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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You're very welcome back. It's now time for the Culture Club and I'm delighted to say that our guest this week is none other than the singer, songwriter and global superstar, David Gray. You're very welcome to the Culture Club. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
we've a lot to get through but I suppose the reason you're here is I suppose you've got your tour your past and present tour coming to Dublin Cork and Belfast this summer and this is off the back I suppose of your album last year Dear Life but it's past and present I suppose is the tone and tenor of the tour is that right?
That's right, yeah. Sometimes when I write a new record, I feel that it's going to have trouble competing with the big songs in the set. So I have to think carefully about how I'm going to present the new music. It's important for most tours to represent the present as well as the past. But with this record, I felt it could go shoulder to shoulder with some of those big songs.
I feel that the music on Dear Life is very melodic, it's very direct. And that's been borne out by the tour. And I also wanted to do like a deep dive each night. So not just the big hits, which are always there, and some of the new music, but also to focus on different albums like Lost Songs, New Day at Midnight, things that haven't been played so much, A Century Ends or whatever.
And do a little deep dive each night into, so shake it up essentially. So rehearsals, we looked at over 70 songs.
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Chapter 2: What is David Gray's upcoming tour about?
And we've played about that many across the tour. So we've really varied the set list. So although the big numbers are always in and some of the key songs from the new record, the rest of the set's quite fluid and sort of changes. So it keeps it fresh for us, importantly, but also for the audience. It's had a kind of celebrational energy.
I've managed to remain present on stage rather than just switch into sort of industrial... Autopilot? Yeah, industrial music-making mode, which when you're doing tens and tens and tens of shows can be sort of a trap you fall into when you start to think that every gig's the same. So I've made it deliberately different and it's worked.
Keeping everybody, including the audience, slightly off balance so that it enables something to happen particular to that night is important. So that's been my approach and it's been a phenomenal tour. I mean, phenomenal tour. So that's why we've rolled on into this summer because there was demand and not just for tickets, but for us to do more shows because...
It's just with big audiences like at the Electric Picnic or Radio 2 last summer, but also in, you know, theatres, traditional theatres or the Albert Hall. The shows just really, really worked. And these things don't go on forever. I've got my band around me. They're the flesh of my music. How long can I rely on them? We're all getting a little bit older and more fragile and more mental.
So it's like capitalize on having this incredible resource and let's just all enjoy making the most of it. So that's sort of what the tour is about. It's something for us and something for the crowd.
And what's the pressure then in terms of maybe do you front load the new songs at the front of the show or do you kind of mix and match it or do you kind of have to dangle sort of a hit to kind of get everybody going?
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Chapter 3: How does David Gray balance new and classic songs in his performances?
Well, I think first of all, it's very important to have confidence that the new songs are going to carry across. Sure. So that you don't have to just making time till you drop Sail Away into the set or something. So no, so I don't, I don't do that. I work in slowly until the sort of bigger songs start to come into the package. So It's different every night, as I just said.
I don't usually start with a couple of oldies, drop a new one, or front load the front of the set with the new stuff. I've done that in the past as it seemed like the best approach. Let's do some new stuff, then get the stuff. Because it's hard to activate the crowd into sort of full sing-along mode and then get them back to listening to something they don't know so well.
So, I mean, when you've had some success and you've got songs that do sort of get the crowd going, gigs are sort of dealing with that. And it's a negotiation how you play the audience and their attention and how you bring their emotions into the package. Yeah.
yeah that's that's just guided but i mean but luckily i think i've got songs even though they're not they might not be hits so things like the title track of life in slow motion for example big song and um when people hear it through the speakers and it's thundering down on them they're captivated by that they're held in the spell and then you follow that up with the one i love and then they sort of release a bit of energy and then you bring them back into blah blah blah
So it's a kind of flow. It's a confluence of different things all flowing into each other and through each other and inevitably landing in somewhere like Sail Away at the end of the set or something.
I watched back in advance of this, I watched back your interview on Tommy Tiernan and you played, I think, After the Harvest. I did, yeah. And it was a beautiful acoustic version of that song, which is quite different to the album version.
Is there a temptation when you go live that you might not go with the band version that's the one on the album or do you kind of feel, nah, that's the version that probably people want to hear?
Interesting. Yes, I contemplated doing acoustic versions of some of the songs. I haven't activated that yet as part of this tour. It'll definitely happen in the future. Well, there was one gig when we were playing in Denver. The weather was very bad coming over from Salt Lake City and the band and the crew couldn't get there with the gear. We packed up some guitars and I flew over with a...
skeleton crew we rode across in an airplane and landed in Denver and we put a show on which was just me we hired a piano so I did do all the songs acoustically so there was one gig on the tour and it was great actually for songs like eyes made rain and after the harvest which really will stand up perfectly well on their own two feet with just a guitar yeah
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Chapter 4: What challenges does David Gray face when introducing new music?
If I ventured in the slipstream Between the viaducts of your dream Where mobile steel runs crack And the ditch and the back road stop. Could you find me? Would you kiss my eyes? Lay me down. The silence is late. To be born again. To be born again. From the far side of the ocean If I put the wheels in motion And I stand with my arms behind me
Yeah, that's absolutely brilliant. We have a lot to get through. So Bill Callaghan and Smog were your choice of band and artist. Why?
Because that's, I'm just going to go into the last 20 years of my listening life. And he's the artist I've listened to the most. If you looked at my Spotify numbers, he's way out in front of anybody else by a million miles.
And what is it particularly that... Because I think it's very hard to find new space to do something new with songwriting, and he managed to do it in a kind of post-punk kind of raw way at times. But his use of ideas and his lateral thinking, his sense of humor, this deadpan humor, this gentleness with which he prizes open a concept... He's a master lyricist and master ideas man.
And like some artists like him and Nick Cave, I sort of imagine they write the lyric out, then they try and put words to music. Where for often people it's the other way around. But rather than being driven by a melody. So he's not the most melodic writer, but he just wants to find space for the idea to hit. So we'll stop the chord, we'll change key.
whatever feels, it's kind of randomness to the thing, which I think shows a words first, music second process. Anyway, that's just my take on it. But yes, I've been to his gigs whenever he's played in London over the last 15 years. I've been there. It's always different and sometimes perplexingly so. But it's never dull.
And yeah, he's brought a smile to my face, a musical smile and a lyrical smile to my face more than anyone else.
brilliant well let's take a listen we have smog but cold-blooded old times she said we didn't see a thing we said we didn't see a thing and father left at eight nearly splintering the gate cold-blooded old times cold-blooded old times Cold-blooded old times Cold-blooded old times The type of memories That turn your bones to glass Turn your bones to glass And though you were
Just a little swirl You understood Every word And in this way They gave you clarity A cold-blooded clarity Cold-blooded old times
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Chapter 5: How does David Gray maintain his vocal strength over the years?
Withdrawn. What a wonderful word there.
Your TV pick, which is an interesting one, is Match of the Day.
Well, I have a love-hate relationship with it, depending how my team is doing.
Now, which side of Manchester now are you, blue or red?
The only side that matters.
So blue, blue.
Very funny.
Sorry, I'm blue, so... No, I'm a red. You're a red, OK.
I haven't been taken to United since I was a little boy, so my grandad was a season ticket holder and my dad... Was used to go every week. He was there. I watched the Busby Babes, the last match. So there was this kind of emotional that changed his life. I think a lot happened in my dad's life around that time. That was tragic.
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