The David Gray Story
David Gray was born in
Manchester, England in 1968. (which makes him 33 this year,
don't worry Dave you're not over the hill yet!) When he was
nine years old he moved to a village called Solva in
Pembrokeshire, Wales. Solva is a very small village, but very
popular with the tourists in the summer stopping on their way
to St. David's. His father owned a local gift shop that David
would work in from time to time, but his main job was as a
waiter in a local bistro. He went to the Ysgol Dewi Sant
school in St David's and played football with the Solva team.
Early on he was really into Madness, he would do a lot of
drawings of mods and madness type figures in school. He
started a punk band in which he played lead guitar and was
allowed use of the school gym to practice. It wasn't until he
went to Art College in the University of Liverpool that he
began to really focus on song writing. This lead him to move
to London after College to get closer to the music scene.
Soon afterwards he was signed by Hut Records in the UK and
Caroline stateside. His first release was "Birds Without
Wings" (still a favourite of scores of fans) in November
1992 and this was quickly followed up by his debut album, A
Century Ends, in early 1993. This beautiful album of passion,
anger and emotion was received well by critics and David was
soon every music critic's tip for "The Next Big
Thing". Two other singles were released from the album -
Shine and Wisdom. In Ireland DJ Donal Dineen championed the
Shine single giving it great radio play on his Today FM radio
show and on "No Disco", an Irish television
program. This was followed by the now notorious gig Dineen
set up for David in Whelan's Pub in Dublin. Here David
discovered the Irish crowds and those now very proud fans who
were there that night discovered the electric, passionate
show that is David Gray in concert. That night was where
David's cult following in Ireland started. Irish artist Mary
Black (popular with the Irish fortysomethings market) has
covered much of this album on her album titled after one of
her covers of Dave's music: "Shine".
Sometime between this and his
"difficult" second album, Flesh, David married his
wife Olivia. Flesh was released on Hut Recordings again who
by this stage had become part of the Virgin label. This album
was a marked change from his debut and was when David was
joined by Clune (real name: Craig McClune), the nutty
drummer/bass player/tour funny man who as become almost as
loved as David by his fans for his antics during live
performances. (If you've been to a DG gig, Clune was the guy
in the horrible Hawaiian shirt!) The album was touted
extensively in America as support to Radiohead. There is a
legend about David setting fire to Radiohead's dressing room
during this tour which, if it's true, adds nicely to the poet
trapped in the body of a punk description of David. Although
it was received well by critics the album failed to make any
real commercial noise. This was probably partially due to
problems at the record label which led to no singles being
released from the album.
Following these problems at his record label, David recorded
his third album - Sell, Sell, Sell - on EMI. Debuted in the
GPO nightclub in Galway, this album was my first experience
of David's music. I immediately borrowed it off my friend Mark
who is the only one of the 'Whelan's era' fans that I know. I
think he got the CD back about six months later by which time
I was hooked. Again there was problems over singles and,
again, none were released, though rumours abound the internet
of an Irish release of "Late Night Radio", it seems
that the song just received a lot of radio play (well, by DG
standards to that point anyhow) in Ireland. Luck didn't seem
to a word in David's vocabulary at the time. EMI collapsed
leaving him in limbo. This prompted him to start his own
record label, IHT, in the attic of his home in London.
These independent sessions gave David the freedom to do
whatever he wanted in studio and he made use of samplers,
loops and drum machines to create his fourth album, White
Ladder which was recorded in Gray's old home in Stoke
Newington. The recordings are less produced than the previous
albums, passing traffic can be heard in the background of
some tracks. This however leads to the feeling that the
artist is sharing something with the listener in a more
personal way than you get with a slickly produced studio
album. David and Clune appeared in Kathy Burke's "this
Years Love" (quite appropriately as the band in the pub
in which the film's characters drank) for which he wrote the
title track. Massive air play of the following three singles:
This Years Love, Babylon and Please Forgive Me and extensive
touring of Ireland pushed this album to the top of the Irish
Charts where it has spent almost a year in the top 30.
Ireland has really claimed David as one of their own with Hot
Press magazine honouring David with the "Best non-Irish
Artist" award for 1999. Dave Mathews label ATO signed
David earlier this year as their first artist and have
released White Ladder in America in a slightly different
version than was released in Ireland and the UK by IHT. This
new version has two extra tracks (Babylon II and
Nightblindness). East West Records have recently signed David
in the UK and have started to give his music the promotion it
went without for so many years.
A new lost sessions album is to be released with old tracks
that were written around the time of Flesh and Sell, Sell,
Sell but were never put down on tape. It has been stressed
that this album is in no way a follow up to White Ladder but
rather being released for all the fans who want to have
copies of songs that they may have heard live at shows they
were at in the past. This album is called "Lost Songs
'95 - '98" and is only to be released in Ireland on IHT.
The songs are mainly acoustic and have very little
production. There's very little over-dubbing, proving what
fans have said for a long time: that David is best live. You
can buy this album from Amazon here. [hope that link is of some use to the
non-Irish residents!]
The last year has seen extensive
touring of the White Ladder album in the U.S. and UK. The
tour was extremely successful with most shows sold out and
David stealing the show at Glastonbury. This touring has put
White Ladder to the top of the Amazon.co.uk sales chart and the Orbital
re-mix of Babylon assaulted the UK charts debuting at number
five. The tour isn't over yet however as David returns to
Ireland on the August bank holiday to headline day one
(undoubtedly the better of the two days) of Witness, the biggest festival in Ireland this
summer which will be held in the Firhouse race track. In a
year that has seen David grow from strength to strength off
the back of his relentless touring, sales are soaring, people
don't ask "Who?" when you tell them you're into
David Gray anymore and Dave looks like having a real shot of
a dream of his: playing the headline stage at Glastonbury and
who'd bet against him headlining next year?!! The small cult
following has exploded into mainstream worship where a once
cherished secret that fans wanted to keep to themselves but
couldn't help telling everyone about is now knocking boy
bands out of the top 10, A listed on virtually every radio
station in the Ireland and UK, getting serious rotation on
MTV and being interviewed in practically every newspaper or
magazine you pick up to browse through... and he can only
keep going....
By Eoin Grace June 2000. Thanks to Louise [anodyne3@juno.com] for all her help.
Well, it's now approaching the end of 2001 and
another fantastic year musically for David, but a rollercoaster of emotions
on the side. Starting in January straight off the back of an Winter tour around some
of the most and least popular of venues in the UK, this tour in which I experienced
the David Gray experience for the first time blossomed his popularity and lead into a fantastic year to follow.Unfortunately David's father was taken ill in February 2001 after long suffering from cancer and shortly later passed away. This affected David as his father was one of his biggest musical fans, attending most concerts, even in the worst of his health. His music however did not suffer with a US mammoth tour scheduled for the Spring and Summer seasons.
David was weary of this tour as it was the first time he had toured the US since the disastrous tour to promote Sell Sell Sell during the time when he was signed to the crumbling label EMI. The tour in which he was listed on a menu underneath the sign "BBQ ribs sold out". This was the stepping stone David needed in America to forge links with fans from the Wetlands era in 1993 to the "Ladder Fans" as he likes to call them himself.
This tour was followed by a European tour in June and July playing in countries such as Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland. In turn, this lead to some festival playing back home at T in the Park, Scotland and Marley Park, Dublin in late July. All these tour dates spawned new songs such as "Last Boat to America" and "Real Love" which became firm favourites among fans and critics alike. More information can be found on the live page
July also prompted HUT to jump on the bandwagon and re-release Flesh and A Century Ends 6 years after
dropping David. These were great hits among fans and most include them among their top albums of all time. HUT also took
the decision to milk the David Gray experience dry and dig all the B-Sides they could find buried in a cupboard somewhere,
threw them on a disc with a few videos and called it "The EP's 92-94". To be fair though it really uncovers the songwriter
behind the performer on songs such as "The Rice" a wonderful story of making love in the kitchen!.
Lined up in the Winter and Autumn of 2001 were a few dates left to play to see out the end of the year and keep fans interested as David conjured up his new masterpiece in the studio. August 17th saw David play to a capacity crowd at the Manchester Apollo and then came the wonderful charity gig at The Olympia, Dublin. The public voted on the songs to be played via the internet, for this reason some strange ones were bound to turn up, Take Barbie Girl by Aqua for example! Dubbed by many the best gig ever it was known that tickets for this event were selling upwards of £150 to see David in this most intimate setting. November saw David play at the MEN arena in Manchester on the 21st November accompanied by a choir of school children.
December saw the release of Say Hello, Wave Goodbye in the form of the 5th single from White Ladder. Released as a Christmas number one this version of the Soft Cell hit from the mid eighties is a firm favourite among fans. After it's first week it went in at number 26 in the UK charts, which funnily enough was the same position as Sail Away. David is set to appear on Jools' Annual Hootenanny to see in the New Year with Marc Almond, songwriter for soft cell. Maybe a collaboration is in the works!
Chris Oliver - 25th/12/01
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