Emma Johnson meets the X-Factor finalist who has his sights set firmly on global domination

"Then I went into my dressing room to see people from Sony BMG, Simon Cowell, my vocal coach and producers sitting there and him saying: ‘I want to sign you'.
 
"I just started crying; I thought ‘Oh my God is this for real?'. Then the information just started to get better and better. They told me I would be going to LA to use the studios Frank Sinatra used to record and that I would be shooting the video in Las Vegas and I just couldn't believe it.
 
"I just sat there going ... wow."
 
As viewers know, Ray - a student at the Merseyside Dance and Drama College - almost missed the opportunity to get anywhere near the X-Factor final.
 
Despite impressing Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Sharon Osbourne in his first audition with his fifties swing-sound - Simon said he was "like a young Robbie (Williams)" - and sailing through to the show's boot camp, Simon initially passed on taking Ray to his LA home for the next stage of the competition.
 
Then, in a tense moment, the music mogul changed his mind and called the tearful teenager back, saying he had "made a mistake".
 
Once into the live shows, Ray won viewers' votes with his renditions of classics such as Smile, That's Life and a heart-stopping version of My Way.
 
But for the Liverpudlians watching it was undoubtedly his tear-stained performance of the Liverpool anthem You'll Never Walk Alone that propelled him through to the final.
 
Unsurprisingly, most of those tracks (although not You'll Never Walk Alone - there are talks for him to record that separately) make it on to his self-titled album which hits shelves on March 12. Just in time for the lucrative Mother's Day market.
 
"Everything on there is classic, and everything on there means something to me," says Ray. "There is a lot of emotion in it and I am really proud of it and so is Simon Cowell."