Rick Pray

I started playing guitar when I was 14, learning mostly Eagles songs on my brother’s acoustic guitar that I snuck out of the closet while he was gone. I got my interest in the guitar because my Dad was lead singer and guitarist in a country band that was actually pretty good — even though I was not very fond of country music at the time. He had that band for about 30 years.

I bought my first electric guitar when I was 15, a Gibson Les Paul. I fell in love with the guitar and started learning rock n’ roll. Later I would replace this guitar with a Fender Stratocaster because the Les Paul was so heavy it cut the circulation off in my left arm during long perfomances. My favorite bands were Foreigner, Journey, Van Halen, Kansas, Styx, etc.

I wrote some songs and performed at a lot of weddings with my sister. During my senior year of high school, some of my friends and I put a band together to accompany my sister in the school talent show. Immediately after the show we were asked to to do a wedding dance in two weeks, so we learned about fifteen songs and D.J.’d the rest. After the dance we were asked to do another, then another — and it continued that way from performance to performance for about a year till we all had to go our seperate ways. We even played one country event!

I’ve played in several bands since then. The most fun I’ve had, however, was playing in an original band called Rosemary Wine. We played all over the state in origninal music venues. We took second place in the battle of the bands at BYU two years in a row (loosing to the same country band both years). We did some studio recording and made a tape and a CD. Our claim to fame was opening for a Survivor concert. The band broke up after about two years because some of us moved out of state.

Now I’m with Crossroads and I really enjoy the music we play. We get to play music that ranges from before my time right up into the 21st century. I’ve even learned to enjoy playing country songs. We don’t do any Barry Manilow (much to my wife’s chagrin), but we could if we wanted to!