I'm An Excellent Driver

Ray Bourne's waiting patiently for a rough edit of his new video The Buzz, under his MC moniker Rainman, to come back when he takes the call and says he's excited to see how it's turned out, especially since he's trying something different this time around.

“We had some stuff with myself and Pear who sings on the track, but we ended up scrapping it and just running completely with story of the couple who are in the track. I'm actually not gonna be in the video at all which I think works better. It's a couple hooking up and some drama happens and it goes from there. I don't wanna spoil it,” he smiles.

Rainman's videos have all been of a very high standard, with the rapper putting a lot of thought into presenting his music this way. His new record Bigger Pictures has yielded the already-classic take on Brisbane's own party playground The Valley – an ode, a love dedication and a grimace-inducing very realistic take on the seediest part of the city of Brisbane.

“If anyone is involved in music in Brisbane you're gonna have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the place,” he says. “A lot of my greatest nights out, especially nights out involving music, have been in the Valley. It's more the getting to and from where you need to be in the Valley that brings out the hate side.”

At some points in the video it looks like a snapshot of a typical night out, with louts vomiting and being arrested, girls wearing smudged make-up and little else mugging it up for the camera – all the usual stuff. How much of it was real and how much had to be re-enacted?

“It's a bit of a combo,” he explains. “A lot of the stuff was just candid, and for some stuff we ended up using our friends. Dewey who made the film clip did a lot of the stuff on her own, rolling around filming stuff. I'm not even sure which parts are candid snapshots and which bits are more set up, and I kinda like that. We got moved on by the police a couple of times. We set up in front of a cop car with flashing lights and they kinda told us we were obstructing police. “We quietly mentioned that we weren't in between them and their work and then they sort of pushed us into the gutter and said we were standing in the road and in their way. Knowing Queensland police we just accepted that and moved on,” he laughs.

The album features a massive list of guest producers and performers, but this is only part of the reason why it took so long to get the project finished.

“The process of making the album was pretty lengthy,” he agrees. “We kicked it off properly in 2008. All the mixes and everything were finished in October last year, so yeah it was a good couple of years. A couple of the tracks got scrapped along the way as they didn't stand the test of time. Part of that time was working with lots of different people but there were other factors as well. We moved recording studios and I got a DJing gig in Korea in 2008 which sidetracked me a bit. I also got involved with a seven-piece band called Deep Ends and we did a few festival spots and things like that. I feel for people organising large bands after that! Seven people who are all in different bands as well. The energy on stage was so awesome but the logistical side of it was a bit of a nightmare!”