Ray Wilson has been "the right man in the right place at the right time" more than once in his musical career. First as the ambitious singer and songwiter of Guaranteed Pure, then as a member of British rock band Stiltskin who landed an international chartbreaker hit with their debut single Inside. He then became the front man for rock legends Genesis. To consider him as just a member of these bands does not represent his true influence on them. Wilson's dark but warm voice has put his distinctive stamp on all of them. He managed to step out from behind Phil Collin's overpowering shadow and add a new and accepted flavour to Genesis. Now he has his new and exciting band Cut. Are all these impressive achievements pure chance, a rare mixture of lucky circumstances? Not so. It's actually the result of a profound mix of talent, determination, a strong musical feel and a unique quality as a composer and singer. He emphatically states with regard to Millionairhead, Cut's debut, "This album was recorded by my band, it's not a solo-album and I want everybody to be aware." Why such a statement is so important to him is easily understood looking at the past history. Cut consists basically of the same musicians who formed the core of Guaranteed Pure. With Ray's (18 month older) brother Steve on guitar and backing vocals, Paul Holmes on keyboards. Guaranteed Pure released three albums in the early 90ies in Edinburgh. In January 1992, bass player John Haimes joined, but just two years later Ray Wilson decided to leave the band due to his personal financial problems. Shortly after he joined Stiltskin and right at the peak of "grunge", they had a European wide No.1 hit with "Inside", followed up by a top ten album "The Mind's Eye" coupled with extensive touring throughout Europe. But when the drummer and bass player left Stiltskin, this chapter also closed for Wilson. Together with his old friends of Guaranteed Pure he formed Cut in the summer of 1995. "I've always liked the style of music we played with Stiltskin," he says, "but I wanted to play it with my own band. Besides, with Stiltskin, there was always this last spark of melody missing. With Cut a strong melody is the basis of every song." By the summer of 1996 the band had written more than 20 songs and with this material Cut went to Virgin Records, Germany where Wilson had always felt a friendly link. "The deal was already made, we just wanted to release the songs as fast as possible", however it was then Wilson got a call from Tony Smith, the manager of Genesis, who invited him to audition for them "It hit me like lightning out of the blue"! Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks liked the Scotsman's expressive voice and its great diversity right away. Wilson also enjoyed working with them and decided to accept the offer and joined Genesis in 1997 with one small reservation "Just as Mike Rutherford has Mike & The Mechanics on the side, I insisted on being able to spend my free time with my plans for Cut. It has always been important for me to develop my own and independent songwriting with my own band". Genesis released the album Calling All Stations in spring 1997 and the three hit singles Congo, Shipwrecked and Wilson co-write Not About Us won Genesis a great number of new fans. After appearing at the Rock In The Park open air in Nurnberg, Germany, Wilson believed that the time had come to record Cut's debut Millionairhead. He had not only gathered many experiences but also took along drummer Nir Zidkyahu. Zidkyahu, an Israeli living in the USA, is a much in demand drummer on the New York scene. In the early 90ies he played with the Dan Reed Network and the Bee Gees before he got his "calling" from Genesis. As a session and studio musician he is probably one of the best in the international music business. Together with bass player John Haimes he represents Cut's rhythmic foundation. Haimes started playing bass when he was 19 years old and his major influences include Cass Lewis of Skunk Anansie amd Marcus Miller. He started his career with London bands Big Blue Sea and Bite The Bullet. In 1990 he studied at the London bass Academy and two years later met Wilson, who asked him to join Guaranteed Pure, and after the band split he made his living touring clubs. Keyboard player Paul Holmes has been living in Norway for several years and works as a busy studio musician. As a young boy Paul used to play the organ in church and was a member of the choir. He performed publicly for the first time at 14 and in the following years played countless clubs throughout Europe. Guitarist Steve Wilson also started his musical career at the age of 14, firstly as a singer but after a short time he started playing the guitar and together with his brother Ray formed their first school band. The next band was called The End and after that he joined Guaranteed Pure. When Ray left to join Stiltskin in 1994 Steve returned to the clubs. Now with Cut, Ray and Steve (also who contributes his songwriting skills) have come together to complete the band's line-up. The current material is truly refreshing and very much modern. The songs are melodic, powerful, extraordinarily clever and skillfully arranged "In the past four years I've learnt a lot" says Wilson, "my main influences are Pearl Jam , Live, Radiohead and Jeff Buckley and naturally, Genesis did a lot for me too. They taught me to think more specifically about the use of keyboards and orchestral parts. When I left Stiltskin, my focus was mainly on guitars. Genesis awakened my interest in keyboards, Wurlitzer piano and all these analog sounds". The result of this is obviously on "Millionairhead". All twelve songs are full of great melodies and sensitive arrangements. The rocking, driving title track describes in an ironic way the dispute between Ray, and Stiltskin's guitarist Peter Lawlor. "Another Day", the first Cut single, is also connected to Wilson's previous band. This song was originally written to be included on the second Stiltskin album and hasn't lost any of its edge. "Gypsy", a track with a calm start and a hard riff in the middle was inspired by U2's video to "All I Want Is You". Just like the video, "Gypsy" conveys a sentimental, melancholic feeling. The newest track on "Millionairhead" is "Ghost" and was written after Wilson joined Genesis. He sings "You have all I have to give" as a sign of his great musical commitment and he openly admits that the constant criticism to which he was exposed was sometimes difficult to understand "you break me into many pieces". Alongside these gems, Wilson pays homage to his great hero David Bowie with a cover of "Space Oddity". "Bowie was the first musician I consciously listened to. He is the reason why I started to make music "Ziggy Stardust" or "Scary Monsters" are true classics of rock history". The album was produced by Ray Wilson himself, engineered by Ian Huffman and mixed by Nick Davies.