English songwriter David Gray gives hope to every busker on a city street strumming “Yesterday.”  In 1993, when Gray released his first album A Century Ends, he was a man out of step, trading in angst-ridden folk tunes while the rest of the world was more interested in hearing Kurt Cobain bawl on In Utero . Then Gray made a couple more, critically applauded, discs, and toured with both the Dave Matthews Band and Radiohead – nice work if you can get it. But while he earned his live stripes, at the end of the day it didn’t seem like many people were listening.

Undaunted, Gray financed his fourth album himself, recording it in his London apartment.  When White Ladder was released in 1999, things started to happen.  Radio airplay in Ireland began to translate into sold records.  And Dave Matthews turned out to be enough of a Gray fan to release White Ladder on his fledging record label, ATO. The quality of songs like “Babylon” and “Please Forgive Me,” canny mixtures of suburban regret and subtle electronics, did the rest.

White Ladder has fared well. In Ireland, it has sold more copies than U2’s Joshua Tree. America, and indeed most of the world, has woken up to the fact that Gray is very, very good indeed.  His latest album A New Day at Midnight tells us that Gray’s ear for a melody is as strong as ever. So while “Freedom” and “The Other Side” set their sights on darker musical realms, the chipper “Caroline” should rank with “Babylon” as a fan favorite.

Now it’s Gray’s turn to face up to the consequences of success.  In England and Ireland, that means graduating from playing pubs and clubs to filling enormous venues like London’s Earls Court and Dublin’s The Point.  In America, that means convincing fans that he’s no one-trick pony.  Speaking to VH1, Gray revealed how he’s taking pointers from Springsteen, and how it’s all about creating a mood.

VH1: Are the Earls Court shows the biggest gigs you’ve played so far?

David Gray: Definitely. This tour was on a scale the like of which we’ve never operated. We played three nights to 18,000 people a night. We’ve done the odd one-off show in an arena, but to do it every night - that’s big!

Watch David Gray perform two songs from his new album, "December" and "All The Love", plus an extra tune not on the record "Long Distance Call".

VH1: Now that you’ve moved from playing pubs to venues like that, how do you reach the 18,000th member of the audience, sitting way in the back of the arena?

Gray: Well, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band proved you can reach the back of a room.  Of course, as authentic as their musicianship is, there’s a certain amount of showmanship to the whole thing.  But the spontaneity of his shows is great.  Spontaneity is important for me.  In my early career, we readily took chances, like, “Let’s try the song we just wrote this afternoon!"  It’s great when it comes off.  The audience, whether it’s 18,000 people or not, knows when something like that is happening. They can tell when it isn’t just guys standing there playing the same songs they play every night.  There’s a certain psychology involved.  Luckily, White Ladder is the sort of album where just about everything on it is familiar.  You can always bank on hits like “Babylon,” “Please Forgive Me,” “This Year’s Love,” and “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye.” We play almost all of A New Day at Midnight, too, with a few covers and an acoustic section.  Our only theatrical device is a set of red velvet drapes - to make the big ice hockey places and basketball type places cozier. [Watch Clip]

VH1:  You were once quoted as saying “I was playing in the Midwest, and I looked down and saw what I can only describe as dancing accountants. I was horrified." Has success come at the cost of making an emotional connection with the audience?

Gray: White Ladder’s success was a fantastic thing. But here [in the States], where research is king, they want to determine who your audience is and market the music specifically to those people.  In the UK I see a vast cross-section of people [in the crowd]:  young and quite old people – some in their 50s, 60s, even. I see weird old geezers and wonder "What the hell are you doing here?"  But in America I looked out one night and that scene was ... well, they did look like dancing accountants. You've got to keep your eyes peeled for the way things are developing.  You’re digging yourself into a deeper hole if you just go out and give them exactly what they want, because either you’re going to keep churning out the same kind of sh*t, or they’re going to become disappointed when you don't.  

VH1: Where is the strangest place where you heard your own music playing?

Gray: It crops up all the time. It’s alarming how alien your own music can sound. I was in a shop in Germany or Denmark.  One of my earlier albums was on, and I was in there for like five minutes before I was realized it was me. I thought, “This guy’s voice sounds just like mine. F*ck! It is mine!" I’m a bit slow to catch on, maybe. [Watch Clip]

VH1:  “All the Love” used to be in your live set, but it’s not on the new album – although you’re still playing it.  Has performing it live changed the way you feel about the tune?

Gray: I was very attached to “All the Love.” As a new song, it became a big part of the set when we were working the same record over and over again. When we got into the studio, we tried hard to get this magical take, but we were all overly accustomed to it.  It’s almost like its innocent magic was used up when we played it live.  So it’s lying around now; maybe if I give it a rest it will come back. There are lots of songs like that.

VH1:  You performed "December" and "All the Love" for us and in their introduction joked about how you were maintaining a miserable mood.  How do you make a stark song a palatable listen?

Gray: I try to get an emotional balance on the records.  That’s another thing that worked against "All the Love."  There were so many down songs on A New Day at Midnight.  I tried putting them all together and it was [turning into] the bleakest thing! They detracted from songs like "Freedom," and ultimately the record worked less efficiently because there was too much down-ness. That’s the reason why songs like "Caroline" and "Be Mine" were chosen for the record; their vitality actually seemed to balance it. They help the other songs have more of an effect by raising the momentum a bit. That’s how we treat the live set, too. There’s always an abundance of moody material. It’s an area we’re really strong in!

VH1: So what’s your favorite downer album? What music do you put on when you’re feeling melancholy?

Gray: If I was already melancholic I wouldn’t go, “C’mon, let’s turn up the heat here! Let’s get Leonard Cohen on!” But I love Velvet Underground’s third album, with "Pale Blue Eyes" and "Jesus" and all that stuff.  It’s got a fantastic sitting-on-the-sofa quality to it. It’s so warm and so chilled out. The guitar solo on "Pale Blue Eyes" sums the whole thing up - brilliant.  It has real atmosphere, like you’re really there living in wherever they are. You just imagine them in the Factory with loads of people around them crashing out, and they’re just coming up with songs and recording them on a few little mics. Springsteen’s Nebraska is another great album for that mood, as well. Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, is another.  I'm into John Martyn's stuff, too. His records have a couple of funny tracks that I always skip, but when he hits it, Jesus Christ! Astoundingly brilliant.

VH1:  John Martyn isn’t too well known here.  Is his popularity at a level where you and your friends talk about him?

Gray:  Yeah, he’s known in musical circles. He’s not really happened over here in the same way.  If he died 15 years ago, we’d be hearing a lot more about him. It’s only the fact that he’s mad and Scottish and still here [that he's not better known]. I mean, the whole Nick Drake being used on a Volkswagen ad just pisses me off intensely. I find that depressing. People say, “It’s great! Everyone gets to hear his music!” But the curve of his music was already moving upwards. He doesn’t need a f*cking Volkswagen commercial! The guy would be utterly devastated if he knew the truth. Anybody who comes through music that casually - "Oh, I was watching a television ad, I really liked the music, and now I’m into Nick Drake …" - can f*ck off. [Watch Clip]

VH1: How do you go from being a young Smiths fan to discovering people like Nick Drake and John Martyn?

Gray: Just word of mouth, innit? You discover most people because you’re talking music [with someone]. And you go and buy it. But Pink Moon and Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks both have a real time and a place quality to them. You’re almost in the room. Like if you get a bit out there and listen to it, and let your imagination go, you can almost see the musicians. You can almost feel it happening. I love that.

VH1:  A lot of interviews you’ve done have brought up the recent death of your dad and how that might have informed A New Day at Midnight.  Does it sit well with you when people make personal connections between life and art like that?

Gray: After the first two weeks of interviews it became obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to stand the astonishingly insensitive direction the interviews were taking about my personal life. I had to say, “Look, it’s not f*cking important.” If the songs don’t stand up by themselves, then they’ve failed.  Whether my father died or not doesn’t make them any more important or successful.  Obviously, his death gave me a completely different take on things. The shock of losing someone you’re very close to changes you.  The fragility of things becomes emphasized. I don’t think I’ll be dwelling on these subjects forever, but I used my music to come to terms with what’s happened to me.  I actually used to write about more political subjects, but I eventually became less convinced by them than I was by the more personal lines of enquiry that I was taking.  I’m starting to feel different now. There’s a voice returning in songs like "Dead in the Water" and "Knowhere." A bit of an edge is coming back.  I’ve taken the personal thing to its logical conclusion for this particular moment in time.

So does it become harder to be a confessional singer/songwriter when more and more people are listening to what you’re singing?

Gray: That wouldn’t affect me doing it or not doing it. I’ve got to go off on a slightly different direction again, because I’ve been dealing very closely with these things and it’s become very intense on this record. I need to broaden my horizons. I sense that happening on the few things that I’m jotting down.  I’m reading a bit more now, too. I went through a period where I was basically brain dead, I think – probably most of my life, depending on who you talk to, we won’t go into that!  There was a deadening experience that came with the success.  The unstoppable sort of treadmill – going around the world, playing all this stuff, talking about the same thing day-in and day-out to all these different people – used up all my energy.  The creative side just ground to a halt.  Creativity is a luxury.  If you’re exhausted and haven’t got time for it, it just doesn’t happen.  It only started again when I stopped.  I knew it would.  I wasn’t panicking about it.  But I stopped reading because it needs a certain amount of concentration, too.  If you’re reading Paul Auster or something, you don’t want to just be skimming through it to get to the end.  You want to be engaged with the thing.  You got to create it all in your imagination.  That’s the f*cking point! 

For news, bio, songs, CDs and more go to the David Gray Artist A - Z pages.