For some artists, the peak of their success can be something of an albatross. But David Gray has written a lot of songs about birds, so he knows better. “I feel like these [new] songs are strong enough to go shoulder to shoulder with the big songs”. His instincts are good this time around.
EPISODE 65: DAVID GRAY CARRIES NO ALBATROSS
In David Hepworth’s book “I Hope I Get Old Before I Die”, the author points out that for some artists, the peak of their success can be something of an albatross: “Most artists prefer to think the reason they’re there is to write and record new songs - songs which, they always say in interviews, are among the best things they have ever done. That may or may not be the case…it is very unusual for an artist to go on selling records beyond their second decade”.
It is a curmudgeonly view, but nonetheless essentially true.
The real issue isn’t that longevous artists make poor(er) records, but that if they do happen to make great ones, how on earth can they persuade us to pay attention? This has been the problem in recent years, for David Gray:
“Once you get attention and then lose it, how do you get it back? It’s a question I’ve been puzzling over for a long time”.
Artists have a duty to claim that their most recent project is the best work they have ever done. But what if it’s true? I’m so taken with Gray’s new album Dear Life (released January 2025) - and so too is David of course - that it seemed churlish to dwell too much on his earlier career success, no matter just how definitive that was.
“I’m always all in with the new stuff. If I wasn’t I would just retire. It’s always a moment of total commitment. I like the danger of writing and recording. There is gold in them there hills and you have got to go and find it”.
Dear Life is led by rhythmic singing and short-story style writing, underpinned by strong and sometimes unusual song arrangements. But the songs catch on, almost every one a ‘grower’. It’s one of those records that is shot-through with reflection, philosophy, mortality. You could say it’s a mid-life record and there is nothing wrong with that, given how well it stands up to his classic breakthrough work and his first decade of popular success.
“I feel like these songs are strong enough to go shoulder to shoulder with the big songs”.
His instincts are good this time around. When David Gray takes to the stage on his extensive 2025 tour to play songs like ‘Leave Taking’, ‘Fighting Talk’ and (recent single) ‘Plus & Minus’, he will not need to precursor them with an apology.
“I went for it this time. I wrote outwardly, sharing always, and not hiding behind the process. It’s the tip of the iceberg in a crazy bout of songwriting I’ve been through. So let’s call [Dear Life] Project One”.
The understated quality of the past 10 years' work* is a run of form that may have gone unnoticed by the music industry mainstream, but also suggests that Gray has been building a head of steam. If this was 2004, he would be releasing Dear Life into the world as a surefire classic album. But here we are in 2024 - enslaved to the algorithm and neck deep in social clips. Releasing a great new record into the content void of today guarantees nothing. Especially when you are running your own small record label, as Gray now is: “You’ve got to go on a cookery show just to get the opportunity to play a song for two minutes.”
White Ladder was one of those CDs everybody had. It came at the end of the CD era, one of the last albums that achieved cultural ubiquity. Lest we forget, the record was self-funded (on a budget of £5,000) and self-released. Inventing a sub-genre is one thing, and with White Ladder, David Gray did that - folktronica was the label the music press attached to it. But there was more to it than that. In a sense, Gray pioneered bedroom pop, 20 years before it became huge on Spotify. Rex Orange County, Yellow Days, Alfie Templeman and a whole generation of others owe something to him.
“There’s an intimacy that comes with a recording done in a home environment. We had a Mac running a sampler, one keyboard, a guitar and two mics and a couple of effects. It was enough to capture those unguarded moments”.
Indeed, listening to White Ladder again, it’s surprising just how lo-fi it is. As for longevity, David Gray is comfortably across The Rubicon and moving into the next phase. On a creative and productive songwriting streak and with a massive tour scheduled for 2025, he seems more up for it than at any time in his career as a pugilistic singer-songwriter:
“I’ve got clear space to move on. When you’ve already passed ‘Go’, there is a whole labyrinth of decisions to make and paths you can take. But I just wish [musicians] would get paid”.
Fighting Talk indeed. Commercially, Gray isn’t beyond interesting manoeuvres. He recently sold his publishing copyrights to music fund Bella Figura, a vehicle that will give his catalogue some much needed TLC. “I retain creative control, so I can stop the “David Gray Valentine Love Songs” should I need to. But they will be paying attention to how to keep my place at the table. If you get a sync in a film or TV show, it can change everything. I have more people on my side than I had before”.
So, 30 years on from first throwing his hat into the ring (he was signed and dropped by labels twice before he even got to releasing White Ladder in 1998), David Gray is in that zone of form we love on The Art of Longevity - one that blasts David Hepworth’s rather jaded view of mature artists withering on the vine, into oblivion.
“The disprovers are waiting every time you do something new. But I’m a very determined person. There is no trout farm for me. I just love doing this thing. And it’s getting richer and richer. There is always more to put into song”.
He is still our man for the job.
Dear Life is released January 17 2025. Pre-order it here.
* For all of White Ladder’s relative dominance in his oeuvre, David Gray’s catalogue contains plenty of true gems. The albums Skellig (2021) and Gold In A Brass Age (2019) were self-contained end-to-end projects edging much closer to folk in both musical feel and subject matter. Gray’s 2014 album Mutineers is a joy of introspective songwriting with an intricate warmth running throughout. His own daughters voted the song “Girl Like You” as a long lost hit single and I would not disagree.