' Classic me was like, 'Hell Yeah!' I love crazy impulsive decisions."
It was a period of intense growth and "Heavy Indie" exploration. She was seeing the mid-east coast of the USA and writing some of her strongest rock material. But the honeymoon phase eventually gave way to the reality of artistic compromise.
"I also thought it was a manifestation of what I was wanting for myself," she says. "I wanted to focus on music, not have to be in charge of everything, see more of the world, and have a tight bond with new people. I went there and we recorded and wrote a lot. We made a few of my fave songs I’ve ever written, very much rock music, we called it 'Heavy Indie'. Toured and saw a nice chunk of the mid-east coast of the USA."
Eventually, the realization hit that she was building someone else’s house. For an artist as idiosyncratic as Stern, being part of a collective that did not match her "rainbow, wild, artsy" frequency was never going to last.
"At some point I felt that even though my team went from just little old me to a 4 person group, we still weren’t working hard enough on what I thought mattered and I ended up realizing I could be putting all of my eggs in my own dream basket instead of someone else’s," she says. "You know, I realized that who I am (rainbow, wild, artsy) has to be expressed or it will be repressed and because those vibes weren’t true to them as a group… I decided to give my dream everything I could, so I left home to pursue my dream as The Universe Featuring Ray. I learned a lot from them though and am so happy it happened!"
Life on the road and backstage at festivals usually produces the best stories. When you are opening for bands like The Trews, things get messy. Stern shared a story about a backstage encounter that involves a high-end guitar and a very unfortunate beer spill.
"I’ll leave some minor details out (laughs), but one story I can actually recall is when we opened up for The Trews at a festival, we were backstage in a tent with some friends who probably shouldn’t have been back there, definitely inebriated, and there was a gorgeous guitar just sitting there with some strawberries, you know when you can tell something is important, this guitar seemed important," she says.
The tension in the story is palpable—or would be, if Stern wasn't so casual about the chaos. A beer was knocked over, a guitar was threatened and a rock star’s wife was not amused.
"I was munching on the fruit and laughing at my friend who then knocked over his beer and it started to travel under the guitar," Stern says. "We’re like 'Oh shit!' so I grabbed the guitar and start wiping it off and at the same time the wife of one of the Trews members looked in and was like 'WTF is going on here?'. Caught redhanded but not really doing anything. She said it was the singer’s guitar and grabbed it and the fruit from us. They cracked down on backstage passes right after that happened."
Now, Stern is looking forward. She is about to drop a new album, and she has recruited some serious industry muscle to help shape the sound. Working with Michael Hanson of Glass Tiger and José Contreras of By Divine Right shows a level of sonic ambition that most local acts cannot touch.
"I’ve been messing with these songs for years and have been focused on recording them and getting them out to the world so I tried a few different studios/people out and even have a few songs that I produced myself with some co-production mixing in studio so, there’s several brilliant minds sprinkled into the mix," she says.
The album sounds like a sprawling, uncontained mess of genres—which is exactly what you want from Ray Stern. She is not interested in the "rules" of the industry. She wants the best stuff out, regardless of whether it fits a specific radio format.
"I started recording some tunes with Michael Hanson from Glass Tiger back in 2018 and then met up with José Contreras from By Divine Right last fall to get a demo together which has now turned into a bunch songs on this record," Stern says. "There’s no rules in the music industry, or in life, just guidelines so I said screw it, I’ll put a mixture on this record cuz I wanna get my best stuff out asap. The songs range from light happy acoustic jams to high energy angsty rock to super emotionally charged painful expression. Just a whole crapload of Ray."
The title of the record is *Co-Create*, a name that reflects the collaborative spirit Stern has cultivated over the last decade. It is a nod to the producers, the friends and the cosmic energy she believes fuels her work.
"The CD is called Co-Create because it’s a big co-creation with a crapload of people, producers, friends, family, artists, and most importantly... The Universe!" she says. "Nothing is done by one person alone, there’s so much inspiration and effort added into my project by a number of people so it’s important for me to honour that by seeing the accumulation of this as a group effort and I am so grateful!"
And while there is no hard release date yet, the target is early September. It will be the culmination of years of "messing with songs" and finding the right people to help translate the whirlpool in her head into something we can all hear.
Ray Stern has been a part of this scene for 10 years, but it feels like she is just getting started. Whether she is painting eyeballs on her face or moving to North Carolina on a whim, she remains one of the most unpredictable and essential voices in the region. Keep your eyes on the universe—the one featuring Ray.
