Ra is an American alternative metal band from Los Angeles, California, taking their name from the Egyptian sun god. The band has been around since the 1990s, but did not actually evolve into its current form until 2002. Their music was described as "exotic not familiar, heavy not funky, direct not sophisticated, sensual not soulful, unrelenting not cathartic."
The band is known for their hit songs "Do You Call My Name", "Fallen Angels", "Don't Turn Away" and "Broken Hearted Soul". To date, Ra has sold around 400,000 albums in North America.
Frontman Sahaj Ticotin has commented on the origin of the name Ra in multiple interviews. "...There's an underlying theme where 80 to 90 percent of the songs have the word sun in it. So I have a little sun fetish and I thought that Ra was appropriate." He has also stated that he likes the idea of the name because it's short -- "If your name is Ra you've got two giant letters taking up the same amount of space so it looks like your name is bigger"—melodramatic, and "sort of an odd thing and really unique."