← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
"The Artistry of the Great Singer- Songwriter David Gray"
00:31:54
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- [00:00]
David Gray
Please welcome aboard the Johnson family.
- [00:03]
Buzz Knight
The whole fam's here for the Disney Cruise. So you know we came to play and listen. The adults are gonna have a ball. First we're chilling in the infinity pool, onto massages at Sense's Spa, then gliding into Star Wars Hyperspace Lounge for a toast. We're even gonna kick back with Mickey on Disney's private island. That's how we get down. Cause Disney Cruise Line is where we came to play.
- [00:30]
David Gray
Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Upgrade the whole team@lenovo.com Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can.
- [00:44]
Arturo Castro
Work, create and boost productivity all on one device.
- [00:50]
David Gray
Win the Tech Search for Business PCs.
- [00:52]
Arturo Castro
At Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo.
- [01:01]
Maria Tremarke
Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.
- [01:04]
Holly Frey
And I'm Holly Frey. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.
- [01:11]
Maria Tremarke
Each season we explore a new theme. From poisoners to art thieves.
- [01:16]
Holly Frey
We uncover the secrets of history's most interesting figures, from legal injustices to body snatching.
- [01:22]
Maria Tremarke
And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story.
- [01:29]
Holly Frey
Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:36]
Arturo Castro
Hi, I'm Arturo Castro, and I've been lucky enough to do stuff like Broad City and Narcos and Roadhouse. And now I'm starting a podcast because honestly guys, I don't feel the space is crowded enough. Get ready for Greatest Escapes, a new comedy podcast about the wildest true escape stories in history. Each week I'll be sitting down with some of the most hilarious actors and writers and comedians. People like Ed Helms, Diane Guerrero, and Joseph Gordon Levitt.
- [02:00]
Buzz Knight
I love storytelling and love you, so I can't wait.
- [02:02]
Arturo Castro
Listen and subscribe to Greatest escapes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:10]
David Gray
Taking a Walk the music and mysticism is contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began. We we don't we fail to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people when they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool. To say the word of something precious was in itself an act of being precious or being with something magic.
- [02:38]
Buzz Knight
Welcome to the Taking a Walk podcast with your host, Buzz Knight. If you like this podcast, share it with your friends and check out our companion podcast, Music Saved Me, hosted by Lynn Hoffman. Today, Buzz gets the inside story from the acclaimed singer songwriter David Gray. Buzz Night is joined by David Gray on the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [03:01]
Now, David Gray, thanks for being on the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [03:06]
David Gray
My pleasure.
- [03:08]
Buzz Knight
So since the podcast is called Taking a Walk, I do have to ask you first, if you could take a walk with someone living or dead, possibly in the music side of things, but it doesn't have to be who would you take a walk with and where would you take a walk with them?
- [03:26]
David Gray
That's interesting. Assuming that there was a magical language dissolving barrier, I might take a walk with the mystic Rumi. I'd imagine he'd have a few things to say. He's just popped into my head and have a little wander. I'd take him along the coast east of England where I've got a house, which is probably my favorite place to be. So we'd wander through the dunes and the beach and consider the mysteries of the universe and everything contained therein.
- [04:02]
Buzz Knight
Just you describing it took me there. David, that was just fabulous. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Well, first of all, we're going to talk about your 13th studio album, Dear Life. And also you've been out on the Past and Present world tour. And I have to tell you a story. I live outside of Boston, and I popped in just a little while ago to my favorite restaurant called Helen's Restaurant in Concord, Mass. And the gentleman there who works behind the oven came running up to me like he often does, and he said, I have to tell you, I saw David Gray recently in Boston. He was unbelievable. He was just going on and on how fabulous you were. And, and I said, I'm going to be speaking to him in a little while. So then the waitress comes over, you're going to be speaking to David Gray. So I was the buzz, if you will, of Helen's Restaurant. But more importantly, you were the buzz of Helen's Restaurant.
- [05:06]
David Gray
Excellent. Well, I've got great support up in the Boston area. I think that Irish influence has made it a very strong. It's always even going back to, like, early shows on the White Ladder run. Back in 2000 when we were just starting, Bost was a sort of stronghold. So. And it's remained one. And people are very sort of passionate readily. So I think in, in a way that's a little more relatable, I think, because of that sort of Irish influence, this feels very strong there. So, yeah, it's been a good spot. And that was the very first show of this tour. So there Was a lot built into it. It was a. It was a joyful occasion. We just had to go for it. The rehearsal time was over. Let it all hang out on stage, which we surely did. So I'm glad everyone enjoyed it. That was there.
- [06:01]
Buzz Knight
So I've heard that you were inspired by, among other folks, Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Cat Stevens. Can you talk about how their storytelling styles have influenced your lyrics and music?
- [06:17]
David Gray
Of course, yeah. I mean the. The sort of ambient influence of the music. My parents was list we're listening to in the early 70s when I was just a little boy. Definitely sort of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Rod Stewart, the Stones, the Beatles. And my dad was crazy about like T for the Tillerman and you know, Catch Bullet four and several of those early Jesus. Cat Stevens records. So they. They definitely seeped in. I think the sort of soundscape of them and the kind of passion of them. I know they were very mainstream, but they had a kind of. Kind of very soulful lean. So they were. I. I think that that caught my ear and. And the directness of the. The songwriting. The slightly questing, kind of spiritual, questing style of writing from Cat Stevens anyway. And then. So that's. That has informed my awareness of what music could be like. Intimate encounters with that music. Early on, discovering Bob Dylan was like. It was like finding another continent. I mean, I think when I sort of. When I was about 13, 14 and becoming very. I was very interested in pop music. I took a road journey with my dad through France. And we had one cassette and it was Pavarotti on one side and the greatest hits of Bob Dylan on the other. And I particularly loved the acoustic stuff. So side one of that very first greatest hits record which went from sort of Blowing in the Wind to Tambourine Man, I suppose so. It ain't me, babe it's all over baby blue. You know, the times there are changing. Those sort of early kind of big Dylan cuts, if you like. And yeah, that's the. The texture of his music. The. The minimalism that. The abrasive quality of his sound. And there's just enough delicacy to frame concepts. And his voice just took up a huge space because there was nothing else to compete with it. So those sort of things. But just the way he painted with words is so evocative and so unique. And he was like a sort of. He still is. He remains a kind of Picasso esque sort of figure in the way that with a few brushstrokes he can make something happen. And there's A sort of total confidence, a very sort of earthy directness to what he does. So I think that, yeah, I was utterly hypnotized and I wasn't listening to that kind of music at all. I was listening to the music of the day. But then in parallel, I began to discover these other singer songwriters. There wasn't an algorithmic means of finding out about music when I was young. And anyway, I lived in a very remote place. It's always been word of mouth. So the other kind of, kind of cool people who might be listening to something, you talk to them about listening to Bob Dylan, they'd say, well, if you listen to Leonard Cohen, we go, no. So then you have to start listening to Leonard Cohen and then it's John Martin, then it's Nick Drake, and then it's Joni Mitchell and it's, you know. And eventually ended up with Van Morrison. So all, all of those things. I was avidly interested in the writing Tom Waits as well, discovering Tom Waits, Asylum Years. I bought a Compil record when I was about 16 and I loved that. But I was listening to the pop music of the time and I was dressed in sort of bangles and sort of lippy and kind of back combed hair. I was like a Cure fan, so. But I was really, really passionate about all that. And when it came to writing, my very first attempts at writing songs were like a sort of hybrid of Robert Smith and Robert Zimmerman.
- [10:09]
Buzz Knight
That's fabulous. That's, that's wonderful.
- [10:12]
David Gray
Robert Zimmer Smith.
- [10:15]
Buzz Knight
That is marvelous. Wow. Congrats on your 13th album, Dear Life, and of course the tour as well. The album is, is wonderful and it's, it's touching, you know, Once again, your signature deeply personal way of looking at life's ups and downs. Can you share any personal experiences that shaped some of the themes of this new album?
- [10:48]
David Gray
I don't know about personal experiences, but I mean, I, I'm approaching the age that my father was when he died. And so, and that's a strange thing to think. So I haven't got some sort of strange sense of prophecy that I will collapse and expire on exactly the same date or anything. It's just more that to think that this is the point he was at in his life when he had to stop. And just before we came out on this tour, my guitarist Neil of 32 years was diagnosed with cancer and just a couple of weeks shy of rehearsals, he had to pull out. So we've got this mortality idea that's becoming stronger, informs more of the way that you think it's like an accent on the words that your mind turns around. It's just there. I think it sharpens your. Sharpens flavors. It's like. It's like seasoning in a way for your thinking. So you've got finite time, finite resources. And so these things have definitely had a profound effect on the way. Ever since my father died and I witnessed that magical, strange and heartbreaking event. It's changed my life, my thinking forever. So I've seen people born and I've left. I've lost a few friends and very close friends and close family members too. So I think that this weighs down on the writing and, and comes through into the song. So some very directly. But I think one of the things that rescues this album from worthiness is that when the images came there's a lightness and a humor to the way that they're presented so that they're not angst ridden sort of. There is a grace about the way that the subjects are handled. There's a kind of microscope and a telescope being used. So there's looking at the minutiae of detail of life and feeling. And then there's a sense of just planetary perspective, cosmological perspective almost too. I'm using a lot of imagery from space and think. I mean I read about all that stuff a lot. I didn't really sort of pay attention at science in school. I found it rather dull. But now I'm avidly interested both in the natural world and that becomes very scientific when you start to analyze things but also just the nature of matter and time and things as we start to learn these sort of mind bending depth of what's out there and, and the contradictory nature of quantum. The quantum world. It's. I mean I can't assume to understand even a fraction of it, but I, I try and grasp the basic threads. So I, I used a sort of short story writers trick of like slightly imagined perspectives characters that were placed. So there's female perspectives on some of the songs. After the Harvest, for example, fighting Talk is like a dialogue between me and imagined me and songwriter and wife or loved one. And so lots of different facets are seen. So it's lots of views of the same mountain. So that's, that's kind of. I, I didn't, I didn't head out with, with. With massive sort of ambitions of the scope of what the lyrics were going to contain. But the, the, the. The. The songwriting gods were kind. And one thing that I think that did inform or Enrich the perspectives of the record. Was the COVID lockdown just stopping. And I did what a lot of creative people do when things ground to a halt. I thought, well, guess what? I'm go down to my studio and make stuff. Check this out. World stopped. Gray won't stop. Well, after about three or four weeks of messing down there, I found I was getting quite stressed because I was already going, I'm going to make an album. And I was like, can you never stop? I mean, like I was saying to myself, why this? Surely this is an opportunity to be with my family under unprecedented circumstances. And I've been telling myself the lie that. That I was going to stop at some point and spend some time with them, but. So I just downed tools and I only really worked when I really felt like it and let the field go fallow. So rather than just the consolation of constant activity, I allowed myself to just exist for a while under these extraordinary circumstances. So we were in a world where suddenly this event horizon that's always racing towards us of the next day, the thing that's coming the planet, the next year, the next six months, the next six weeks, wasn't there. There was just a sort of frozen line. And we just had the space and time around us that's always there that we failed to see. And we had each other. And we began to assess the sort of the riches that lie just in our locale. And just that little bit of time, the seasons, the birds singing, whatever. And also we were just watching a death, a death count. We were watching a sort of mortality graph. And seeing as that's the part of our culture that we suppress so passionately, we are still searching for eternal youth and eternal idiocy. It seems it's something that suddenly we were just staring at these stats on a sort of city by city, country by country, global scale. So I think that that period of reflection, enforced reflection and. And dislocation from this norm, this racing, rushing norm where you're never really anywhere at any given time. It. I think that played into my hands when I came. Well, it's tempting to see a correlation between this huge slowdown, me downing tools. And then when I did pick my tools up again at the end of COVID because I had the white laboratory, which had been postponed for two years, coming right at me, I knew I had five months to work. I just began to work like a demon. And I wish it was always like that. I wish I could turn it on like a tap and this. This stuff would just pour out. It's never usually that simple, but that's what happened this time. And I got into such a flow. But I'm basically chief. Chiefly, I'm a lyricist. The music supports the lyrics. I'm with Sinatra on that. I think I see it all as a prop. It's a stage set so the words can happen. That's what the music is to me. And that's the sort of. That's the influence of Dylan, I guess, right there. Because it's, it's, it's so you can deliver the line. And what songwriting is, is looking for delicious space amongst chords and sounds where their vocal needs to be and the story can be told. So you're sort of creating a stage set, a tableau almost. And yeah, this time around, the lyrics just poured out. I've been in a process of sort of simplification since I started writing as a teenager to be less adjectives, less descriptive language, more simplicity. But this time around it just completely reversed and I went into these mad kind of crazy multi line rhyming schemes that were more like rapping in a way, and lots of fast vocal deliveries. But the pleasure of writing is obvious, I think, in listening to the record. The joy of the music and mysticism as contained within a word. Each word was a magic incantation when it began. We fail to see them now for what they are. They were magic things that could only be uttered by magic people when they were devised as a descriptive labeling tool to say the word of something precious was in itself an act of being precious or being with something magic. So I think they still contain these things. And when they're combined in these strange chemical combinations, crazy things can happen. And that little dynamo drives the obsession of my existence, really.
- [19:27]
Buzz Knight
We'll be right back with more of the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [19:32]
Arturo Castro
Hi, I'm Arturo Castro, and I've been lucky enough to do stuff like Broad City and Narcos and Roadhouse and so many commercials about back pain. And now I'm starting a podcast because honestly, guys, I don't feel the space is crowded enough. Get ready for Greatest Escapes, a new comedy podcast about the wildest true escape stories in history. Each week I'll be sitting down with some of the most hilarious actors and writers and comedians to tell them a buck wild tale from across history and time. People like Ed Helms, Diane Guerrero, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zoe Chao. Titanic, Charles Manson, Alcatraz, Assata Shakur, the.
- [20:06]
David Gray
Sketchy guy named Steve.
- [20:07]
Arturo Castro
It's giving funny, true crime.
- [20:09]
Buzz Knight
I love storytelling and I love you.
- [20:11]
David Gray
So I Can't wait.
- [20:12]
Arturo Castro
Listen and subscribe to greatest escapes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [20:26]
Maria Tremarke
Welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tremarke.
- [20:30]
Holly Frey
And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.
- [20:36]
Maria Tremarke
Each season we explore a new theme, everything from poisoners and pirates to art thieves and snake oil products and those who made and sold them.
- [20:44]
Holly Frey
We uncover the stories and secrets of some of history's most compelling criminal figures, including a man who built a submarine as a getaway vehicle. Yep, that's a fact.
- [20:55]
Maria Tremarke
We also look at what kinds of societal forces were at play at the time of the crime, from legal injustices to the ethics of body snatching, to see what, if anything, might look different through today's perspective.
- [21:08]
Holly Frey
And be sure to tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in custom made cocktails and mocktails inspired by the stories. There's one for every story we tell.
- [21:19]
Maria Tremarke
Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more you listen to your kids.
- [21:29]
David Gray
The closer you'll be. So we asked kids, what do you.
- [21:32]
Maria Tremarke
Want your parents to hear?
- [21:34]
Arturo Castro
I feel sometimes that I'm not listened to.
- [21:37]
David Gray
I would just want you to listen.
- [21:38]
Arturo Castro
To me more often and evaluate situations.
- [21:40]
David Gray
With me and lead me towards success. Listening is a form of love. Find resources to help you support your.
- [21:48]
Maria Tremarke
Kids and their emotional well being@sounditouttogether.org that's.
- [21:52]
David Gray
Sounditouttogether.Org brought to you by the ad.
- [21:55]
Arturo Castro
Council and pivotal hey y'all, it's your girl, Cheekies. And I'm back with a brand new season of your favorite podcast, Cheekies and Chill. I'll be sharing even more personal stories with you guys and I know a lot of people are gonna attack me. Why are you gonna go visit your dad? Your mom wouldn't be okay with it. I'm gonna tell you guys right now. I know my mother and I know my mom had a very forgiving heart. That is my story on plastic surgery. This is my truth. I think the last time I cried like that was when I lost my mom like that. Like, yelling. I was like, no, no. I was like, oh. And I thought, what did I do wrong? And as always, you'll get my exclusive take on topics like love, personal growth, health, family ties, and more. And don't forget, I'll also be dishing out my best advice to you on episodes of Dear Cheekies.
- [22:46]
David Gray
So my fiance and I have been together for 10 years.
- [22:49]
Holly Frey
In the first two years of being.
- [22:50]
David Gray
Together, I find out he is cheating on me, not only with women, but also with men.
- [22:55]
Holly Frey
What should I do?
- [22:57]
Arturo Castro
Okay, where do I start? That's not love. He doesn't love you enough. Because if he loved you, he'd be faithful. It's going to be an exciting year and I hope that you can join me, listen to Cheekies and Chill Season four as part of the My Cultura Podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:20]
Buzz Knight
Welcome back to the Taking a Walk podcast.
- [23:23]
You take those themes and you kind of describe that of, you know, the mortality themes and themes of resilience, but within there. And maybe it's that aspect of awareness of what's around you that you described within there. There's also feelings of joy and optimism in there as well. And it's just marvelous how you deal with the complexity of that.
- [23:52]
David Gray
Thanks. Yeah, but I, I think all that working is, is putting yourself in the way of something good happening. So I don't know why. Sometimes it works out better than other times. I guess it's the seasons of self as well, the. Our own sort of shedding of skins and, and, and, you know, the changes that are wrought upon us. And, and some. Sometimes you're. You're still in a process of coming to terms with something, maybe not completely ripened in your viewpoint, but anyway, this time round, as I say, everything fell into focus and I had just huge amounts of pleasure in, in the writing. And the writing is the tricky part. The lyrics are the tricky part of the, the process. As far as I'm concerned. Anyone can write music. It's. It's getting the song out and they don't often land in one go or I'm not often positioned to take advantage of inspiration, as it's termed. I normally have to start and then pick it up some other point later because life is what it is. I've got a lot of stuff I've got to try and squeeze into my life. It's. It rarely offers me just infinite opportunities to just think about what I want to do every day. There's usually other stuff getting in the way, so I have to kind of find ways to pick up the loose ends and, and pick. What was remarkable this time was just how easily that happened. Like, it. It's one thing writing songs off the cuff when, when it all starts to flow, that's great. But usually most of my Work is picking up other bits and trying to finish them. And what was remarkable on writing this record was just how. How much of that I managed to do. I just. I was like, oh, that idea. Yeah. Okay, I've just got one verse. I've got one line for the chorus. And it would be like, right, okay. I just sit down and I just write my confidence levels. Well, I read a lovely line today. Hang on, I might be able to find it. And this I thought was very pertinent because I use the word attention. Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Absolute, unmixed attention is prayer. That's Simone bile. So I'd say that my attention levels were a heightened, heightened level. I. I managed to. Everything else disappeared and I was just in world for a sustained period of time, day after day after day. And it allowed my reach to become much more natural. Anyway, these. I'm just trying to explain something I don't really fully understand.
- [26:30]
Buzz Knight
Well, you. You explain it well and it almost is like the equivalent of being in, as they say, for, you know, athletes, being in the zone. Right. I mean, you were in the zone.
- [26:43]
David Gray
Yeah. And that. I'm trying to keep an equivalent zone on the tour I'm doing. I'm trying to keep a. What, in order for songwriting or any writing or art to happen? Openness. It's a heart led thing. You have to be open. I think, anyway, I believe at the very core of what I'm doing, it's about allowing the deepest thing to be, to become visible. So. And that's a very awkward process in the world we live in. It's. It's a hostile environment a lot of the time. So it's. But I'm trying to persevere and keep that to the fore during all these concerts and not just play the songs and get the lights working, but to actually be there for the audience and talk and bring them in to some of the stories and specifics to do with it. And not only that, for my band too, it's about them. They've been playing with me for a long time. Yeah. I'm trying to keep them emotionally available. When you've spent as long as we have together on the back, in the back of a tour bus, inevitably the shutters start to come down at some point. Like, oh, Jesus. You know, such and such is on one, you know, oh, Christ, he's been at the vodka. You know, like, quick into your bunks. It's like, it's. I'm trying to keep. I'm trying to keep everything. I'm trying to keep people there for each other because I think just somehow the emotional presence is just vital to this thing that I'm trying to do, which is not just playing the new record. I'm deep diving into all the old albums as well. So, like really picking tracks from places that I haven't been for a long time. So some of the stuff, Life in Slow Motion, New Day at Midnight, Lost songs, albums that I haven't been giving that much attention to. So it's really exciting. But making sure you don't lose sight of the bigger picture. Just because you hit the right notes and you stand in the right place and the Lightning man gets his cues, it doesn't mean it's the. You're doing what you need. You need to be there. Like they're there, they're an at risk, so you need to be risking something. It's entirely risk and reward. I want the audience to feel like something just happened.
- [29:07]
Buzz Knight
Can you talk about the collaboration on plus and Minus with Talia Ray? What that was like. That song is fabulous.
- [29:16]
David Gray
Thanks. Yeah. This is the song that's taken. Of all the songs I've ever written, it's the one that's taken the longest to complete. So it's 20 years between the first time I played the chord sequence and Talia putting her voice onto what was basically by then a finished song. So it was lovely the way it worked with her getting involved. She's so young. I mean, she's the same age as my daughter, so. And she was doing some event in New York and my manager just happened to see her and at this point we'd finished the track. I got my daughter to sing on it a bit. I'd done some of the BVs and we kind of created a semi duet, but I. I couldn't find the right voice. We were trying to get certain people to do it and then their schedules were just. It was hanging around waiting for to find a day. I was becoming frustrated and we just wanted to move on. So anyway, he heard this Talia singing at this thing in New York and he just said, I heard this girl sing last night and she's got a great voice. I think it could really work for what you've been describing. She's got quite a low voice, she could do the low parts. And he said. And then when I talked to her after the show to say, well done. She said, oh, who do you manage? And I mentioned your name. And she said, oh my God, I'm like obsessed with David Graham. I'm listening to White Ladder all the time at the moment. So I said, wow, okay. And then we had a zoom call. I met her, I really liked her. She had a picture of Amy Winehouse on her wall behind her. I thought, oh, yeah, I get that, yeah, she's like a North London girl, so. But she was super cool. I. I said, listen, obviously tuning's important. Singing the song, learn the parts, but listen very carefully to the phrasing. It's about rhythm. It's a very fast vocal. You gotta learn how to breathe. So if you're going to practice, I believe you can sing in tune. So I said, concentrate on the rhythm. And she came to the thing and she'd really done her homework, so it wasn't an easy song to sing. So, I mean, I know because I've recorded it myself and done various parts. So she. She was great and she's kind of up for everything, but not in a horribly ambitious, kind of like tread on you with my stilettos kind of way.
- [31:34]
Buzz Knight
Oh, brilliant. Tell me about the makeshift studio and what impact that had on this process.
- [31:42]
David Gray
Yeah, well, I was forced out of my home studio in London because my awful neighbor was doing a refurbishment and decided he was going to dig out his basement. My studio was down there and it was ridiculous. It was so loud we couldn't even think, let alone work. So I hastily turned my garage. I've got a house on the coast up in Norfolk. I turned my garage into a sort of recording space. Well, I say recording space. I basically just put a floor and walls in and we moved some gear in there. So I was sort of reluctant to use. When I go up there, it's generally a place for recharging and absorbing the world rather than trying to make things I might be ruminating on things that I'm working on and singing them to myself and play a bit on my piano up there, but I don't sit down and work. So I was reluctant to kind of confuse the two worlds, but actually it was the greatest thing ever because the sort of quiet that. That reigns up in this part of the world, it's. I'm on a nature reserve. I'm out in the middle of, you know, you know, in a marsh. Basically, we're just heading down towards this, the ocean. So it's. It's a very empty, pure place. I think suggestibility is a key ingredient for the sort of self hypnosis that's required to make things, to write, to suddenly be in a creative mood and the moment I close the car door when I go up there. I mean, it's my happy place. It's a world of stars, of wind through reeds, of bare branches, of the sounds of the geese on the marsh. It's a world of sound and spectacle and subtlety and nuance. And I'm immediately awakened the moment I'm in it. So I'm already in a suggestible state, more broadly than a creative state, a state of suggestibility. So the quiet that was there was, was wonderful. And, and as, as I say, this kind of relaxed state of being when you haven't got sirens and buses screeching and all the kind of angst that the city brings, you basically freed from that. So it was, it was remarkable. And the other key thing was I normally work a sort of rigid, semi rigid day, so we'll Normally meet at 10 in the morning, have a cup of tea, chat, start work at about 10:30, quarter to 11, and finish at about quarter to 7 with a little lunch break and a few cups of tea thrown in. But that would be my working day. But up there my producer came and stayed. So we'd work like a three day cycle. So he'd come up on the first day we work Tuesday, then stay Tuesday, Wednesday night. But we'd go, if I'd go and he'd be tidying up what we'd recorded and I'd go and make some supper, we'd have a glass of wine. And the very first night that we were down there, it was like this beautiful evening, early spring or probably winter actually, to be honest. And a clear evening. I made some supper, we had a glass of wine, we were sitting there, it was about 9 o'clock and he said, well, should we just go back in the studio? And I said, yeah, yeah, three hit, let's do it. And so we had this. We had this little space in the evening if we wanted it, where we could go and try things out. So not work on the track we were working on or just. I said, oh, I've got this set of chords and a kind of feeling that there's a fast vocal that's going to go with them. I said, I was just working on this the other day and I didn't really have a chance to look at it. So we. And that was after the harvest and that was the very first night we were up there. So we just started working and I started coming out with. I didn't get the entire lyric, but I got these kind of soft word endings, almost French word endings. So all these cadences. And I thought, oh, there's something here. This is new. And also I was almost rapping. It was like a semi rap. He put this little drum machine rhythm in and we put these synths on, and I put the guitar parts down and suddenly I came up with the second section, which is, I know that love is bigger, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, whoa, you know, this is it. We're off. This is the stuff. So then I, I, you know, he left and I finished that song at the end of the week, and then we finished recording it up there. But that was the sort of template. So we'd, we'd work on things during the day, and then we'd have a sort of free hit in the evening till, like midnight when we could work on other stuff. And, and that was very, very fruitful. So, yes, it was a total breaking of my, my heavy compartmentalization was, was shattered by the new, new world of being just up in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do and no one else to, to tell you what to do or come to bed or watch a TV series, you know, there was, there was nothing else, no distractions. So that was rather marvelous. Yes. It's like the story of the puppet becoming a real boy. I'm sort of slowly turning back into a human being. I'm on the other side of bringing up children and having a career. I've kind of. I'm becoming human again.
- [37:08]
Buzz Knight
Congratulations on dear life, David Gray. I could listen to you talk all day. I could listen to your music all day. This is such joy for me, talking to you on the podcast. And I just thank you for everything.
- [37:23]
David Gray
My pleasure, Buz. Say hello to the chaps at the restaurant in Concord.
- [37:27]
Buzz Knight
I will.
- [37:28]
David Gray
Thank you.
- [37:28]
Buzz Knight
David, thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts.
- [37:49]
David Gray
Geico's motorcycle expertise means I'm covered by.
- [37:52]
Arturo Castro
People who know bikes like I do.
- [37:53]
David Gray
I'm happy as a clam.
- [37:55]
Buzz Knight
No conclusive scientific research has shown clams can experience happiness.
- [37:58]
David Gray
It just meant that I feel really.
- [38:00]
Arturo Castro
Good about my coverage.
- [38:00]
Buzz Knight
I mean, even if you took the clam out for the best day ever, visiting the zoo, taking a scenic ride, knowing you're insured by specialists, and sharing a strawberry ice cream cone together, the clam would not feel happy and your strawberry cone would taste sort of clammy. Geico's motorcycle specialists who know bikes like you do, assume no liability for clammy ice cream cones.
- [38:15]
Maria Tremarke
Geico expertise for your motorcycle welcome to the Criminalia Podcast. I'm Maria Tromarki.
- [38:23]
Holly Frey
And I'm Holly Fry. Together we invite you into the dark and winding corridors of historical true crime.
- [38:29]
Maria Tremarke
Each season we explore a new theme, from poisoners to art thieves.
- [38:34]
Holly Frey
We uncover the secrets of history's most interesting figures, from legal injustices to body snatching.
- [38:41]
Maria Tremarke
And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story.
- [38:48]
Holly Frey
Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:54]
Arturo Castro
Hi, I'm Arturo Castro, and I've been lucky enough to do stuff like Broad City and Narcos and Roadhouse. And now I'm starting a podcast because honestly, guys, I don't feel the space is crowded enough. Get ready for Greatest Escapes, a new comedy podcast about the wildest true escape stories in history. Each week I'll be sitting down with some of the most hilarious actors and writers and comedians. People like Ed Helms, Diane Guerrero, and Joseph Gordon Levitt.
- [39:18]
Buzz Knight
I love storytelling and I love you.
- [39:20]
David Gray
So I can't wait.
- [39:21]
Arturo Castro
Listen and subscribe to Greatest escapes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [39:28]
We all have a moment that splits us wide open. On my new podcast, Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, I'll sit down with trailblazers from sports, music, fashion, entertainment, and politics to explore their toughest moments and the incredible comebacks that followed. Listen to Wide Open with Ashlyn Harris, an iHeart women's sports production on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [39:55]
David Gray
Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports.