David Gray Savors This 'Dear Life'

Nearly 25 years after David Gray released his career-making, home-recorded album, "White Ladder," he's gearing up for the release of new music and an international tour.

For this 13th album, "Dear Life," and accompanying tour, Gray is going big — the tour kicks off on Jan. 24 in Boston and is scheduled through early summer with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Dublin, Brussels and London.

"I wanted to do something ambitious," says Gray, 56. "I'm going deep into my entire catalog, including the big hits, some covers and the new songs. It's going to be an adventure with a longer set list and some surprises, but I'm up for an adventure."

Gray's keenly melodic, often haunting style of "folktronica" is especially set apart from his contemporaries by his powerful, honey-and-whiskey vocals; he just doesn't sound like anyone else around on songs like "Babylon," "Please Forgive Me" and "The One I Love." He says he continually aspires to create something akin to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" with its "high poetic tone and slightly unraveled, natural quality."

"I love singing," Gray says, adding that when he stopped trying to imitate his heroes — the Cure's Robert Smith and Bob Dylan among them — he inadvertently found his own voice. "At the start, it was a bit rough around the edges, a bit ragged, but I kind of had a feel for something. And I started connecting with audiences."

A married father of two daughters — one of whom contributes backing vocals on the new record – Gray divides his time between London and his home in rural Norfolk, a place that became his refuge during the pandemic. And while the pandemic interrupted the process of making the record, it ultimately opened him up to different ways of being creative. Once Gray let "the field go fallow" during lockdown, he says he returned to his music highly re-energized. "Creatively, a much richer thing happened," he explains. "I was stretching out in all directions."

"This album has me looking outward and looking inward," Gray says. "It's very lyric-driven. I put a spring in my step making this. It was like I'd stored a lot of stuff, and it was all coming out."

For the lyrics for "Dear Life," he drew inspiration from the short story form to explore topics beyond his own feelings.

"I'm using other outlooks to explore things from someone else's viewpoint, rather than just disgorging on my own feelings in a very sort of autobiographical way, but obviously they still relate to feelings and thoughts I've had," Gray explains. "There's just a strong sense of the joyousness of being alive; the privilege of being alive and the pain of it as well — so, in a sense, that's what this record is about: looking at the sort of white-knuckle ride that life can give you. I'm taking account."

Musically, Gray, a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, piano and harmonica, was able to trust the process because of his close relationship with producer Ben de Vries. "I just said, 'I think there's more I can get out of you. So, I'm going to leave more space and I want you to fill that space. Move in sonically and we're going to push this further.' And we did. I think this is one of the best things I've ever done. It's like these songs were born standing up; they have a life of their own."

Gray's previous record was 2021's highly acclaimed, deeply atmospheric "Skellig," which took its title from the barren Irish islands best known for the Gaelic monastery it housed centuries ago.

Last summer, Gray, an avid birder, nature lover and painter who's illustrated several of his album covers, visited the remote islands that inspired the "dreamy, drifting" feel to "Skellig."

"It captured my imagination, but when you actually go somewhere, it's something completely different," he says. "The particulars of a place; the birds, the color of the sky and the little things you notice — they take you into the actual, rather than just the imagined. I'm in awe of the natural world, enraptured by it.

"When we got up there, where they built the monks' encampment, it has this amazing atmosphere. It's incredibly still, but it was summer and there were puffins — thousands and thousands of birds — so it was a cacophonous kind of place. I was absolutely blown away," he says. "Somewhere in the future, we'll have a second go at "Skellig," but instead of looking yearningly out to the island, I'll be on the island looking back to the mainland." (Gray has already written some songs inspired by that summer visit.)

Even with his lasting success, Gray knows all too well the vagaries of fame. It took more than a year for "White Ladder," his fourth album, to become a word-of-mouth phenomenon — thanks to a 2000 re-release on Dave Matthews' ATO label — and eventually selling more than 7 million copies. Gray quickly went from playing small clubs and bars to being in demand for festivals and stadium shows.

"It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the extraordinary things that have happened to me," he says. "And you know, if something so special is happening to you, you have to go through the process, and yes, your ego does get a bit carried away, and mine did, too. I was lost in my own little world, and then I found my way back through music. And I'm also surrounded by people who don't stand for my bullshit, which helps a great deal."

As he gets ready to release "Dear Life" on Jan. 17 and hit the road the following week, Gray recognizes the differences between then and now, but still feels the same drive to connect with his audience.

"The journey feels very different when you start getting into your fifties and sixties," he says. "It's a very different perspective: life becomes sharpened because it becomes more finite. You see people being born and you see people die, and it's a privilege to watch both things. With this record, I urgently wanted to express everything I felt about the joy and pain of life."

That extends to his feelings about performing live — something he fell in love with as a youngster, filling in for a sick classmate in a school play.

"I was quite a shy little boy, but I got it: The lights are on me, the room is dark; this is a world of make-believe. And you're loving that I'm making you believe in something from up here."

"I love the stage, I love that moment with the crowd. That's what makes it all worthwhile," Gray says. "When you're young and great things are happening — or not happening — you have the adventure; you've got a tour bus, you've got a load of booze and you're up to mischief."

"But as you go along, you realize that the gig is the only part that really matters. That's when you make the connection. It's an act of union."