Nearly broke and burned out, David Gray had no idea that White Ladder, an album he was recording in his apartment three years ago, was going to make him a star. His first three albums were almost commercially fatalistic in their titles, and A Century Ends, Flesh and Sell, Sell, Sell managed to never begin, burn out, and not, not, not, respectively. Gray's ventures to America were particularly cruel, earning billing one evening below a midwestern venue's famed BBQ ribs on the billboard outside.

White Ladder generated a small buzz in the U.K. in 1999, before Dave Matthews' ATO Records made the record its flagship release a year later. And the album's infectious single, "Babylon," spread like a pop plague, putting Gray's voice on radio airwaves, movie trailers and eventually on stages where the music trumped the ribs and any other culinary offerings with aspirations of stardom.

As is usually the case, the success wasn't all rainbows and unicorns. Shortly after the album broke, Gray's father, likely his most dedicated supporter, died. "That's probably the most profound thing that's happened to me in the last couple of years in spite of all the success that's come in tandem," he says. He set about writing songs for White Ladder's follow-up, but the promotional schedule of a freshly minted star didn't allow for grief, let alone recording. Efforts to record were aborted, and Gray finally pulled back from the project to "recharge the batteries a bit." Earlier this year, he scrapped much of the material that he'd written in Ladder's wake, and began work on A New Day at Midnight.

The album might not have a single track as immediately infectious as "Babylon," but the album as a whole is a more cohesive, personal statement from a songwriter who continues to focus on his commitment to craft. From a twinge of rage in "Dead in the Water" to the optimism of the spare closer, "The Other Side," Gray has created a song-cycle with all of the grief and happiness, anger and uncertainty that falls in between one midnight and the next.

The album title suggests a transition from despair to hope. Do you feel that reflects the record?

It came to me one night when I couldn't sleep as a possible title for one of the songs on the record that's now called "Freedom." But it seemed over-elaborate. And I thought, "What about an album title?" It's a bit more poetic than the ones I usually go with; I'm a bit of a practical titler. This is a very personal record, really. A New Day at Midnight acknowledges that this is sort of a dark time, but also that something's been born out of it. It's obviously quite a troubled record. I don't think it's without hope. It's the beginning of a new era.

And much of the trouble seems to stem from the death of your father.

That's what the core of this record deals with. The biggest songs go directly there: "Freedom," "The Other Side," "Last Boat to America." It would be a misrepresentation to say that's all it's about. There were several other themes going on and there's a certain amount of joie de vivre on some of the tracks that's a counterpoint to some of the more down numbers. It has a certain balance and it has a momentum. I wanted to make sure it didn't dwell permanently on this mortality theme.

But between the opener, "Dead in the Water," and the closing "The Other Side" you've bookended the album with death.

Yes, and it sort of makes a certain sense to me. With White Ladder, it is one long continual flow from the first song to the end of the record. This album wasn't like that, probably because it's been a more disrupted process with all the touring and everything else. It's like a body of work stretching over several years. Much of it was written quite recently, and that's probably the more personal side of it. I think there is a cycle between starting with "Dead in the Water" and ending with "The Other Side." It sort of ties around. There's no point in skirting around the issue and pretending that you've got a pop record on your hands [laughs]. It's not, it's slightly different from White Ladder. White Ladder had a real lightness of touch. But hopefully this isn't heavy handed, but it's impossible to bounce along with death imagery.

Speaking of White Ladder, did it's success afford you the opportunity to spend more time and money in the studio?

We didn't really upgrade too drastically. We'd already built a little studio in South London, not knowing that loads of success was going to come. So having built that and going through the trouble of putting things in it, we said, "Well, let's make a record here." And it felt more like the old times, the underdog approach, which makes me feel more comfortable. It's pretty much the same process, except not in my house, which my wife was really pleased about. It took me a long time to find a comfortable way of working. So having just discovered that, I wasn't going to abandon it in favor of this huge sort of budget, flying around the world recording. Today Monserrat, tomorrow Nice. We just stayed in south London. Got pretty sick of the sandwiches though. Jesus, we could've done with an extra couple of sandwich places.

"Caroline" is one of the more upbeat songs, and it suggests that you have a thing for country music. There's only one man who can really play the pedal steel in the U.K., this rather eccentric man named B.J. Cole. A minor legend, I suppose. He seemed like the right man for the job, but I think we drove him mad. "Play it faster! Faster!" He did sort of storm out of the studio at one point huffing and puffing, but we eventually got it done. It's a laugh, and it feels correctly celebrational.

Did you find that with some personal songs, and others that were lighter, that some were more difficult to put together?

Yeah, that's always the case. 'Cause the more you try and write the more good days you'll have where things fall into place and the lyrics come flowing out. Songs like "Please Forgive Me" were written pretty quickly. "Falling Free," I remember that coming in like a half an hour and I was staggered by it. On this record, "Last Boat to America," "Kangaroo," they all came very easily. "Freedom" was a slightly more complicated process. But the images came and blew me away. When you write lines and you don't have any inkling what they might mean, it's like the line in the song itself: "Stealing the earth from right underneath you." That's what it felt like writing that one. It just opened up.

If you listen to White Ladder and the albums that came before, it sounds like a particular sound, your sound, just seemed to click on that record.

Definitely. At some point before White Ladder, I decided, "Hey, I'm approaching this all wrong. I better back off." Just because I've got a powerful voice -- I was Mr. Angry, really -- I'd lay into the microphone like there was no tomorrow. But you don't need to. The song can work for you. It just took me an awful long time to realize that. And I also took a general overview of my songwriting and thought, "I'm sort of through with this panoramic politicized shit. I'm gonna try and deal in the personal." And that's when I started recording at home. Just on a four-track really. The results were immense compared to what I'd done before. Playing on the guitar and piano, playing softer and playing less. Let the song do the talking -- that's become my philosophy. I do songwriting that focuses more on the personal, and bigger issues creep in from the edge that connects to the universal. If you can get it right, it's more like a Raymond Carver short story type thing.

Some songwriters feel the need to abuse their adjectives.

Yes, and I was definitely over-adjective. I see many adjectives in my early stuff. It's a real mouthful at times. When you listen to a Johnny Cash song, it's so sparsely written, the detail, and yet speaks volumes. I love that sort of old, dry kind of folk style. Something about the singer and the voice creates a much bigger picture. Gillian Welch does that. If I have to do a duet or work with someone or do a duet, it would be her, if she was interested. I really like her vocal approach. Unfussy, not laying it on too thick. Which I think is the worst thing you can do with a vocal, even though it's almost the rule these days. You get these Mariah Carey-type people who sound like they came out of a cave somewhere. They were discovered by a record company executive somewhere, a lost tribute of gurgling mad people.

You've gone through some lean times. Is there a pre-success story that was a particular lowpoint?

There were plenty of lowpoints, little pre-success misery stories that I'm sort of over-burdened with, really. The worst bit, when I think back, was with my third album, touring around the U.S., and the record companies decided we needed to stay in the Midwest to punish us, as long as we could handle it. And we started cracking up, as anyone would forced into such a situation. One night in Toledo, we got to the gate, the support band was on, and the place was absolutely packed. I was like, "Wow, this is fantastic!" I couldn't wait to get up there. Just before we went on stage, they opened the door in the back of the club and the nightclub opened, and the place just literally emptied and we played to absolutely nobody [laughs]. So people say, "Oh, do you miss the old times, just you and the guitar?" And it's like, "No way!" It was soul destroying at times.

And has success spoiled you yet?

The whole thing's a bit of an adjustment, when you've been doing something for a long time. Success comes along, it does change everything. Most of it, you subtly change with it. Tools gradually get better, more money, people running around giving you glasses of water, "Sushi now, Mr. Gray?" and all that rubbish. But you kind of get used to that. By and large, I've found it not too bad really. But I don't have any sort of celebrity appeal. I've opted out of being anything beyond my music, which makes me incredibly dull.

The area of Wales where you grew up didn't exactly have a large city nearby. Do you remember your first musical exposure? Word is you were a Madness fan.

No, but yes, I was obsessed with Madness. I was thirteen years old, and they were sort of the perfect band, really. I was utterly obsessed. I had this ridiculous dance that I could do. I used to call it "nuttying." I do believe it's on video somewhere, me doing some of this. I used to get my head kicked in at the local disco for insisting that they play a Madness song. And then me and me mates would go out and do this ridiculous dance and people would just come along and go, "Fook off!" [feigns punch and kick] because they didn't like it, the locals with the Neanderthal mentality. But yes I was into Madness . . . still am really.

ANDREW DANSBY
(November 1, 2002)