As rewarding as it is to look at David Gray’s vocal cords, listening to them is even better. His tough, reedy voice has a gorgeous buzz to it, like Van Morrison singing through two blades of grass. And his bittersweet tales of struggle, in life and love, are disarmingly simple. “White Ladder” is the kind of CD you loan to a friend and never get back. So you buy another copy. Which is how, in a nutshell, Gray went from selling 2,000 CDs a week back in February–when the album first arrived in America–to 36,000 last week alone. Like fellow artists Dave Matthews (whose boutique label, ATO Records, released “White Ladder” here in the States) and Aimee Mann, Gray is that rare showbiz phenomenon: a true word-of-mouth creation. In September, Gray sold out New York’s Roseland Ballroom without major-label support, a video on MTV or a song on the radio. Now he’s got all three.
What a difference five years makes. “White Ladder,” which has spawned the hit single “Babylon,” is actually Gray’s fourth album; his first three sold a grand total of 19,600 copies. His label at the time, EMI, kept sending Gray on pointless tours criss-crossing the United States, playing for 20 people in small towns. “It’s absolutely futile, and you can feel it. You’re just singing to keep yourself sane,” says Gray, now back at his hotel, sitting lotus style on his bed. The low point was a straight-out-of-“Spinal Tap” moment in 1996 in Rock Island, Ill., when Gray received lower billing than barbecued ribs. “There wasn’t even a puppet show,” he recalls. “It was, ‘Barbecued spare ribs, sold out. David Gray, 9 o’clock.’ We laughed about it. What else can you do?” But privately, Gray’s failure was killing him. EMI had lost all interest in his career. The money disappeared. “I really wanted to understand why everything was going so profoundly wrong,” he says. “Was I doing something so bad that we couldn’t even sell 20,000 records? We sold nothing. We’d play shows and it would get worse. I was really confused. At times I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I just shouldn’t be doing this. It just hasn’t worked out’.”
Gray wrote much of “White Ladder” back home in London during the months that followed. But first he cleaned house, firing his management team and cutting free of EMI. Only his drummer, Clune, stayed on, and the pair rebuilt Gray’s sound, experimenting with light hip-hop beats that would throw more weight on his distinctive voice. “White Ladder” was released in early 1999, but only in Ireland, where Gray had developed a bit of a following. It quickly spread to England, peaking at No. 2 on the album charts. That’s when Matthews, a longtime fan whom Gray met on tour in 1993, came knocking. “It was well timed,” Matthews says. “David [Gray] had just been dropped by his American label because, uh, they’re idiots. And we had just started our label for music just like this.” Once again, Gray packed for a U.S. tour. Only this time, he says, “it feels like every single thing we’ve done has had a positive effect.”
There’s been only one negative effect: the fruits of Gray’s labor have brought with them a lot more labor. Gray hasn’t spoken to his wife, Olivia, a London lawyer, in days, hasn’t seen her in weeks, hasn’t spent any real time with her all year. Trips home keep getting postponed. Free minutes get gobbled up by media requests. (At the start of the interview, Olivia calls Gray on his cell phone, then again about 30 minutes later. Gray smiles. “Sorry, love, five more minutes,” he says.) For two weeks he’s been battling a cold. And now, thanks to his weary throat, his doctor has curbed his diet. No spicy foods, no fatty foods, no alcohol. “Basically, I can eat dates. That’s it,” Gray says with a laugh. Then he pulls a crumply tissue out of his pocket and coughs painfully into it. All right, David, you’ve suffered enough. Now go call your wife.
