As he gears up for a long-awaited return to Australian stages this November, David Gray has plenty to be excited about. His latest record, Dear Life, marks the 13th studio album from the iconic UK singer-songwriter, whose 1998 classic White Ladder, became 25 times platinum
Ahead of his Australian tour, Gray caught up with The AU Review to discuss the thrill of delivering new material live, creative song writing avenues and how literature continues to shape his creative path.
Thanks for taking the time to chat! First off, k nowing you’re a Manchester United fan, I do feel the need to apologise for my fellow countryman Ange Postecoglou breaking your hearts in Bilbao last month.
I don’t know if he broke our hearts—I think we’re already in a kind of demented sort of death swoop. It was more like a mosquito bite than heartbreak. I think there’s something badly wrong. There’s a darkness over the club. I say go down a couple of divisions and cleanse the corporate parasitism that’s taken hold. Start from scratch. That’s my concept—let’s get relegated!
I’m sure that’s a very popular take [laughs]
[laughs] The WhatsApp just stops when I say that kind of stuff.
First of all, big congratulations on the run of sold-out shows for the Past and Present tour. It looks like it’s been pretty much non-stop from March and going through to August. How does it feel to be back in the full swing?
Yeah, it’s been very intense. Very intense. I’m on a break now—just over a month—and only just sort of coming back to normal. Starting with the release of the record, basically as soon as we got back after New Year’s I was straight into it. There was a couple of weeks of promo. We toured America and Canada and then a short break and then the whole of the UK and Ireland and a little break, then a bit more of the UK and Europe.… it was 50 shows in pretty swift fashion. A rapid style of touring. And for a bunch of old timers like us, that’s a physical and mental challenge.
But I mean, what was uplifting was just how well the set worked and how well the shows went. Changing the set round and round and really, really radically altering it by like eight, nine, 10 songs per night, really, really rejuvenated the whole thing and the fans really got it.
I mean, some nights you’ve got like a sort of bellowing tanked up audience and they just want to hear the big songs, just occasionally it gets like that. But I’d say for 90% of the tour, we didn’t really have to contend with the kind of lowest common denominator mentality. We basically managed to do the subtle stuff, the deep dives. So it’s been a really lovely combination.
When the new stuff comes across with the very old stuff just as well, when they ignite within the set, it lights the whole thing up. We all know what’s going to happen when I play “Sail Away” or “Babylon” or whatever. But I think the thrill is in weaving these other moments in, and that’s what was so superb. So I think it went beyond my expectations. I thought it was going to be good, but it was better than I thought.
That setlist alchemy you’re talking about—does that give you a kind of energising force? Is there a balance between trepidation and excitement when you’re going into new places and territories with that?
Well I mean the whole thing of embarking on the new music and taking it out, there is always a sense of trepidation. There is also a sense of nervous excitement because what’s wonderful about life is the moment of something becoming some thing. When you know what it is, that’s a different science.
Re-enacting something—those past glories—is one thing. But seeing something take on its new form, and you with it, as you become the music you’ve made in front of an audience… that’s what it’s all about for me.
If I didn’t have that component, then I’d basically just be like a human jukebox doing a sort of 2000s tour. That doesn’t interest me very much. It doesn’t interest me at all. I love this. There has to be risk and reward—otherwise you just end up getting bored, stuck in a kind of safety zone. And if the audience are expecting that safety zone, then you’re in real trouble. You’ve got to keep them slightly off-balance at all times.
That’s why I’ve made a point of spelling out what this tour is. I’ve been very clear about what it’s going to entail, and what people can expect. Like when I wanted to play Skellig—the album before this one—I told everybody: That’s what I’m going to be playing. You’re not going to hear “Babylon” and all that. I made it absolutely crystal clear.
So anyone coming to those shows to hear the new music—they heard the new music. And it worked superbly well because it was compartmentalised. No one showed up expecting the end of the set to be “This Year’s Love” or “Please Forgive Me” or “The One I Love.” They knew what they were there for. They were there for that thing.
So I think as long as there’s clarity… yes, I love the risk. I love the unknown. That’s where I’m at now—I’m starting to write again, I’m just coming back to myself. And it’s the same feeling: I’m going into new territory. I’m looking for a new form, a new shape. That’s the whole thrill of the thing. It’s more than novelty—it’s to do with survival. Whatever creativity is, ultimately, it’s about finding an expression that’s true—something you can wear without acting it.
And speaking of Dear Life , it’s the 13th album, which I suppose could be seen as unlucky—but clearly not in this case.
Thirteen’s my lucky number! My birthday’s on June 13, so it’s always been a good one for me. This was a big album for me, so we went big on the tour.
I wanted to dig into the writing process of that album in particular. You’ve mentioned that Dear Life is like a collection of short stories and cited writers like Pablo Neruda, Raymond Carver, and Alice Munro as inspirations. How does literature factor into your song writing? Is it more like fuel for the engine, or does it directly inform your writing? I know some people can be pretty heavy on the nose with their inspirations, but does it channel in the same way for yourself?
Yeah, it’s a mix. As time has gone on, I’ve borrowed more heavily and more directly from literature. I’ve begun to write from poems and quote poems. That’s a process I’ve gained confidence with. It has unexpected results. When I start from a blank sheet of paper like that, I’ll hear music in the words. It disarms my sense of taste, because somehow it hasn’t arrived in the usual fashion. So it’s like music arriving through the back door. And all you do is work like a child in a sandpit—just instinctively shaping things around.
“Leave Taking” on the new record is a great example of that. I started with a poem and just waded into the music like a water diviner. I was looking for the tug of where the next chord wanted to go, how I wanted to play the next line, whether I wanted to change the next line. It was a very instinctive process. And only when weeks had gone by, and I’d started to record it—and other people were getting involved and saying “I love this”—I kind of went, “Yeah, I think I do too.” But honestly, I didn’t really know what it was. I just worked plain and simple.
That I find very freeing—because the doubting voices, the kind of critical voices that we keep in our heads—the judging eye—is the negative thing. That’s writer’s block. And every time you start a new cycle of writing, it’s like getting into a cold bath. You’ve got this thing going: Why is this important? What is this? What are you doing exactly? And you have to answer all those questions.
But when I work in this other way, it’s just very pure, very innocent music-making. So yes, I lean very heavily on those influences.
I read a lot, and I’m always writing notes—either a little quote or just a thought based on something I’m reading. And I’ve got more notes than I could ever read. But sometimes, in an uncanny way, one of them will come back to me—Oh yeah, I remember I wrote that. That’s what I need right now for this song. So it’s a kind of montage or collage style, mixed in with my own flow. But yeah, it’s a huge support to me. The joy of reading is one of my great pleasures, and now it feeds directly into the music.
I’ve got a record in the pipeline—I’m not quite sure when it’ll come together—but the working title is Poetic Licence. Several of the songs are based directly on literary sources. Some are just a couple of lines that I’ve expanded into entire songs. But it’s all about playing with that idea. And when I say poetic, I don’t just mean the lyrics—I mean the music has a poetic quality. It’s striving to be something enigmatic. It’s a non-narrative approach—a kind of free, associative world. I could end up in Pseuds Corner if I keep going.
But yeah, I think you’re always looking for space in music to move into—and this is a space where I really feel there’s more room to explore. Some of the things I’ve written recently have shown me that, and I’m very excited about it. It won’t be a commercial record—it’ll be more one for me, really. So yes, that’s directly answering your question. I’m actually thinking about an entire encapsulated musical object based on exactly that.
That’s really fascinating. Following on from that, how important is the partnership with Ben de Vries in that process—both as a producer and collaborator? How does that shape how those songs form initially into what they change into?
Massive. I mean, I give total trust to Ben—my producer has the reins. I’ll occasionally record something myself and have a strong feel for the sounds. In a very, very crude fashion, I’ll apply my own sounds and that becomes part of the song. But really, my trust lies with him.
I’m so far removed from the computer now as an active tool—I can barely use the bloody thing. So Ben has a massive effect on what I’m doing. It’s about the power of the relationship and the trust. We’ve just been writing for the last few days—we got back last night from my house in Norfolk. I literally started from zero. I said, “Listen, I’ve got these chords, and I was thinking I might be able to sing these lyrics over them, but I haven’t actually tried yet.” So we started from absolutely nowhere.
Very quickly, as he’s working to capture the ideas, I’m going, “Yeah, that feels like it wants to be… I don’t know, maybe you need to filter that.” We work together—it’s collaborative—but really, he’s the hands on the keyboard. He creates the sculptural space. I’m crudely making the sculpture, and he’s building the space that surrounds it, and more beyond that.
It’s a very fertile back and forth, and at this stage it’s accelerated so much that we can really challenge ourselves. One of the big challenges is not repeating our methods, so we don’t just end up making something similar to what we’ve done before. That’s the challenge, as I feel it. I don’t want to do the same thing again. I want to be somewhere else this time. The story needs to be told differently—and that applies to the sound as well as everything else.
It’s not like, “Yeah, let’s just throw a bit of Hammond organ on it”—I want it to be something new. And that relationship is massive. You can really hear it on Dear Life—Ben stepped forward as a producer and took the whole thing by the scruff of the neck.
It’s an amazing thing. I’ll be in the corner writing lyrics while we’ve got an idea moving, and he’s just continuously shaping the thing I’ve already put down. I might have a burst of activity—put down guitar, piano, another piano part, a keyboard, a little whirly bassline, a couple of vocal ideas—and I’ll rough in a quick vocal just so we can work around it. Then I’ll be sitting there working on those lines, thinking, Hang on, I want to replace that verse, while he’s working on a synth part or something else, just shaping the whole thing.
I’ll say, “Take the guitars out at the beginning, bring them in on verse four, blah blah blah,” and we work very, very rapidly. But it’s Ben who really takes the momentum and runs with it while I’m basically in the corner of the room, trying to work a lyric out. So it’s writing very fast from nothing—and in a totally disinhibited fashion.
Some people find that part of writing—the nakedness of it—embarrassing. It can make you self-conscious in front of other people. But I don’t know… I used to hate injections when I was a kid—well, into adulthood—but now I don’t give a shit because I’ve had so many. I feel a bit like that about writing. I just don’t care anymore. I’m like, Let’s just get on with it. I don’t care who’s here. I’m writing. Let’s go. Let’s see what it’ll be.
Writing is embarrassing. You’re going to show parts of yourself that are maybe a bit ham-fisted. When you look at art, it is revealing. It reveals your own naivety, among other things. You get these ill-formed, half-formed emotions and thoughts—it can all look a bit clumsy from a certain angle. But that’s just what it is. And sometimes you get lucky, and it all comes good.
That’s brilliant, and very comprehensive! It’s interesting to hear the method, I really like that. I know we’re short on time, so just a quick one to finish up: Six out of ten of your Australian dates are already sold out. Does that kind of enthusiasm make the long flight any easier? (laugh)
Yeah, I know. We’re very excited to see the appetite for the music that seems to be there, and we want to pick up where we left off with the last tour—which had a massive vibe about it. So yeah, I mean, it’s a longstanding relationship now with the Australian audience. Absolutely—100%. Very, very excited about it.
Awesome. Well, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time I’ve enjoyed this a lot. And I hope you enjoy your time in Australia. I can’t wait to see you out there.
Thanks very much, mate. Cheers.
DAVID GRAY – AUSTRALIAN TOUR NOVEMBER 2025
Presented by Frontier Touring
Tuesday 4 November – Riverside Theatre, PCEC | Perth, WA –ticketek.com.au
Friday 7 November – Thebarton Theatre | Adelaide, SA –ticketmaster.com.au
Sunday 9 November – Palais Theatre | Melbourne, VIC –ticketmaster.com.au
Monday 10 November – Palais Theatre | Melbourne, VIC –ticketmaster.com.au – NEW SHOW! Wednesday 12 November – State Theatre | Sydney, NSW – ticketmaster.com.au
Thursday 13 November – State Theatre | Sydney, NSW–ticketmaster.com.au – NEW SHOW! Saturday 15 November – Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) Concert Hall | Brisbane, QLD–qpac.com.au
Sunday 16 November – Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) Concert Hall | Brisbane, QLD –qpac.com.au – NEW SHOW!
Header and images supplied by the artist
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